This is a question that people ask me A LOT.
Most people don't have several hours to listen to an artist ramble on about his work and his influences. Something about beginning to answer a question with the phrase, "I suppose it all began when I was born on cold winter's night..." makes the asker feel like they've made eye contact with one of the kiosk people at the mall. I used to teach U.S. History to high school kids so I recognize the look people get when they stop listening and just nod with unfocused eyes. Early on in my career I was interviewed by a newspaper, and not really knowing how press worked, I gave this long explanation about the symbolism behind my work and the paths I took to gather the inspiration for the pieces I make. The writer, preferring a brief concise answer, condensed my epic tale into a half a paragraph. If he had interviewed Thomas Edison about the lightbulb, the quote would read something like: "Well, I just started fooling around with these wires and stuff and I come up with this neat idea for an invention". After that I try to keep my answer brief, neat and tidy. That seems to be enough for most people.
The truth is, there is much more to my artwork than I can easily sum up in a few words. It's a bit like being asked, "who are you as a person?" or "how did you end up here?" or "what the heck is wrong with you?!". Explaining it so briefly makes the work appear shallow, kitschy, and betrays the original reason I chose to begin working with spent shell casings in the first place.
When I am asked the closely related question "How long does it take make each piece?" I respond with, "My whole life". It's slightly sarcastic, but it is mostly true. Each piece I produce is the result of what I have learned from previous work and that has taken me a lifetime to accrue. A river is probably the best metaphor. The Mississippi isn't a mile wide its whole length. It begins as myriad of tiny, seemingly insignificant, creeks, springs, and run-off. It journeys down, picking up pieces of each place it passes, curving and meandering around whatever is in front of it. The beginnings are small but crucial, the middle provides depth and the water never stops moving. I wouldn't be able to do what I do if I hadn't started scribbling with crayons, doodling on book covers, and been genetically inclined to look at the world slightly off kilter. I don't think I would be doing what I am doing had one of a million little things not happened in my life.
With that in mind, here's the slightly abridged answer to the question about how the idea for Brass Canvas came about:
I suppose the roots of Brass Canvases started in another question I got asked a lot, "So you're from Texas?...Where do you stand on the gun control debate?"
On paper, I was an easy stereotype of the type of person who you would expect to have a lot of experience with firearms. I grew up in town of less than 3,000 people, less than 30 miles from the geographical center of Texas, and the opening of deer season most closely approximated a national holiday. Multiple colleges in the area offer scholarships for Rodeo. I knew several people whose favorite color was "camo". Despite being surround by this culture, the only gun in my house growing up was a Red Ryder. I had shot a few guns, and sat in a few deer blinds, but I always had to borrow a friends camouflage and had to feign understanding and excitement when they talked about a drop tine 12 point they saw. I could convincingly nod when someone was discussing .243 vs. 30-06 but I knew next to nothing about firearms. Which is to say, I didnt really understand the whole culture that helped shape me.
It wasn't until I left the place that I had known my whole life, did I really begin to find who I was. I started traveling...alot, and sometimes not all that far from the places I thought I knew. I gained perspective, and the world opened up. Ideas and debates, that I had previously seen in only stark black and white, melted into intriguing, confusing, and exciting shades of gray. I tried to be as open-minded as possible and to listen more than I spoke. Somehow though, I was still seen as a redneck from Texas. (this might be due, in part, to the fact that I wear cowboy boots almost everywhere I go, and my "i's" become more twangy when I get excited). By Roger Miller's definition, I was decidedly average. Sitting directly in the center of the matrix, I was a hippie to some and a redneck to others. I was poor by some definitions and yet I could be considered wealthy by others. In some circles I tend to lean a little right and in others a tad bit to the left. I think the idea of my Brass Canvas artwork was incubated in this sentiment.
In the summer of 2011, I took a job at a gun range and store on the south side of San Antonio. It was a bit like hiring a vegetarian to work at a meat locker, but I enjoyed the job and learned a great deal. I actually lived above the store for a little while and set up my art supplies beside cases of ammunition. Art being one of the few constants in my life at the time, I would work all day at the store, and spend the evenings drawing or painting. It was a typical kind of juxtaposition that I found myself in. I would spend my days with gunpowder and manual labor, and my nights with color theory and proportions. At some point, the idea crossed my mind to illustrate my situation. Some combination of the Texas summer heat and my duties sweeping up the spent brass casings let to the idea to use those casings as art supplies. That summer on the front lines of the gun control debate, I found my opinions and understanding about firearms changing. Swirling deeper into the confusing mix of gray. Using an actual piece of a polarizing debate would be a perfect medium. I turned to my usual catharsis: art.
Where words fail, there is the power of the visual. The image is able to capture all of these different viewpoints because it requires the viewer to contribute his own background to the piece. What I found in firearms is the same thing you find in art. The same thing you find in tools and trash and power. Its definition is dependent on the perception of the viewer.
If you hold up the small cylinder of brass that is ejected from a gun, on its own and without context, it is such a seemingly benign piece of metal. But it embodies so much. It is a perfect metaphor for how our experiences shape our perception. The perception of an image can be changed once it is reframed in the context of being painted on spent shell casings. I get wildly opposing interpretations of my Brass Canvas art, and in truth, it's exactly where I want my art to be. When I first began experimenting with casings, I wanted to find that common ground amidst the false assumption that our world is rendered in black and white. Whenever I sit down to create my newest piece I try and picture friends I have on both sides of the firearms debate standing in front of my work and sharing their perspective. Two rivers flowing from different basins, through different places. Dissimilar in size and speed and color and direction and composition. Yet, both ultimately aiming towards a common end point. I try to make my art fit in that tiny overlap between two opposing sides, which we call understanding. Where some see a weapon, others see a tool. I see art.
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