Mixed Feelings - The Grammar of Money

"Mixed Feelings" - Click image for larger view

Here are all nine of the “Mixed Feelings” prints. I can't wait to see them all together on the wall at Cullom Gallery next month for the opening of my solo show there. The week before last, in advance of that show, I brought the prints to my friend Stephen Petegorsky to have photos taken. In addition to his own fine art photography, Stephen is known for his work photographing art for area museums and artists, and he provides beautiful, well-lit, high resolution digital images that can satisfy any need that comes up -- gallery show materials, web site use, etc. Although it can be pricey to have artwork professionally photographed, I find it to be well worth the money.

I've often used words in my art, even before this “Loaded” series. But in working with the topic of money, I realized that words and money have some things in common. Both are vehicles for moving inner mental pictures from the realm of dream/idea to objective reality. And both are things we take for granted, that we use on a daily basis, and that we often don't examine closely.
Words matter. How we phrase things reveals much about our inner state and our beliefs. As I looked at some of our cliches about money, I was stunned to find them so full of ambiguity and almost a kind of anguish. We love money, we hate money. Money is cool like water, money is hot like fire. Money is precious, money is dirty. In these overused phrases we can see our values and beliefs about money, wealth, and poverty. These are our stated beliefs -- we state them every day, with barely any thought. Are these really the beliefs we want to have?