Kevin says: How did I come to make art, from a childs perspective

How did I come to make art?

I lived in an old house on Walnut Street in Elizabeth.

It was a beautiful old house

Perfect, wood and fireplaces

Large with over 10 rooms

Great old kitchen with a built in beautiful

Working wood cooking stove

We brought it from an old Jewish woman

, named Mrs. Stam

She was really old and I was in the fourth grade.

The thing that sticks out in my mind the most about her

Were the numbers on her arm?

She was nice enough

But old

We moved into an interracial neighborhood

A Mayberry of sorts

\but the house was ancient to me

It had dark corners every where

It had secrets to be found

And I was a hyper active child

Had I grown up years later

I would have been on ridlin

I was really really skinny

With a big head and ears

I laughed a lot

Talked a lot

And brooded a lot

I always had too much

Of every thing

And although I loved attention

That’s must be why I acted so badly

I loved to be alone

To explore

To think

I had nightmares every night

Of my childhood

The wizard of oz still haunts me

I had lots of dark thoughts

But when I found things

When I was able to be me

It stilled my soul

Making things has been the only

Thing that I have had patience with

In my whole life

I found art early

I should say it found me

Ok back to the house

I searched for Mrs. Stam secrets in that house for years

But I never found hers but I found mine

She left lots of old stuff behind

Old clocks, trinkets, instruments

I found those old clocks first

And retired to the cellar with them

Although I didn’t know what I was doing there

I proceeded to take the clocks apart

Piece by piece

None of them worked anyway

But by the time I was done they were finished

After I was done, trying to put them back together

After I got frustrated with my in ability to follow instructions

Which has stayed with me to this day?

I would explore them closer

I still remember that first clocks golden color

A signature color of mine to this day

I remember the blackness of age

The patina of neglect

And in this first exploration with clocks

I came to discover

The beauty of the found object

I was able at a young age, to place myself

In that clock

And try to commune with its previous

Owners

And the cellar was the perfect back drop

Of new tools of my fathers

And old tools presumably left by Mrs. Stam

Their was a vice on a giant old hand made workbench

No one else in the house used it

This was my place

Alone in the musty confines of the house

And my soul

\in this darkened basement

With the coal bin intact

With the beams showing

I discovered textures

I played with bricks until they crumbled in my hands

Set up soldiers as watch dogs

And discovered what one day would be my

Art