i will paint what i want-not what will sell.
i won’t care what you think even though i really want to.
just remember. . .
i will paint what i want - not what will sell.
i will use words but not to explain myself.
i won’t care what you think even though i really want to.
i will strive to make new things even when the best seller is popular.
i will wear slightly torn jeans and great fitting t’s past the age i am suppose to.
i will take care of my body just as well as i do my paint brushes.
i will push the line of acceptable art for your home.
life is complicated enough. so, like slightly ripped jeans and a faded t-shirt, i keep my paintings simple. i hope they make you look. i hope it makes you smile. i hope they make you fantasize just a little bit about jumping inside a being a part of them.
i’m sorry that art thinks it is smarter than you. than us all.
i’m sorry that art dresses up her enhanced tiffany tits and barney’s, brazilian lifted, back side and rambles on about her effervescence and coincided existence of form and function while at the same time pursuing a new lane into the juxtaposition of light, balance and color.
or whatever bullshit art is trying to say.
i’m not sorry you don’t get it - because there is nothing to get. no one gets it.
the only person who gets anything is the artist. with enough backing to hire a grant writer who chooses from a selective number of hashtag words.
fuck off art. just go fuck off and deep throat that banana you duct taped to the wall a while back.
we want art that reaches out and grabs us.
we don’t want to fill out a form, attempt to talk to customer service (which is overseas and responds with “this mailbox is unmonitored”).
we want to actually be a part of it all. we want it to touch us - someway, any way.
we want art for the people. where is the peoples artist?
so here i am - trying to fill a void. . .
i can be seen on minimally-listened-to podcasts, quoted in publications, and heard discussing with show-goers that my favorite part of painting is when i’m stuck – when i step back and contemplate if i’m done or if the piece is missing something – the part when i don’t quite know what to do. there is no better creatively climactic feeling than when i try something that works.
i’ve got it, I think. i’ve figured it out.
about six months ago, i was painting a group of pieces for a show to be held during art basel week in miami. for several weeks, my art studio had been an energy drink explosion combined with an attack on paint and marking pens. sitting in my studio rolling chair, i pushed back and sighed deeply. and i decided i liked where i was at. i felt like i had pushed the line between challenging myself and challenging those who look at my work to think. just think.
it was not middle-of-the-road. what i created actually said something.
in my excitement at the canvases stacked along my wall, i said to myself in a sing-song voice, “i know someone who likes you. me. me. me me me me.” in a furious moment of synchronicity, my thoughts came together: that’s it, I thought. the work is brilliant, but add a small line of pieces that say just that: “i know someone who likes you. – me.”
a new line of work was born out of a simple thought based on weeks of involved, arduous painting. painting that sometimes pained me and my psyche and deprived me of sleep. just like that, however, this work came so easily.
it was done. and it was my best. ever. and i knew it.
here is what they don’t teach you. in life, there is no grade. there is no warning. there just is. and here is how it is.
i painted somewhere north of 100 pieces to say what had been on my mind and in my world. i packed these paintings in the back of my sprinter van and have taken these paintings over 2,800 miles to many art shows (with bulk packs of energy drinks) from chicago to miami. i have hauled, lifted, repaired, touched up, stood in front of, talked about, posted up, meditated over, sweat at showcasing, and sage-burned all of it. all of it – with little to no validation of my process.
and it is crushing me.
i will smile and talk to you about it. i’ll gently push away your “what’s your inspiration?” question with a diverted and scripted answer about the process, doubling down that inspiration is for amateurs only because it hurts too much to give the honest answer that THIS is what has been stuck inside of me for far too long.
in full disclosure, there have been small moments of reward. i have heard validating comments and remarks about how creative these pieces are or how this work is the best at the show. i’m told often that someday, a particular person will save up just enough to buy a kent youngstrom original.
of those 100+ pieces, i have sold a handful. and i love that they are where they are supposed to be.
but i don’t know what to do. i have so many that i thought would be loved enough to be taken home by someone. to have my time, thoughts, and work exchanged for currency earned by someone else’s time, thoughts, and work.
but they are still here – in fact, they still sit stacked high in my van because i can’t physically take them out of their boxes one more time.
do i paint over them all?
do i burn them?
give them away?
i cannot live with them in my space. i cannot look at my wall and see – “fuck you, i am the trend,” when all my mind does is flip the words to read: “yeah, you thought you were the trend. you should know better; you were taught to save, not to risk. you knew you weren’t capable of being that big – you are more comfortable being small.”
i cannot read “pull me through the crowd” and be put back in the exact place where i knew i needed to turn that thought into a painting. i can’t remind myself of the hurt a painting can do (so assumed by many to be happy, flirty, and fun) that caused me to spray the words and stand in front of them.
