The Future:The Asylum

So you may be wondering, what is the game plan for The Asylum? Am I always going to be printing out of my backyard? Will I eventually open the shop up for more space, more presses, more community involvement? Buckle up because I have some big plans for the next chapters, and I’d love to tell you about them.

The vision is a place more welcoming to emerging artists who see the value in evolving their creative practice and really pushing themselves further in whatever craft that lights their fire. Over the last decade I have seen the importance of expanding the creative toolbox in any way possible. Learning a new medium is one of the best ways and working collaboratively? Don’t even get me started on the benefits and evolution that happens when two people are creating and solving problems together. It is really why I love printmaking, printing for other artists, solving problems I never would have thought of and making some truly earth-shattering work. The work I have made with artists is in museums from Texas to Washington, D.C and has been exhibited globally. No matter your reach, I am obsessed with quality and will deliver nothing less than prints you and I both will be proud to release into the wild. In addition to the making side of this passion, I want to make collecting prints, printed in traditional techniques, more accessible and less scary. I want to make sure whether you have space for a tiny frame on the corner of your desk at work or space for something a lot larger, you get a print that makes you feel alive every time you look at it. The relationship between art and humans is far older and far more important than the relationship between humans and money. I think it’s about time the art world remembers that. I also want to strive to increase transparency in the printmaking industry as a whole. Let’s talk about how much we make, let’s talk about how we charge, let’s talk about where to buy a fucking chop. Let’s just talk to each other and stop talking about each other. I plan on continuing to operate my invite only residency model, free of charge to the artists invited, they just have to get to me. I also plan to continue offering my contract print services, which are also all inclusive.

How has this last year and a half been? Brutal and divine. I have worked longer and more hours per day than ever before. I have learned that while I have carried some misplaced burdens in the past that have made doing this easier, doing this has beat me up in a lot of new ways. First moving across the country in stages, in a pandemic, driving a box truck through Brooklyn, setting up a tent in the middle of the woods in Tennessee at 10 pm, with three dogs, and hustling to pay for it every step of the way, that was really something. I learned a lot about myself. Then self-funding multiple residencies, remote publications, local community outreach, and my own artistic practice. Bitch, who let me out. It’s been really hard, and transparently, I’m still in the red for a lot of it. This year wouldn’t have been possible without support from my Mommex and The Rodfather, the creative community that has opened up to me here in Richmond and from my best friends. I’m stubborn, I’m passionate, I’m driven, I have an insane work ethic and I’ve worked to damn hard for someone else for so long to give up on my own self after just a year and a half. That’s what I tell myself every time I feel like I can’t do it anymore. I just have to keep printing. The divine? I am exploding with gratitude for all the things I have learned, seen, done, participated in and people that have welcomed me into their lives here in Richmond. I have been believed in, lifted up, helped out, and kept around this past year and that has been transformative. I accomplished my childhood dream of making things people didn’t know I made and honestly, I’m proud of my skillset, proud of my drive and proud of the way I walk against the crowds. I can’t wait to see what the next year holds.

Going forward I have some big goals and I realize I will probably need some help with these. I’m currently starting to look for a more publicly accessible space, not a shop necessarily but a clean hands work space/gallery/artist-serving community space. That part is big. I don’t want a print shop that caters to people who are not invested in print with their whole chest. I’m not trying to teach your gran how to make hotel pretty art or babysit your kids after school. My press is for the artists, for the creators who do this for their life, not really for their leisure. I am looking for a place that my residents can use as an installation incubator space and when I don’t have an artist in town, I want to open up the space for artists to bring their creative problems and solve them as a community. Lifting each other’s work up, posing challenges, maybe frustrating conversations at times, but evolving. Thats the space.

At the top of this page you will find some links. These are links to various websites I have lists on. If you are interested in supporting my endeavors and helping me out, please check them out. It has been really wild to start from scratch and I couldn’t do it without a great deal of support. Thanks so much for taking the time to read about where I’m heading, hope to see you there.