From a young age I always thought I would be a writer; as it turned out, I was much more suited to the general field of art, and so instead of becoming a “writer” I became an “artist.” There are many factors that have contributed to this distinction, considering that I am an artist whose practice is probably grounded in writing, or who outsiders might say is “at her best” when doing so. First of all, it took me years to figure out how to be an artist, and of course, I am still figuring it out. But as for writing? That, my friends, is a talent I was born with. I also credit my writing ability to my many years of private education, at a school where the idea of well-roundedness was scoffed at, and where we were all treated as prodigious, which means, essentially, you’ve got no choice but to become so. In college, the undisciplined nature of my writing peers was unbearable, and through this angst they began to hate me, and always hated me. I found my place across campus in the art school, where a young girl’s angst could be better directed, and was much more tolerated. People there liked me because even though I was verbose and aggressive and judgmental, we were in the process of becoming something, and my characteristics, though flawed, were part of that process. By the time I was twenty, I had more or less abandoned writing as a singular practice. Nearly a decade later, it came back to me, and now I will never let it go.
Unpublished was a blog I started out of necessity; it was a place where I located all my rejected writings about art. The reasons that publications didn’t want my writing were varied, again, but the most understandable and common reason for rejection was because they wanted reviews; I just wanted to write about my experience. When you read my posts on unpublished, I hope you leave knowing something more about that artwork than you did before; I hope it creates a springboard for you to reflect on your own experiences with art, and in this way, lets art fulfill the only purpose it really wants, if art wants anything at all; which is to be loved, despite its flaws, its pretensions, its sweeping and unknowable gestures.