When I was a senior in high school, I was invited to the senior awards ceremony. Along with all my friends, so it was no big deal; it was the ceremony for awarding all sorts of different scholarships that the students had received that year. Some people got money, some just got certificates, but my friends all received the same award; they were presidential scholars or something like that, and I think they got a hundred dollars each. Many of the awards were from private funds or organizations. So we sit through this whole evening (we were sitting in rows on the stage, and I was way in the back), all my friends got their awards, lots of other people got theirs for writing some essay about what it’s like to be the victim of prejudice or whatever, and I’m sitting there in the back wondering why I showed up, since it didn’t look like I was getting anything at all. Well, I’d just about given up on receiving an award for anything academic, and I knew I hadn't submitted any essays, so when I finally received an award, and it was from the entire art department of the high school, I barely knew what to do with myself.

There was really nothing artistic that I didn’t have a hand in (with the exception of string ensembles), and yet, I really never thought anyone had noticed, as I myself had never thought anything of it. It was what I did. For me, it was about building a toolbox. I didn’t have any special message in my art, but what I did have was an arsenal of expressive means.

College was a strikingly similar experience, in a way. I learned how to do a great many things – from delivering a monologue to selectively toning a fiber-based print – but in some cases, my professors were angered because they couldn’t hear me in the work. They thought I wasn’t to be found there, because my voice didn’t ring through. And I don’t argue that fact; my voice was not in evidence – but my hand was. Perhaps I’m just an aesthete or a formalist or even just a craftsperson, but I put my spirit into the effort of making something lovely. To make a beautiful object is one of the greatest achievements to which I aspire. Maybe that’s why I put so much effort into making my home attractive.

This didn’t got at all where I thought it would, but I’ve figured out some of my theory on art. I may not have anything to say, but that’s all right. And if I do ever wind up with some statement that I need to unleash upon the world, I’ll damn well know how to deliver it.