Shed Boy

2010 • Punch Gallery, Seattle Washington

Although I prefer getting older to the alternative, being middle aged provided me with a new perspective on mortality, and what is important in life. I live in the country, wear Carhartts, am usually dirty, and drink beer. I am a lifelong member of the Blue Tarp Clan, and while I am not proud, I aint' humble neither. So I acknowledge and embrace both the Shed Boy side of my personality and my ongoing passage into Cranky Old Fart-dom. This work reflects that.

Like all tribes, Shed Boys create their own mythology, in this case by sampling from contemporary culture, picking the things they can use from the stream of detritus. Shed Boy Mandala is a meditation on the things that matter. Middle Age Misfortune is a self-portrait, a cloud of points that, taken as a whole, describe my brain. Blue Tarp Quilt Squares are musings on middle age as well. There is a long tradition of men making quilts from what is at hand— military uniforms, blankets, and even tarps. These quilt squares are sketches of the hard smack of reality against a dreamers face.