Detention

In April I had the opportunity to stage a solo show at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
Detention explored my complicated relationship to art education as a student and teacher.
This piece of writing functioned as my artist statement.

Nobody told me I’d be the next Basquiat,
the next YBA,
the new Jeanette Hayes
smearing authenticity
and hip acumen across
any given art forum.
Teachers never told me I’d be a
bad boy impresario
ashing cigs in the paté,
smug in shades.
But nobody told me I’d be at the beckon call
of a dozen little children
pasting tissue paper onto
cardboard tacos,
streaks of Elmer’s glue across my thighs
when I show up to the grant application office
in the eleventh hour.
In Senior Seminar on
Practical Concerns
they should say
“Beware of your talents,”
instead of reading aloud from
The Hydrogen Jukebox,
underclassmen feeding back
with beatnik snaps,
outsider poses ossifying.
Maybe that’s the implicit lesson,
the unspoken compact,
the vulgar picture you have to paint yourself:
reallocating resources,
smuggling creative labor into your dayjob,
appropriating the services
of your vibrant young students
as I make my money
teaching art
while it takes away from
my time to make it,
spinning a cautionary tale
about contradiction
as it envelopes me.
In detention,
where I know I am
because I’m bad,
I crack a book:
a little “Skepticism About”
nestled inside
“The Power of Art.”