Its Bigger Than Me…

Over the past two summers I’ve been invited to create art as a Art Educator and muralist an within South Baton Rouge community. This year I had the great opportunity to work along with Legendary Graffiti Artist, Daze, and a great group of students. The first week of our session consisted of tee shirt and sneaker painting, which was a blast. Some students had a clear vision of what they wanted to create while others needed help developing their ideas. Over all it was the great exchange of ideas and spontaneity that made the whole process enjoyable.
The second week was all about mural making and I chose to paint with the students at the Jaguar Lounge, in the hot sun. This time I had no plan no sketch and no idea what I would be painting with them. I wanted to create a challenge the same types of challenges I take myself through when creating intuitively, walking into the unknown and finding the light, eventually. For me it was a like being a director of a movie with no script, telling actors when to perform and often what to say. And although I had that much control over the project the painters still had to interpret and paint what came through them as individuals. It was all give and take build and destroy I would paint and they would splash and splatter paint on top. They were confused at what was taking place and questioned what was happening. In essence they were experiencing the cycle of life all through the practice of painting. It was exhilarating to witness this mass confusion followed by pure joy. Allowing and encouraging accidents to happen and shapes to form uncommon to my typical style I thought to myself how refreshing this is?