Nothing ever changed by staying the same. Or so I used to think. I've never had a habit of sticking around anywhere very long, but I'm not sure I believe that anymore. I guess it’s as true as it is false. You can try to stay the same and be uprooted. Look at what happens with floods, earthquakes, gentrification. Sometimes things will change right out from under you.
When I was in college, I waited tables at an Old Chicago. We had a regular, Double Meat Me we called him, because that was his order. A meat pizza with double the meat - hold the green olives. I always thought it was kinda gross, but I eat some weird shit so I didn't judge him for it. He was an older guy in his 60's or 70's, originally from Latvia. He was telling me about his life one afternoon, he only came in during happy hour when things were quieter and cheaper. I don't remember his real name, or too much about his story, but what stuck out to me was one thing he said about life in Latvia, "I think I was liberated 7 times without ever leaving my front porch." He sort of shrugged after he said it, as if it were inconsequential. Blew my mind, I've never been properly liberated, but I guess I always thought there would be a great deal of fanfare to it.
I guess I've been thinking about these concepts because of this project. It's hard for me to decide how to present this work. I feel like it lacks consistency, which is something I've discovered I'm quite bad at in general. I've felt bad about that for a long time. Artists and creatives are supposed to have a voice, a style that's theirs and theirs alone. I never felt as though I did. I've always been hard to pin down, by myself or anyone else. That's been the interesting thing about this project. It's not for anyone or anything, so it doesn't fucking matter. It can be inconsistent, with no consequences. The cauliflower, like Double Meat Me, is staring back at me from it's porch, not really giving a shit what flag I fly today because it hasn't changed at all.
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