I tore a big hole in my favorite jeans today. These aren't just any pants. These are my go-to studio jeans—the ones I dry my brushes on and where I wipe my paint covered hands when I get messy, which is often. This new hole reveals a little too much skin in a place that rarely sees the light of day, so it might be a deal killer and it makes me sad.
Yeah, these jeans are pretty special. They are perfectly stretched in all the right places, with worn areas on the knees from working on the floor and covered in speckles of paint from every art project I've worked on over the past year. But what I love the most are the great reactions I get when I wear them.
Strangers stop me to chat, curious about what kind of art I make. "I bet I can guess what you do for a living," said a man in passing. Or, sometimes, I just get a nod and a smile and that just makes me very, very happy. After all, isn't that what art is about—connection. Constantly reaching for that emotional connection with the viewer is what drives my work, but viewers and collectors don't always get to express that connection with me. With the jeans, I hear it all the time and the reactions are face-to-face, immediate and completely genuine. Yup, I'm going to miss these jeans. Sigh...Do you know anyone who sews?