How I Approach Art

 

"This was art! Expression that is born out of the necessity of ritual to navigate life."

I came across those words in famed artist Viola Davis' memoir 'Finding Me'. She was describing a group of indigenous women she had come across in The Gambia and how they would break out in drumming and singing together in between preparing meals and breastfeeding.

She goes on to challenge the doctrine of her alma mater, Juilliard, by saying that "the potency of artistry...shifts humanity". 

I will not presume that anything that I create has the potential to shift anything in anyone but myself. For I can only speak for myself. The truth is I only approach art from the standpoint of creating something that has a pulse, a dialogue. A purpose?

Well that's up to the observer. I simply wish to reverberate the things I have encountered and still encounter everyday. My thoughts, my fears, and even things that anger me.

Creating images using AI has proven to be therapeutic because the prompts I use are, in fact, descriptive of deep emotions and thoughts that I can't always verbalize formally. Within seconds I have snapshots of my innermost feelings that demand my acknowledgement. This acknowledgement has led me to tears and from tears to shouts of joy. And I believe accessing those emotions from a deep place within must be the catalyst of not only shifting but exposing humanity.