[Hmm, reCaptcha playing games with geography: Falls ofSami...]

Just to play devil’s advocate here, riffing off the top of my head about some things you might address in a statement:

1. You say “because it’s an animal [you] can draw” is why you do bunnies. But there are other animals at least as easy to draw; why not them, instead? What is it about bunnies in particular?

2. …and anyhow, you don’t just “draw bunnies,” usually. You depict them in some very unbunny-like poses — reclining within the curve of a crescent moon, for instance. They’re often looking up at the sky.

3. The fascination with trees is also interesting. On one level, it’s just a sort of artistic pun — the paper you’re cutting up started life as trees, and you’re metaphorically returning them to that form. And there’s something about the branching (and branching and branching…) of tree trunk to limb to branch to twig to leaf; you don’t take the easy way out by showing, like, a vertical stick crowned with an empty circle — like a balloon or lollipop. It matters that these are trees (sometimes even with roots…!)

4. Ditto the skylines-from-words you do. Might they be saying something about words, or stories, or skylines — or the people who inhabit the skylines?

There y’go. You may have been saying something all along, without even knowing it!

I guess my problem with the whole artist statement thing is that I’ve got nothing statement-y to say. My art is not a statement on society or an investigation into an aspect of humanity or a reflection of a historical context. I get an idea, I do what I can with it, and I use my own writing, paper, ink, glue, and pencil. That’s it.

If asked, I can give a bunny story to explain the bunnies. People usually ask about the bunnies and “because it’s an animal I can draw” is never a satisfactory answer.

But to your question, “What am I trying to say with your art?” …stall for time… yeah, I don’t have a good answer. I mean, these are images I like and I’m very happy when spending hours in a corner drawing and coloring in spiraling trees. Yep. Not a good answer.

What else might I be trying to say? Like pretty things.

Not art world fame for me!

…[checking]…

Ah. Okay. Yes, MPAA rating is R. You also might want to check IMDB’s “parental guide” page on the film, especially if you yourself haven’t seen it recently.

Dropping things — especially as adults, by intention (as opposed to all the inadvertent dropping of old (or advanced middle!) age) — feels dangerously against the rules. Part of our socialization seems to be, “If you pick something up, you place it back down — you don’t throw or drop it.” If I’m in the kitchen and feel something slithering from my grasp (usually because I’m trying to do too much — carry 3 or 4 things in the same hand, for example), panic sets in… and I’m much more likely to drop something forcefully, damagingly, than if I just sorta watched it go.

(The Missus always thinks my instinctive behavior is hilarious when I cut myself, such as with a kitchen knife: there’s the inevitable blue streak, and then instead of getting to the sink or at least the paper-towel holder ASAP, I stand there cussing and flinging the injured hand about. Which of course results in a pattern which… well, which would no doubt be of interest to police detectives and forensic investigators in the event that I die a violent death at home. And then we’ll see who’s laughing, ha!)

Ptak Science Books is a time sink of cosmic proportions.