Andrew Purchin's blog

The Internet is our "wild wild west" these days and the next frontier is our fear of intimacy.  Encounters on the Frontier is an evolving offline work between myself and Pakistani artist Mohsin Shafi.  We are planning our next exhibit in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2015.

Last week I felt the hands of my friend and colleague Mohsin Shafi for the first time.  It has been more than three years since we met randomly online.

On March 8, 2014 at the Hotel Paradox I made TEDxSantacruz my studio where the presenters and conference goers were my muse.  

The recent mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard approximately 9 months after the Sandy Hook Elementry School shooting reminds me of how hard it is for our congress to address gun violence, mental health issues and the underlying problem of a society in which creativity is stifled.

I offer this fantasy expressive arts therapy workshop as a vision of what can occur, sometime in the future, when everybody is encouraged and supported to have an art-making practice of some kind or another.

It is the possibility of humiliation that can come with being close to another and then rejected and abandoned.  I believe it is the most potent pain.  Therefore it has the greatest potential for beauty.

What is the rule?

Go towards the fear.

Here is a 20 ft painting that I created in 2005 while attending an artists residency at the Vermont Studio Center for a month  

“Yes we do!” I said.  We want to see your squiggles, your nervous touch, your strong lines, your bright colors, your representations, abstractions, failures and successes.  We want to see it all.  We want to be with you and feel the vibe of your creative spirit.

Each layer of paint challenges the last layer.  Somehow I must find a way to expand.