(Video: 1:50)
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
I never walk up to a canvas empty.
I bring everything with me.
I bring the childhood spaces I grew up in.
The mistakes I've made – choices that shaped me.
The people I love and loved, and those I've lost,
...all of it lives in my work in ways I can’t always explain.
I bring family, friends, artists, poets, makers, and thinkers—
their dreams and creativity sink into my roots, unseen,
but guiding how I reach for the light.
I bring my brain, a carnival of side doors and trap doors,
five open at once before I even pick up my brush.
And, sometimes, a door swings wide and --SQUIRREL–
oh my gosh, it's a squirrel!...
and I can’t help but wander off before circling back to my easel.
I bring the details I can’t stop noticing —
the reflections and play of light giving kinetic form to water,
color calling me like roots chasing water underground,
And the way wind dances in the trees,
and no matter if you and I have seen it before,
I'm still gonna want to point it out again.
I bring the noise of this world too—
the headlines that I can't stop scrolling,
the chaos and injustice like car crashes I can’t look away from,
and the voices insisting you/me/we should do it this way, that way,
any way but our own.
The messy constellation of who I am shows up at the easel every time.
It’s an ongoing, evolving conversation with myself.
The work of creating also creates me —
reminds me who I am, and who I want to become.
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❤️ Janece
