Growing up, I would spend a lot of time alone, drawing from memory, blending one into the other as I saw fit. I assume that my memories are just like my drawings, being joined together where they make the most sense and not, necessarily, as they made sense. Robert Pinsky, a poet who bases his work on the art of memory, states that "deciding to remember, and what to remember, is how we declare who we are." In college, I temporarily gave up drawing for painting, because I thought it was the higher art form. Since graduating in December of 2012, I've subsequently spent the last year of my life in a state of rumination. To ruminate means to contemplate or to calmly take a lengthy, intent filled consideration for something.

   In this state of rumination, I began to get bogged down with not being able to magically find "my style" of art. I felt as thought I were doing something wrong. Being broke, fighting off systematic depression and really just trying to find myself while trying to decide which direction to walk in, I decided my best bet was to pick up drawing again. 

  Considering my own journey to this point, I remembered how in 2007, I lost my first completed sketchbook. At the time, I wasn't sharing my art with anyone. That single event spawned the basis for my first art show. My first show paid for my college application, which lead me to graduating and showcasing in a considerable amount of other shows. Since then, I've begun to look at art, sketchbooks, memories and the creative process in a whole new light. I've learned that the only effectual art is the art that is shared with others because, as an artist, your job is to be an excellent story teller by expressing what's within you to those around you. By taking to drawing again, I also realize that those lucid scribbles bound between two hard covers are necessary to keep the dreamer dreaming.