When it comes to describing my art and who I am as an artist, I know exactly how to word things—what I like to make, what I like to see, what inspires me—but I’ve always struggled with writing an “artist statement”. Do I go super casual and show who I am as a person? Do I try and sound very professional and formal? Do I talk about my art through an experience from my life? How do I let people know who I am and what I do without being too cavalier or, on the flip side, too overwhelming? How do I strike the right tone not only for the art I make, but for who I am as a person?
Questions seem to be a fitting format—I’m a naturally curious and introspective person who has always had questions for themselves and the world around them. These sorts of queries follow me into my work. I find that I’m always asking questions, or trying to find the right question. Most often, these curiosities are associated with grief, nostalgia, and hope in the face of a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. These are the things that I’ve thought about and created art about since I was a child. As a young artist, I began to stray from the things I had natural curiosity about, as I thought audiences would find them too depressing or morbid. But as I matured I realized that my best writing comes out when I am true to what inspires me, to what interests me so madly that I lie awake at night thinking about it.
Art for me is healing to create, to perform, to observe, and to facilitate because I feel free to explore all the boundaries of many topics and emotions that are not always societally acceptable to speak about (despite how much we may need to discuss and question them). I am fond of the phrase “Theater isn’t therapy, it’s therapeutic, and those are different things.” I strive to create art that is emotionally provocative, that creates a connection between artist and audience, that is therapeutic for the performers, creators, audience, etc. without crossing healthy boundaries. It is therapeutic for me as a creator to let my imagination and creativity flow and create something that might be outside the realm of “traditional” theater (whatever that means), and I have found that as an audience member I connect more deeply to art that is experimental, physical, and extremely visual in nature, as opposed to pieces that strive to recreate reality to a T.
I find this way of creating theatre also supports my need to create spaces for people who may otherwise not have much artistic space—for disabled/chronically ill, mentally ill, queer people (all labels that define myself), for people of color (especially women and non gender conforming people), for those who feel they aren’t what the theatre world “wants”—who are treated as if they’re the wrong answer to a poorly conceived question. If theatre is truly to be therapeutic, dynamic, and enjoyable for everyone, it needs to include us— the weird ones, the outcasts, the ones people stereotype, the ones the lawmakers ignore. The theater I have been making is the way in which I have found I do this best. I hope to continue on this journey as I continue my artistic career, and I look forward to the work we can do together.