Carrying Stuff

I often joke with people that for the most part, being an artist just involves carrying shit around. Bundling supplies onto public transport, jamming stretcher bars into the back seats of friend’s vehicles, shipping paintings, frames, moving studios with all the boxes brimming with accumulated debris and strange paint tubes or bits of equipment bought on impulse and still completely unused. I remember travelling between buildings during undergrad, the corner of my drawing portfolio getting snagged in the spokes of my bike, or acting as a sail when the wind picked up. The only hill in Savannah was immediately in front of the student dormitories and I strained to climb it while hauling my projects and books and supplies. For many of us I think carrying stuff around is our most reliable form of exercise. I would wager that of the net mass ferried daily by the New York City transit system, a not insignificant percentage is art related bullshit.

I wince when considering the sheer bulk of material required to produce my work. Sometimes it can feel like my vocation borders on professional hoarding, it requires a certain obstinance, a deranged sentimentality that demands endowing great significance to objects and artefacts. Although the desire to create may surface spontaneously, making art for the most part is a contrived, possessive act. We observe something in the world and feel compelled to contain it and give it permanence. We have deemed an idea worthy of its own vessel so that it may move freely, unimpeded by an ageing body, with the vague hope that it will outlive us or act as some kind of robust surrogate.

Realistically, for a painting or drawing to be viewable beyond our brief lifetime alone is a rather lofty ambition, let alone its chances against the enormity of history. Anything that even makes it out of the studio is a vanishing proportion of all the creative attempts and misadventures. I’m unsure what is more compelling or important, viewing an artist’s work in aggregate or only the statements they’ve made with intention and clarity of vision. I rarely reach for a musician’s demo tapes before their completed albums (except for Elliott Smith, of course) even if it can be interesting to examine the bones of their creative process. As much as we like to fetishise the hurried recordings, dashed notes and napkin doodles of celebrated artists—and as vital as these items may have been in their creative development—they were not intended for anyone but the artist. I imagine many would squirm at the idea of their sketchbooks being displayed under museum glass. Likewise, I’m glad most of the things I’ve made remain out of sight, like the waste that makes up much of our lives.

If I succeed at my job, my paintings will join the ranks of someone else’s body of objects, maybe even enter a museum of objects, if considered important enough. Yet, for the most part I suspect the fate of my creations will be determined by their reproving creator. I find myself undergoing a constant process of deciding whether or not some loose sketch or botched study is worthy of my company or destined to greet the bin prematurely. Every studio move, every change in address brings with it a great reckoning for mediocre artwork. This process exacts an emotional toll. It is counter-intuitive for someone who spends so much of their time desperately holding onto the world to relinquish their grip. Much like disposing of spoiled food left to fester and mutate in the fridge, I often procrastinate pitching items out of guilt. This thing that once provided sustenance is now just another scrap of refuse cluttering my life. Yet I maintain that even the most squalid of embarrassments hold within them something urgent and sincere. I remember the person who made it with such honesty and pure intention and feel as though I have betrayed them with my callousness.

I recently attempted to clear out a storage unit in Brooklyn, which I have been paying for since my departure from the United States. If we are defined by the objects that we surround ourselves with, then what remains in this box could amount to an effigy of a James who believed his future to be American. Looking into the dim space, a small grief greeted me rudely. It was sweltering at the top of the ladder and I was sweating profusely. A sense of shame washed over me, as if I’d neglected something important and abandoned it alone in the dark– silent remains waiting for my return. It is always shocking encountering the inventory of our lives, particularly when piled into a small space and regarded in its entirety. There is something horrifying and insurmountable about reckoning with the fact that every human in the industrialised world is tethered to a truckload of objects to be rendered obsolete either functionally or through the death of the only person they held significance to. Landfill in transit, waiting in the homes of the mortal, on the shelves of their stores or perhaps in a stuffy storage unit in Bushwick.

And so I resolved to pick through my boxes, unsurprised to find the occasional cockroach lurking between the folds of cardboard and paper. I emptied portfolios, un-stretched paintings and gathered spent supplies, all of it joining the pile of miscellaneous dross. I tossed bagfuls of former possessions into the overflowing dumpster at the end of the street. A fire hydrant gushed onto the road, forming a small and filthy lake, garbage spilled from the dumpster and floated lazily across its surface. A man had set up a lawn chair with its legs submerged in the water, he sat unbothered, too engrossed by his phone to notice me. I returned to the storage unit, unburdened but feeling diminished.

I can feel like a tired engine, steadily churning out future junk. I recall sitting at a bar in Berlin and watching a machine print receipts behind the counter. Directly below, somebody had placed the bin, its open maw receiving the endless ream of paper. I couldn’t avoid laughing at the bleak absurdity of this contraption. For every drink there was birthed a small patch of printed material unacknowledged and instantly fed into oblivion, coiling in the dark and buried by the conveyor belt of waste trailing behind it. Some days I can feel like the receipt printer, other days, the receipt itself.