Life has always felt like it takes a lot of work. Without constant, diligent work to stay on top of everything in my life, it quickly falls apart, and I am left in a river that ebbs and flows and takes me wherever it happens to turn.

Entropy is the scientific term for “things fall apart”, and my life feels like entropy in action. Constant work is needed to keep everything in place, or it will fall out and go its own direction.

The crazy thing is, when I start to feel like things are flying off every which way, and I am just struggling to reign it all in, I feel like I am the only person who has ever felt this way.

I’m the only one. Maybe other people have felt something similar to this, but I’m the only one that actually feels this way this much. It is my personal struggle.

(This, I have learned, is wrong. One of the little secrets of humanity is that the more and more something feels intense and personal, the more universal that feeling is)

Making art is one of the ways that I reign it all in. That is why I am making myself do this 101 Woodblock Series.

When I make art, I feel like that crazy river that bends, turns, and roars every which way… mellows out. The river widens, slows down, and the rapids disappear. I can think again, and more so, I can breath again. Life doesn’t feel as chaotic.

I don’t make art because I love to, I make art because I have to.