i cannot lower the personal value of each piece and create some illusion that i’m not having a sale by having a sale. i sold a piece or two for below the numbers on the price tag, and to be honest, all i did was lower the value of the words on the painting as to the experience it was for me.
my work is my life.
yes – “all he does is paint words.” words are intimate parts of my life, and i’m guessing in yours too.
i paint stories in short verse form; i attempt to transfer the energy of my experience to you. perhaps i value that more than others – or more than others are willing to pay.
i don’t know what to do.
i might give them away.
and that’s where my painting brain has stopped for now.
so i’m pushing back in my vermilion orange, vintage herman miller office chair, the one a bit cantilevered and covered in paint, thinking – this is my favorite part, when i’m stuck – because on the other side of this is “i got it.”
i’m just not so sure this time. and that was over two years ago.
i have spent eight seasons of change since, flirting with canvas, dating various mediums and trying out all the tips and tricks i could find.
i have spent time perceiving the influence of social media and influx of artists all doing the same things, specifically at the time - established cartoon characters combining with easily accessible high end fashion logos.
my 7-11 brain was indeed always open - and most of the time it was angrily writing papers to submit to anyone who cared - that much like life, the art world was unfair, controlled by social media, boring and repetitive, or one hundred and eighty degrees the opposite direction, it was just a bunch of elites who i do not desire to associate with or view as the enemy, making and buying absurdity that i can not even pretend to understand or value.
so where was i to fit in?
i tried to protest, then tried talking nicely and make compromises, i tried pleasing both sides, then tried neutral ground - i contemplated succeeding from the artistic union and applied to be my own island - where everything would be right down the middle of everything. as i write each word i look back and think - dude, you think you are smart - you are not.
so what the fuck do i do now? i’m at the bottom - there is no funding for a new plan, a new marketing strategy, a new launch. the budget has not been cut - there is no budget. there is not even a knife to cut it.
all that is left is me.
i know someone who believes in me.
me. me. me.
it is time to be me. the human. what paved the way for me to be here, to have this problem. what drove me to keep going when i set up shop the first time and was awarded the blue ribbon for best booth - and sold zero pieces. who kept me from turning my art card in right there?
me.
who do people text when they need a pep talk?
me.
who taught countless futbol boys that there is another way?
me.
who convinced a national retailer that they could paint 300 paintings that sold faster than any other art they ever carried.
me.
who made something so cool the company creative director made a special call to say - “how do we work together, this is the coolest shit i’ve seen in a while?”
me.
who started giving art away and ended up on joanna gaines wall and in her magazine?
me.
who came up with a way nashville song writers could display the words that built the house the words no hang on?
me.
who gave away thousands of pieces of art during covid?
me.
who blamed people for not seeing his brilliance when he only presented things in coded messages?
me.
who decided that everyone but a select few choose easy and predictable because they are lazy, stupid, and unable to see potential or are too weak to be who they were meant to me?
me.
who wants to prove that he is the smartest one in the room?
me.
who thinks he knows better?
me.
who needs to go back and find everything that fell out of his man purse when he fell?
me.
who wants to help him find his reason?
his fun smirk that has been substituted for the off-brand, snarky, on sale version.
his i will do this attitude.
his validation for making someone believe in themself.
his i don’t need to compare myself posture.
his humanity that dresses his vanity. his vanity has been naked and running around the town square far too long.
his fuck you, i can do this too, to replace his fuck you, and you, and you, and this, and them and oh, go fuck yourself fuck you.
who wants to bring the box truck to scoop up and retrieve the scattered pile of validity he feels for helping someone.
i hope it is you.
i hope you still believe in me.
i hope you will still walk with me, behind me, or beside me to take on the thought that the little guy doesn’t matter, that there are no more underdogs, that only the wealthy win. because i am just like you.
i do not wake up every day and say i got this. i change my mind. i talk circles around what i know is best. i let money win. and fuck you, i hate myself when i do.
walk with me. call me out. hold my hand. tell me i got this. i don’t care if part of me is on your wall or not. i need help. i need to know i’m hitting the right buttons, and this is a difficult task. . . i am a validation pac man.
i need the dots.
could you every so often toss me a verbal dot? a “hey had a friend over, they loved glancing at my wall!”
a hey - “that saying you have hit home the other day, “
something along those lines.
i’m going dark for a little bit - i need to socially wake my feet through grass in a new landing spot. i need to ground my motivations, my desires, and my reasons behind my actions. i have no time table. but i do not think it will be long.
with this, i do not love the blackness, i love an evening with low light, soft sounds and a rhythmic cadence. if you would like to join me behind the scenes in the warm, yellow hued edison bulb glow, sign up for an array of notification, links, letters and lip stick colors i’ll be trying on to see what fits with my old attitude.
me. me. me.
i can do this, but only for a moment. i need you for the duration.
me - 4 points.
you - six points.
at least in scrabble, together we are a perfect 10.