The Street Fighter Mass

The Street Fighter Mass

Digital collage, 2020.

“I wanted to write an essay about violence… the dark parts of heaven and light parts of hell… but instead the words to accompany this art have become about the war in the mind and the simple, often ridiculous struggle against the self.”

I had planned to write a long, profound magnum opus about street fighting to accompany this piece.

Needless to say, things have not gone that way. For many reasons, among them this:

Art is easy (sort of), but writing is a gloves-off scrap.

At least it is for me.

When it comes to creating visual art I have the utmost confidence to say about my own art “I love this! This is great!” If someone else came along and said, “Your art is dog trash” - And they have - I sort of just shrug and think, “That’s your problem, not mine.” It may sound like arrogance - perhaps it is - but I think it’s simpler than that.

Art for me is not overly intellectual. It’s mostly a see it, like it, see it, don’t like it phenomenon. The art is just the art. I’m not really trying to prove anything with it. There maybe an idea I’m attempting to explore, but it’s not a glass temple to my self-worth.

The glass starts to crack when I attempt the dreaded “artist’s description” (and all the other stuff after making the art itself).

As it stands, words for me are a dyslexic cannibal’s food fight of anxiety, heavy furrowed brows, pain pain pain, a flick of joy, grammar that is seriously wrong, jowly cheeks shaking; the Empire State stacked on top of the Mayan Pyramids, stacked on top of the Ottoman Empire, stacked on top of the pale blue dot, with Jesus and a beaver on top. So weighted with painful meaning are words to me that my glass temple is crushed underneath them.

Any grammar queen’s head is probably spinning at this point. Good. That’s half of the point. Because if these grammatically offensive sentences and this art are out there in the world instead of locked in my personal computer vault, it means I’ve won at least one puny fight inside my pea head.

I wanted to write an essay about violence and peace, fighting sport, the dark parts of heaven and light parts of hell, and what that all means for a for a people who - more or less - say they want peace. It’s a worthy topic, but instead the words to accompany this art have become about the war in the mind and the simple, often ridiculous struggle against the self.

Perhaps one day I’ll get over myself enough to go back to the original essay: why this piece is called Street Fighter Mass, the slipperiness of the ideabeast, and the great Kamasi Washington, but not today.

Well, that was exhausting. Let us put down our fists and have a virtual rum and eggnog. 2020 has been a year.