MAYBE I’M A little too old for this dance; too old to be going through this kind of change.

Or am I just wondering how it must appear to those around me? I wonder if I look kind of flaky, shifting once again in the path I take as a creative person. Kind of uncommitted. Kind of, I don’t know, not serious.

The change I’m referring to is one I’ve been undergoing for the past three years or so, but which I’ve only discussed with a handful of people. If you didn’t know me before reading this blog, you wouldn’t know that until three years ago I was passionately focused not on writing but on making found-object sculpture and collage.

And I enjoyed modest success, eventually achieving several of the early indicators for a fine art career: landing a solo show in a respected regional art museum; seeing my work critically reviewed, positively, in the Texas art press; and all while earning representation with two of the state’s more highly regarded contemporary art galleries.

The change I don’t expect everyone to understand is the change from being that passionately focused on sculpture and collage and then suddenly turning away. Practicalities were a part of it, certainly, as the fine art market had taken a series of body blows over the previous decade. But just as important to me was the realization that my art had mined a vein that was quickly becoming depleted. If my work was to keep going, I would have to stop making it. That couldn’t possibly make much sense to anyone else.

And that change that began three years ago, the process of not making art for the time being, the process of letting go, lurches forward this week. I’ll take another step away from the art I was making by turning it all over to Conduit Gallery in Dallas to sell. It’s a sort of clearing out process, the most important part of it going on inside my own head. But also I suppose as I write about it, here on the page as well.

(Above) Distraction (2005) Collage of book pages and book illustrations on panel. 20″ x 16″