Artist Integrity
Breathing
If you feel like your artist statement or your web copy is not ever done – it isn’t. Writing is a process and very rarely a product. Text can always be reworked and improved. Set goals, but be reasonable. Be fair to yourself and ask for help along the way.
Essay: The Future We Want
The essay I wrote for the United Nations, The Future We Want is reproduced here with kind permission of the United Nations Organization, having first appeared on the UN website and the UN’s official social media outlets.
Reflections On Direction #4
It’s great to not feel any restriction with what I create. I’m enjoying going with the flow with my creativity. I had quite a large amount of it in storage, and it’s been great to get it out and work it into some interesting sculptures – sculptures that I’ve not ever seen before.
Reflections On Direction #3
People would tell me to look at this person’s work or that person’s work. At the time, I decided it was best for me just to continue making my body of work and going into various avenues that it took me and solidified what it was that I was doing with these new materials, instead of looking to other artists for inspiration. This enabled me to create work that was fresh and to make my own mistakes to learn from. My work was not derivative of anyone else’s work. This has always been important for me.
Reflections On Direction #2
There existed in me a specifically defined sensibility about the environment, to want to pick up all this flotsam and jetsam. I’m glad to know that this response happened quite naturally within me.
Reflections On Direction #1
This can help with future directions and can also act as a signpost for yourself about important and pivotal times in your career, times which you may want to elaborate about clearly in lectures or in your own writings about your work.
Reflections On Obstacles #2
As a result of standing up for myself I set a precedent for other local artists but at some cost to my relationships. I am pleased to report that these relationships healed with time.
Reflections On Obstacles #1
When you’re having an exhibition of new work and it doesn’t sell – that can be difficult. Again, I would have to talk about relativity. It’s tough if you don’t sell work at an exhibition, especially if you put a lot of time and money into the show. But that pales in significance when compared to being dealt a bad hand when you least expect it.
Reflections On Vision
I am enjoying my role as a mediator between nature and humans, expressing universal truths in my work and inspiring viewers as much as I am able.
Process Orientation In Creativity #2
I’m passionate about the messages that the work conveys through the use of recycled material and I love without exception, the simple inspiration that it gives to people when they see this kind of work.
See John Dahlsen’s Recent Works
