I applied! For my 3rd time. The first time was so long ago that I filled out a paper form. Not this time round. Want to read my letter of intent??? Here it is:
This is my 3rd attempt applying to the Headlands. I decided this time to apply as a writing candidate. I have a story to tell, an excellent and interesting story that is loosely based on my experience working in a casino and having survived being run over by a truck.
You know the new concrete median on Market Street that prevents cars from turning right onto the Octavia on ramp? That was installed after I was run over at that intersection 3 years ago by a truck full of cement. You see, a fascinating story. In recovery I wrote because that was the only thing I could do. My body was full of pain. Black pain that I can't remember because memory suppresses that kind of stimuli. I wrote about pain and about injury and about living when I should have died. And then I began to get better, and I wrote less about the horrible things in life and more about the other things in life. I found I had more stories to tell. And so my story morphed.
As I recovered I regained mobility. I started painting again, abstractly in vivid colors that my eyes gobbled up. And from painting I developed an idea to needlepoint my abstract paintings into matching pillows. I find this very amusing. And I still continue to write, to work on my story. Making is a circular process for me. And a constant one.
My ambition has always been to make something, anything, that I care about. And to this end, making art and writing is easy. I only make what I love and what I am passionate about. My recent work travels many avenues. I write, I paint, I needlepoint. They all blend together into the collective creativity of art. However, the flaw in my creative structure is a lack of community. I make and create on my own without feedback, without collaboration without the people contact that the Marin Headlands residency program would provide. My ideas occur in the vacuum of my studio apartment. I look to the Marin Headlands for a community to push me further, to inspire me with their projects, to help me improve my ideas.
I need the environment of the Headlands to touch other people who are creating and to feel an environment outside of myself. I'm without the creative communal energy that studios provide. I want to be at the Headlands to make more and to develop my work further, push it's boundaries and be inspired. I think I'm the perfect candidate: I'm multi-disciplinary, I'm responsive to the inspirations of life, I'm communicative and open to change and learning, I'm hungry for experience, and I can tell a good story.
I suppose this wasn't technically created in my studio... apartment. I woke up one morning chez Aaron with some lines in my head. I wrote them down, he improved upon them, I improved upon his improvements, he improved upon the improved... to the 4th or 5th power. We invited my mom to illustrate the story because she can draw like nobody else. And voila!
