2022
marker on paper
8" x 6.5"
Puns and misheard lyrics have always been my jam. I had this vision in my head since I was a teenager, but never had the time, or motivation, to sit down and get it out. I also didn't have anything more than Sharpies, colored pencils, and a really low quality scanner. Yet... I managed to blame myself for just being a lazy failure who never finishes anything.
Like all my work, this means so much more to me than the image. The culmination of over 20 years of ideas, skills, and personal growth is so much greater than just my love of humor, art, music, or the 70's. My dreams in the clouds are coming true, as I learn the essential difference between vanity and self-love.
The child who misheard Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" could not afford professional alcohol ink markers, paper, scanner, or editing software. She didn't have a website, logo, shop, or benefactor. (Not to mention, she was terrified of clowns!) She wasn't ready for all this image could teach her:
The immense gratitude for resources that were so long in manifesting, including the first set of Copic markers that "accidentally" showed up for free on the doorstep. The cultured mind that expands its notion of "self" expression. The patience to sit with hard questions about a black clown in white-face, and the privilege of having vast and diverse communities at my fingertips to teach me the riveting histories of clowning, racism, reclamation, and personal struggles; the courage to draw that which I do not know, not as a declaration of my wisdom, but as an invitation to fill my ignorance. The honor of paying other artists for their work (such as font licensing), recognizing the wonderous network of creators that I am a part of allows us to feed each others' dreams as well as our own. The self-love that is patient, kind, bears, believes, and hopes all things.
This song is all about me.