Scalehouse Artist Residency: A Reflection

It’s unfortunate, but sometimes really, really, really good things have to come to an end.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the words I want to use to describe this residency, and frankly, everything I’ve come up with will probably sound overdramatic or exaggerated, but I swear it’s all the satan’s honest truth so here goes nothing:

My time as one of the first two Artists-in-Residence at Scalehouse Gallery’s Patricia Clark Studio here in Bend, Oregon has easily been the most life-changing eight months of my life.

For starters, pretty much right when the residency kicked off, I became a dad.

My partner and I were a couple of months into the waiting stage after about a year of going through the adoption process. We really had no idea when or if a baby was going to come our way, but sure enough, our sweet boy Casper arrived on May 18th, basically the exact same time I was starting one of the biggest and most career-changing opportunities of my life.

At the risk of coming off as kind of selfish, I’ll admit that I was extremely bummed about the timing.

It certainly didn’t help that I’ve never wanted kids either. In fact, it dawned on me only shortly before having a kid that I actively didn’t want to be a parent (oops). But I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Kait was meant to be a mom, and that I couldn’t be the thing that got in her way of becoming her fullest, whole self.

Part of not wanting to be a dad was because it had been a long-held fear of mine that having a kid would essentially end any chance I had of having a career (catastrophize much?), and unfortunately, starting this residency at the same time that I was about to get almost ZERO sleep and have almost ZERO free-time really exacerbated those fears in me and felt like confirmation of everything I was dreading.

But seeing as this is a reflection, looking back I can now confidently say that having a kid has NOT completely ended my career as I knew it. In fact, in some true twist of cosmic humor, it just may have enhanced it.

Seeing as my energy level and freedom were cut down to almost imperceptible size, I made damn sure that I was making the most of my time every time I went into that studio. I tuned out the rest of the world and gave myself complete permission to roll with whatever the hell fell out of my skull and onto the canvas (or wood panel in my case).

I’m still not sure I’ll ever be able to put into words just how good that felt and how needed it was during this massive transition. At the risk of using more hyperbole, that sense of pure, unfiltered creative expression & experimentation honestly felt like I had discovered a whole new way of existing, or like I had uncovered a brand new feeling that I will absolutely be chasing for the rest of my life. I have Scalehouse along with Casper and Kait to thank for that.

Making time for creativity and being in the Patricia Clark Studio was also its own type of therapy. I know because my actual therapist completely agrees. It was a desperately needed way to reset and make sense of this new lifestyle I had never wanted but was now in.

But as if becoming a dad isn’t life-changing enough, over the course of these past eight months, from May 1st, 2022 to January 1st, 2023, I had not only discovered this new-to-me creative feeling but my eyes were completely opened to the actual possibility of a career path I’ve always secretly wanted, one that I’m now pursuing with (calculated) reckless abandon.

In some way, I think my life & career have always been subconsciously heading in this direction. Creativity in various forms has been a major theme in my life since before I can remember. The main medium that has always been with me was drawing, so it makes sense that I as traveled down the road of freelancing, after trying my hand as a graphic designer I was drawn towards becoming an illustrator.

But throughout my travels, I’ve had what always felt like the totally unrealistic dream of being an artist, specifically a painter, in the far back recesses of my mind, probably since I was 13. Getting this residency and the validation of an amazing arts organization like Scalehouse felt like the culmination of this 20-year dream. I got the go-ahead and the permission I’d been unknowingly seeking to follow this dream when they said, in so many words, “We trust you and want you to use our space to make absolutely whatever you want to make.”

Thanks to my time in that beautiful white box here in Bend, OR, I had the immense pleasure and privilege of fully becoming ME, and taking yet another career pivot towards something I never actually thought would come to fruition.

While somewhere in me there’s still the 18-year-old screaming, “DOOD, why the F@CK did you agree to have a kid!?” but sleep-deprived 33-year-old me knows life is only going to get better from here, and I genuinely believe that Scalehouse and this Artist Residency are partly if not largely to thank for that realization.

I obviously need to give a massive thank you to everyone at Scalehouse, not only for this opportunity, but for the continued support, encouragement, advice, guidance, and friendship. It seriously and truly has meant and will always mean the world to me.

And almost more importantly I need to thank the Queen of the Pumpkin Patch herself, my partner Kait. Without her emotional, physical, and financial support, I genuinely wouldn’t be even close to where or who I am today. She has been my absolute muse since we met and no amount of blog posts that are really only read by my mom will be able to properly thank her for that.