the inspiration for this painting began when I wanted to go out and take a walk
through a forest. it had been very rainy and cold and it seemed like there were
mushrooms popping up out of the ground everywhere and so I thought that this
one forest we visited that had the most diverse selection of fungus I'd ever
seen would just be poppin with exciting things to look at!
I imagined there would be a huge variety, incredible colors, spooky shapes,
disgusting textures... I guess I expected a lot. so one day we put on our gloves and
scarfs and we went for it. it was pretty far out of the way so when we got there
I couldn't help but feel a little bit disappointed. there was actually less
diversity than the first time we had gone there and so when I came home, I
thought: you know, I could have gone somewhere much closer to experience what
we just experienced today. I felt a little dissatisfied by the experience
because my expectations were so high. and so when I got some free time I decided
to create a forest of mushrooms for myself to fix this moment that was
supposed to happen and just didn't. and that's how this painting ultimately came
about. this experience touches on why artists and especially writers
create their work in the first place. when people ask us why we make art we
often struggle to think about what a suitable answer would be, because in
reality, it seems like we're doing it kind of selfishly. I painted this forest
of mushrooms because I thought it would be nice. I thought it would be cool. I
thought I would enjoy it. and there is a small amount of art snobbery, especially
in the beginning of your study. they're very much obsessed with doing
something that MEANS something, that's going to change the world. that
sentiment tends to create a weird environment where only some kinds of art
matter. it creates artists statements that are laden with
difficult terminology, overly reaching connections and just kind of makes it
seem like the viewer is just too stupid to understand. it tends to isolate
viewers, which is not really what you want. and wow I didn't really mean to go
off on this tangent. I guess what I'm trying to really say is that people pick
up hobbies in general as a coping mechanism. life is hard ... even when
your life is easy compared to the rest of the world, life is still somehow just
kind of hard. I definitely picked up art because I was isolated a lot and so I
think that artists use art to cope with their personal situations by either...
avoiding them, by creating straight up fantasy environments. or you do
it by reliving the situation, by painting things that are accurate depictions of
what happened. or doing a mix of both which is recreating the moment, as I'm
trying to do here, where it's a real moment, it's an accurate depiction of
what I experienced, except that it's heavily edited... so it crosses the
line between reality and fantasy. we complete this experience by sharing it
with others. especially now with the internet, it's so easy to share with
others. I know when I was in college and I was still struggling with the "why am I
doing this? maybe I need to be more relevant? maybe I need to do something
more raw? negative to fit in? and make my art seem like it's important?" I did a
painting of myself just being kind of sad and helpless in my work uniform and
it got people's attention. we talked about our feelings of helplessness
having to do things that we don't enjoy, taking a lot of abuse just to get money
to live. and so that painting got significantly more response than any of
my other boring "non artistic" paintings. and well it's pretty
obvious that if you shared something positive with the world,
fantasy world, a recreation done right, something beautiful... people will take
comfort in it and connect with it and make friends with you just because
people like that stuff. it feels really superficial. but even if you're
sharing something negative, like an ugly painting that's just something raw and
feeling.... people still take comfort in that painting because it normalizes
negative feelings that others are having that maybe they don't really share with
anyone else. it makes them feel less alone and it gives them an outlet to
start a discourse about it and the results are the same.
you connect with people, you make friends. and by making friends, by joining people
together on something that they either hate or that they love, or a source of
comfort, you are literally changing the world to be better. it makes you
feel empowered over something that you thought had power over you. and I think
that's what makes art and writing and other kinds of creative hobbies feel so
addictive and makes you want to keep going, because that little tiny bit of
power to just edit your life as you see fit and see how it edits the life of
somebody else even for just a moment... it makes all the work really worth it and
maybe that sounds a little conceited but I think it's true. in this painting I
just wanted to fix one thing. just one little thing that just annoyed me that
week... as entitled as it may seem to have expectations like that... but I did. I
created this world as mushroom forests that I wished that I could see in real
life and experience and feel Wonder. and just by thinking about it I felt like I
had some kind of power over my surrounding. and hope that this painting
manages to delight somebody... and changes the world in a positive way for
even just one second. and that's the "why". put it in your artist statement! you
don't have to make art to change the world because your art already changes
the world, in one way or another. as always, this
painting will be available in the shop and probably on RedBubble. don't
forget that I'm open for commissions. anyway thanks for watching guys I'll see
you next time