The American Dream

60” x 48"

Oil on canvas

2024

Is there anything more useless than an artist? I’ve heard this sentiment my whole life. I’ll be honest, I used to wonder it myself as I painted my silly pictures.

I’ve spent a decade working in corporate marketing; A career predicated on cleverly convincing the masses. Often selling them on some things I haven’t been able to sell to myself. Mostly in the name of ungodly gross profit. Gross, indeed.

Recently I moved into working in the public sector where money is treated differently. My current arrangement is temporary because of that. Necessary but challenging in its own right.

I’m not entirely sure what’s next for me on this path. What I do know is art has always been my dream. And not the ambitious, aspirational kind. I mean like an actual dream. A place of rest and refuge, a place that’s stimulating and surreal.

Art also reminds me that I am pretty conflicted in my complicity and my gratitude is often paired with guilt and grief. It reminds me the very machine I see needs change is the same one I’ve relied on my whole life.

Both my parents are artists but more importantly they are proud immigrants who came to this country for better opportunities, not just for themselves, but for their family and fellow Americans, present and future. I think about that often.

I lost that version of the dream somewhere along the way and I’ve been trying to get it back. I’ve lived what I thought was the American dream but realized I was really just a cog in someone else’s dream.

What does it even mean to be American anymore?

What does it mean to have dreams and ambitions anymore?

What does it mean to be an artist anymore?

These are the things I usually wonder as I paint my silly pictures.

I don’t have answers, only observations. I feared that’s what made me most useless. But now in sharing my voice with many others like me, I find that’s what makes me most useful, most American.

So onward I push, if even not always entirely sure where I’m pushing. If even in a machine that can’t be broken but possibly, hopefully, reconfigured. In any case, I am always grateful to work, grateful to share, grateful to dream.