My process of production is a dialectical struggle between skepticism and a desire to make things, moral disdain for materialism and love of material. I respect suffering that takes the form of ascetic self-denial, but I am suspicious of heroics and the resulting fetishization of pain. I have spent time literally working (and teasing) my protestant work ethic through the desire for play to replace work in all areas of my life. I have dressed, undressed, and addressed figureheads (the president of a college, a king, a company logo) and the structures that grant their power, as both emblems and decorations, and as outfits for myself.
My entry into a committed relationship with the discipline of art (making, thinking, writing, viewing, being with, arranging) was born from my upbringing. While my parents imbued me with the foundational elements of their belief system, these concepts were also being played out all around me in their practice of daily life. I learned to live by demonstration and performance, 'Actions speak louder than words', 'walk the talk', and so on. My artistic practice emerges where this familial inheritance intersects cultural, and art historical structures for interpreting and being in the world. I approach this juncture as an area to act out, to perform myself as I would like to be, as I would like to make the world or, alternatively, as what I do not understand, what I fear becoming, what I see in the world that burns me, in order to know it better.
When I am making what I consider as work, I try to leave my thinking behind the instincts (or reflexes to readings, events, discussions) that motivate my activity. For me, making is an effort to produce from a sensibility beyond my intellectual grasp or verbal articulation.
Emily Kay Atchison
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