Starting the Unicorn Hunt

Unicorn
From Biennale, Venice Italy
Image curtousy of by tschnitzlein [soon to be back on Flickr]

-This post was originally written at the end of Sept-



As I currently sit in the Amsterdam airport, it is finally starting to sink in. I have made it to Europe, and shortly I will living in Rome for the next few months. After weeks of people asking “Are you excited?!” and my rehearsed reply “Yes, I am really excited”, but the reality was that it hadn’t really hit me. And how can it? Consumed in the logistics applying for the program, moving back to my home in Portland, packing and getting everything ready to go, you never have a chance to really think about the going part.

But as I sit here sipping a Koffee, brain and body befuddled of the day and time, I felt it. Realizing where I was, where I was going, that I was doing it completely independently my excitement sunk in. Knowing that I am embarking on, undoubtedly, one of the most significant journeys of my life, I felt a mix of curiosity, anticipation and hopeful expectations.

I felt the most appropriate thing to call my time in Rome “the unicorn hunt” because, where could be a better place to find the majestic creature than a place as magical as Roma?

More importantly, this is the first time that I will be able art and only art. It is the first time I will have a studio, and the ability to really take advantage of studio time. The unicorn is a creature that is majestic, pure and true. It is beautiful as something, which both exists and does not exist, paradoxically real and unreal- or finding a home somewhere in between. It is everything I desire my art to become. Alas, this quest is in a foreign land lined with artistic influence and a place where I am doing nothing but breathing aesthetics. My hope is that his romantic new stetting ill be the context most ideal for the capture of this mythical creature and the discovery of all it represents.