As I have mentioned, in this new body of work -- "Survival Tactics" -- I am addressing themes of isolation, loss of identity, stigma, dehumanization and to a lesser degree: our society's obsession with diagnosis and medication. This has meant, by way of self analysis, taking specific imagery from my own psyche and developing a code of personal signifiers and internalized visual stereotypes and tropes and projecting them into the real world by way of distillation. This, I feel, will give way to a deeper, more universal exploration of how these themes may affect one's perception of the world. Literally, this requires of me to give corporeal form to the intangible with the hope that the work will ignite a healthy discourse amongst its viewers.

Initially, I began with free association writing exercises. I would wake up each morning and immediately write down whatever I could remember. I would sketch without purpose in a stream of consciousness. This ultimately led to my exploration of ink blots. Inkblot tests – specifically those compiled by Rorschach, are what psychology experts call “psychological projective tests.” It is believed that these tests are a way of getting into the depths of a person's subconscious. Therefore, to continue along this philosophical route, I tested myself to see what I might learn. Then, I began creating my own. I would recall a memory -- relive it. While in the throws of recollection, I would then make a blot. One became several, several became dozens. I studied these inkblots and began sketching what I thought I saw. As I sketched, I edited, discarding surface imagery and diving ever deeper. A pattern soon emerged. This pattern, coupled with the elements of the code I had been developing, led me to carefully manufacture reflective cut-outs that initially resemble the inkblots that first bore them. The few quickly became many.

A primary symbol in this language is the Cicada.

Cicadas live the majority of their lives underground, hidden from the world, before one day emerging to shed their shells and procreate. A common insect found across the globe, the Cicada is the subject of much folklore. Generally speaking, they often represent transformation, reincarnation and evanescence. Of special importance is the fact that the cicada molts, leaving behind an empty shell.

Metaphorically, this particular trait -- in regards to my thesis, is a manifestation of the empty, hollow feelings associated with depression, while the suggestion of transformation or leaving the past behind evokes a sense of growth. In antiquity, this speaks to enlightenment. For the purpose of my code however, it has come to represent self awareness. In ancient china, glass cicadas were often placed in the mouths of the dead to symbolize rebirth, which aligns them to the realm of the pyschopomp, which is believed to guide a soul from one life to the next.

The Cicada is, for the most part, benign and often overlooked until the end of it's life cycle, when it emerges back into the world to procreate. It's "chittering" song, which seems directionless due to it's low pitch is, appropriately, created by vibrating a hollow chamber within the cicadas own body. This song is akin to white noise or static and is for me, an iteration of the rapid or intrusive thinking that is symptomatic of mania: intense, overwhelming and impossible to escape. Naturally, this lead me into an exploration of diagnosis and treatment.

Among the many, many pharmaceuticals associated with treating such symptoms, is Valproate semisodium or, as it is more commonly known: Depakote. Based on personal experience, I chose this particular medication as representation for all prescribed medications primarily because of it's pink, candy-like coating, but also for it's perversely reminicent scent of circus peanuts. This association with cheap candy sparked the production of 5,840 pink plastic, candy-like cicadas. Each one represents a dose of medication that passed through my body during the first four years of treatment. Stylistically, I chose a life-sized bone carving of a cicada from China, in order to echo the historical affiliation with Asian antiquity as described earlier.

Depending on the context, the cicadas I have made allow me enough latitude to explore their potential as a surrogate for the body as well as invaders or even -- on some level, purification. To better explore this dialog between the cicadas and their environment, I have been photographing them in public/private scenarios as a type of place holder for the individual.

This exercise has brought me to an exploration of the absence of the body. The shell of the cicada, as it were. Early on, I had been thinking of the body in distress. Images of the Pompeii figures came to mind and I explored the themes they suggested through sculpture and drawing. There was a sense of fragility in those frozen moments that whispered in my ear, and on a primal level, informed the core of my work. Also, the figures suggested a notion of the body as a container -- literally a vessel, hollowness.

I explored sculpting a figure in a huddled, defensive pose. Of casting a shell for it. Then I created a life cast of a figure emerging from nothing, into nothing. These didn't feel quite right. I focused again on the shell and have since come up with the idea of defining negative spaces. The absence of the body. The emptiness that remains or perhaps, the emptiness finally left behind once the body has gone.

Lewis Carroll, speaking through the mouth of the Cheshire cat and paraphrased here, said the following: “You must be (mad) or you wouldn't have come here.”

This brilliantly sums up my experience with the creative process – madness. For to truly receive the muse, one must be willing to consider the unconsiderable, to peel away the layers of mass perception and see things as they truly are. This vision is a practice in awareness, of becoming. Containing it, redirecting it and articulating it back into the world is the gift of the artist, but it's a gift that can threaten to tear a maker apart. I accept this destruction of self, as it is essential to my practice, and use the remnants to fuel my resurrection into production. Or, as Francis Bacon once put it; “...I believe deeply in ordered chaos...”

From the outside, such an existence is as far from sane as one can get. But for one who was born into it, there is nothing more rational than the irrational.

Thus, the nugget of my thesis.

~~~

As I progress deeper into my project, I've begun to experience an eerily calm high -- a clarity of vision that I haven't had for quite some time. As things filter and come into focus, I am tempted to release my tether; relax the muscle that keeps me docked in this gray, banal tide pool of our left-brained, linear society. My senses are more acute here. There are no boxes to fit into, no masks or pretense to hide behind – only color, shape and vibration.

The shapes are the most interesting to me at the moment. From the inkblots I started with, I have discerned a number of compelling, dream-like images that hint at the figure, but are really unfiltered emotions trapped in corporeal form. These forms, I believe, echo the figures of Pompeii, which I once experienced in person during the winter of 1997. There is a fragility in those frozen moments that whisper in my ear, and on a primal level, have started informing the core of my work. Also, there is the notion of the body as a container -- literally a vessel, a shell. This in turn, calls to mind erosion, which speaks to the underlying sense of dehumanization and the loss of self that I am attempting to address here.

This then, has brought me to the Cicada. On the one hand, it is a visual manifestation of the ceaseless drone I hear in the back of my mind, but it is also a personal signifier akin to the psychopomp. Naturally, this brings to mind images of ravens, which for me, ties into my cultural heritage as an Italian American. Of course, the Cicada, given its shape, has also come to represent my early dependence on mood stabilizers...

I have been rereading Kafka's "Metamorphosis" partly for inspiration but also as a way to keep my mind on track as I climb out of analysis and into production. First, I am exploring the idea of the figure closing itself off from it's environment – burrowing, suffocating. Then, breaking down the body metaphorically through the replication of the Cicada in overwhelming numbers... and on and on. For now, here are some more artists whose work intrigues me for one reason or another: