[Music]
growing up I didn’t know my father he
simply wasn’t around and honestly I was
okay with that
see I just thought it was easier that
way until I became a father myself we
were living in Maine at the time and one
night I was reading a bedtime story to
my oldest son Calvin when it hit me like
a ton of bricks
I couldn’t tell him about his
grandfather because I didn’t know him
myself
my father was a US Marine he was killed
in the war in Vietnam when I was 2 years
old not long after this photo was taken
so I didn’t know him but that was no
fault of my mother’s she tried to tell
me about him we’d visit the cemetery and
she tell me how much I acted like him or
how proud he would be of me and her
intent was good but it hurt because it
just reinforced the fact that he wasn’t
there and that I didn’t know him so I
decided it was a lot easier not to talk
about it and definitely not to feel it
but that night reading to Calvin
I’d come to a fork in the road and I had
a decision to make this is a study from
a recent exhibition a painted stick but
to me this is much more than that to me
this is a symbol of change of risk and
even the unknown now everyone knows
change can be difficult but I believe
change can be incredibly rewarding if
you’re brave enough to embrace it
see I think personal growth new
opportunities and the chance to take
your work in new and unexpected
directions are the rewards for embracing
change and I’ve learned this from two
very different sources a fine art
exhibition about my father and a
somewhat nomadic lifestyle so what have
I learned
well when confronted with chain
the easiest thing to do is just stay the
course to do nothing but I’ve learned
when you come to a fork in the road you
should take it so that night back in
Maine I found myself at a fork in the
road unable to tell Calvin about his
grandfather because I realized he was
the same age that I had been when my
father was killed and it was instantly
clear to me that I had to do something
about it
now I’m an all-or-nothing kind of guy
and I knew if I was ever gonna
understand anything about my father or
what had happened in Vietnam that I had
to go there I knew I had to stand on
that ground
I was also certain of the fact that I
would make something because well that’s
what I do I mean as an artist that’s the
way I make sense of things the way I
process information and so with little
more than that I was ready to catch the
next plane to Vietnam despite the fact
that I knew very little about my father
they didn’t even less about the war and
practically nothing about the people or
the culture of Vietnam but this was
important and I was not about to let a
now now fortunately my wife Lisa is this
she’s this voice of reason in my life
and I think she saw me heading for the
cliff and thought this isn’t gonna end
well and so she stepped in and she says
I think what you’re doing is important
maybe you should take your time and do
it right well my response was completely
uncharacteristic I actually listened to
her and so I spent 18 months researching
the war and learning everything I could
about my father I tracked down some of
the men that he served with and I even
spoke with one of his commanding
officers I also had a chance to hang out
with some of his childhood buddies back
in Cincinnati and an amazing thing
happened once I let my guard down this
project took on a life of its own I
didn’t lead it it directed me
because as information came pouring in
from all these different sources and
different contacts one after another
pieces of the puzzle just started to
fall into place now I still didn’t have
any idea of exactly where this was
leading me or what in the world I was
going to do with it did know one thing
I’d be a fool not to follow it and so
with the help of a group of Vietnam
veterans I was able to decipher my
father’s personnel records as well as
the Marine Corps field reports and I
mean these guys they even taught me how
to read the maps that were used in the
war and so in the summer of 2000 armed
with all this information I spent five
weeks traveling the length of Vietnam
from north to south from Hanoi to the
Mekong Delta including a very intense
10-day period were based on my research
I was able to retrace much of my
father’s tour during the war including a
stop at a beach in the village of Kim
lien where my father and three other
Marines were killed in a firefight but
shortly after returning from Vietnam
changes in Lisa’s job made it clear that
staying in Maine was not very likely and
this was quickly followed by a very
difficult decision the Lisa had a new
job offer and it was a great opportunity
the downside it was an Indiana or as I
like to call it the land of corn and
cows I grew up in Indiana so I knew what
that was all about and I had spent
plenty of time trying to get away
besides we had called Maine home for
nearly ten years and we had a great life
there but we found ourselves at a fork
in the road and as difficult as it was
we decided to take it but by the time
and landed back in Indiana I had a rough
presentation book about this Vietnam
project that I was planning and in
virtually no time at all I was offered
an exhibition at a regional Art Museum
in fact in fact I was offered a solo
museum show which made moving to the
lane
of corning cows well not so bad
Semper Fidelis how I met my father is an
exhibition of ceramics photography and
mixed-media work that documents my
journey and so a project that started in
Maine took me halfway around the world
to Vietnam wound up being created and
first exhibited back home again in
Indiana this project continues to inform
both my personal life and my work in the
studio and and it’s really set the
trajectory that I’ve been on as an
artist ever since
semper fidelis project taught me to be
brave enough to venture into the unknown
and to delay judgment you’ll sit also
come in pretty handy if you’re gonna be
a nomad the over the last 25 years
Lisa’s career has taken us not only to
Indiana but to the Netherlands to Ohio
and to Georgia and each one of those
stops was a fork in the road a decision
to make and for me an opportunity to
reinvent myself to take my work in a
different direction so after years of
dividing my time between client driven
design work and my own personal projects
the move to the Netherlands was a chance
to focus solely on my fine art work but
not all moves are easy I mean nobody
wants to move to Cleveland right and
although I resisted something positive
even came from that move the opportunity
to work in public art few years ago I
came to Augusta and I’m grateful to have
been welcomed into a small but vibrant
creative community here where I’ve
worked to apply lessons that I’ve
learned from previous stops in my
journey but to this point I’ve painted a
pretty rosy picture of things but don’t
get me wrong I am NOT saying all you
need to do is embrace change and
opportunities will fall from the sky I
mean I wish it was that easy but
starting but
but starting over and being the new guy
is difficult and it takes a lot of hard
work
first it’s difficult to say goodbye to
friends that I’ve made or to the places
that I’ve called home it also takes time
to orient yourself in a new place even
here in Augusta takes time to figure out
how things work and where you fit in the
bracing change also comes with failure
now I fail in the studio all the time
and I now understand that if I’m not
failing that my work isn’t progressing
so failure is part of the process at
least it appears to be part of mine
unfortunately that doesn’t make it any
easier to accept and recently I’ve come
to another fork in the road and I’m
doing my best to to practice what I
preach here because soon I’ll be
breaking down my studio and confronting
failed works and missed opportunities
because later this year I’ll be moving
to Boston so change is constant and
there’s a lot of change taking place in
Augusta at the moment I mean just look
around this beautiful theater or take a
walk down Broad Street and so before I
leave I hope you’ll consider your own
experiences with change were you open to
it or did you resist embracing change
can be difficult but to me the risk of
what I might miss I’m not taking the
fork in the road is far greater than not
changing direction a nomadic lifestyle
has taught me to be aware of the things
that I carry with me be aware of the
things that I pick up along the way and
hopefully the things that I leave behind
the Semper Fidelis project taught me to
be brave enough to take risks and to
trust my process together they’ve taught
me to be more open to change and to be
more comfortable being uncomfortable
though when confronted with change will
you embrace it or will it be something
that happens to you
by suggestion when you come to a fork in
the road take it thank you [Applause]
growing up I didn’t know my father he
simply wasn’t around and honestly I was
okay with that
see I just thought it was easier that
way until I became a father myself we
were living in Maine at the time and one
night I was reading a bedtime story to
my oldest son Calvin when it hit me like
a ton of bricks
I couldn’t tell him about his
grandfather because I didn’t know him
myself
my father was a US Marine he was killed
in the war in Vietnam when I was 2 years
old not long after this photo was taken
so I didn’t know him but that was no
fault of my mother’s she tried to tell
me about him we’d visit the cemetery and
she tell me how much I acted like him or
how proud he would be of me and her
intent was good but it hurt because it
just reinforced the fact that he wasn’t
there and that I didn’t know him so I
decided it was a lot easier not to talk
about it and definitely not to feel it
but that night reading to Calvin
I’d come to a fork in the road and I had
a decision to make this is a study from
a recent exhibition a painted stick but
to me this is much more than that to me
this is a symbol of change of risk and
even the unknown now everyone knows
change can be difficult but I believe
change can be incredibly rewarding if
you’re brave enough to embrace it
see I think personal growth new
opportunities and the chance to take
your work in new and unexpected
directions are the rewards for embracing
change and I’ve learned this from two
very different sources a fine art
exhibition about my father and a
somewhat nomadic lifestyle so what have
I learned
well when confronted with chain
the easiest thing to do is just stay the
course to do nothing but I’ve learned
when you come to a fork in the road you
should take it so that night back in
Maine I found myself at a fork in the
road unable to tell Calvin about his
grandfather because I realized he was
the same age that I had been when my
father was killed and it was instantly
clear to me that I had to do something
about it
now I’m an all-or-nothing kind of guy
and I knew if I was ever gonna
understand anything about my father or
what had happened in Vietnam that I had
to go there I knew I had to stand on
that ground
I was also certain of the fact that I
would make something because well that’s
what I do I mean as an artist that’s the
way I make sense of things the way I
process information and so with little
more than that I was ready to catch the
next plane to Vietnam despite the fact
that I knew very little about my father
they didn’t even less about the war and
practically nothing about the people or
the culture of Vietnam but this was
important and I was not about to let a
now now fortunately my wife Lisa is this
she’s this voice of reason in my life
and I think she saw me heading for the
cliff and thought this isn’t gonna end
well and so she stepped in and she says
I think what you’re doing is important
maybe you should take your time and do
it right well my response was completely
uncharacteristic I actually listened to
her and so I spent 18 months researching
the war and learning everything I could
about my father I tracked down some of
the men that he served with and I even
spoke with one of his commanding
officers I also had a chance to hang out
with some of his childhood buddies back
in Cincinnati and an amazing thing
happened once I let my guard down this
project took on a life of its own I
didn’t lead it it directed me
because as information came pouring in
from all these different sources and
different contacts one after another
pieces of the puzzle just started to
fall into place now I still didn’t have
any idea of exactly where this was
leading me or what in the world I was
going to do with it did know one thing
I’d be a fool not to follow it and so
with the help of a group of Vietnam
veterans I was able to decipher my
father’s personnel records as well as
the Marine Corps field reports and I
mean these guys they even taught me how
to read the maps that were used in the
war and so in the summer of 2000 armed
with all this information I spent five
weeks traveling the length of Vietnam
from north to south from Hanoi to the
Mekong Delta including a very intense
10-day period were based on my research
I was able to retrace much of my
father’s tour during the war including a
stop at a beach in the village of Kim
lien where my father and three other
Marines were killed in a firefight but
shortly after returning from Vietnam
changes in Lisa’s job made it clear that
staying in Maine was not very likely and
this was quickly followed by a very
difficult decision the Lisa had a new
job offer and it was a great opportunity
the downside it was an Indiana or as I
like to call it the land of corn and
cows I grew up in Indiana so I knew what
that was all about and I had spent
plenty of time trying to get away
besides we had called Maine home for
nearly ten years and we had a great life
there but we found ourselves at a fork
in the road and as difficult as it was
we decided to take it but by the time
and landed back in Indiana I had a rough
presentation book about this Vietnam
project that I was planning and in
virtually no time at all I was offered
an exhibition at a regional Art Museum
in fact in fact I was offered a solo
museum show which made moving to the
lane
of corning cows well not so bad
Semper Fidelis how I met my father is an
exhibition of ceramics photography and
mixed-media work that documents my
journey and so a project that started in
Maine took me halfway around the world
to Vietnam wound up being created and
first exhibited back home again in
Indiana this project continues to inform
both my personal life and my work in the
studio and and it’s really set the
trajectory that I’ve been on as an
artist ever since
semper fidelis project taught me to be
brave enough to venture into the unknown
and to delay judgment you’ll sit also
come in pretty handy if you’re gonna be
a nomad the over the last 25 years
Lisa’s career has taken us not only to
Indiana but to the Netherlands to Ohio
and to Georgia and each one of those
stops was a fork in the road a decision
to make and for me an opportunity to
reinvent myself to take my work in a
different direction so after years of
dividing my time between client driven
design work and my own personal projects
the move to the Netherlands was a chance
to focus solely on my fine art work but
not all moves are easy I mean nobody
wants to move to Cleveland right and
although I resisted something positive
even came from that move the opportunity
to work in public art few years ago I
came to Augusta and I’m grateful to have
been welcomed into a small but vibrant
creative community here where I’ve
worked to apply lessons that I’ve
learned from previous stops in my
journey but to this point I’ve painted a
pretty rosy picture of things but don’t
get me wrong I am NOT saying all you
need to do is embrace change and
opportunities will fall from the sky I
mean I wish it was that easy but
starting but
but starting over and being the new guy
is difficult and it takes a lot of hard
work
first it’s difficult to say goodbye to
friends that I’ve made or to the places
that I’ve called home it also takes time
to orient yourself in a new place even
here in Augusta takes time to figure out
how things work and where you fit in the
bracing change also comes with failure
now I fail in the studio all the time
and I now understand that if I’m not
failing that my work isn’t progressing
so failure is part of the process at
least it appears to be part of mine
unfortunately that doesn’t make it any
easier to accept and recently I’ve come
to another fork in the road and I’m
doing my best to to practice what I
preach here because soon I’ll be
breaking down my studio and confronting
failed works and missed opportunities
because later this year I’ll be moving
to Boston so change is constant and
there’s a lot of change taking place in
Augusta at the moment I mean just look
around this beautiful theater or take a
walk down Broad Street and so before I
leave I hope you’ll consider your own
experiences with change were you open to
it or did you resist embracing change
can be difficult but to me the risk of
what I might miss I’m not taking the
fork in the road is far greater than not
changing direction a nomadic lifestyle
has taught me to be aware of the things
that I carry with me be aware of the
things that I pick up along the way and
hopefully the things that I leave behind
the Semper Fidelis project taught me to
be brave enough to take risks and to
trust my process together they’ve taught
me to be more open to change and to be
more comfortable being uncomfortable
though when confronted with change will
you embrace it or will it be something
that happens to you
by suggestion when you come to a fork in
the road take it thank you [Applause]
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