Kyle Kessler & Rodney Hasty

Kyle Kessler

 

Dear friends/family,

I’m sure you’ve heard me refer to myself as an artist in casual conversation. This was a term I used to describe myself as a matter of convenience.  I erroneously used the term “artist” when I was, in fact, alluding to a particular way of life rather than a profession. Up until now I have not actually been an artist nor have I ever really felt I was one. At times, I did feel I was “artistic,” “bohemian,” “different”--but these qualities could have just as easily been applied to a stockbroker or a plumber. These qualities did not determine whether I was an artist or not. Already, I had received two professional degrees in art. I filed my W-9s under the title “Conceptual Artist,” yet when a stranger asked me what it was that I did, I hesitated. I felt as though I were stuck in a perpetual state of gestation--always becoming and never arriving.
Sometimes I felt close. Was I merely a twenty-minute train ride away? Twenty years too late/early? How far out is the center of culture?

As the recession unfolded, I began to feel more and more apprehensive. I was twenty-five . . . I knew I had to get to work if I ever wanted to succeed in life.

I fell into a great depression. I locked myself in my studio, determined to leave only when I felt I had become an artist. I looked deep within myself. What was missing? For forty hours I sat surrounded by my sketchbooks and new works . . . and that’s when it hit me . . .

EVERYTHING MUST GO! Sell it all!
Sell paintings! Sell drawings! Sell project-based work! Sell readymades! Sell videos! Sell documentation! Sell things that are pregnant with meaning—and truth!
Everything is potentially priceless!
Everything is potentially worthless!
Everything has value!
Everything comes with a price!
I am an emerging artist.

Now I knew how I would become a professional female artist; it was time to do some brainstorming on how I might brand myself. How could I reassure consumers that my work was both timeless and contemporary? How could I guarantee that my image would be, at once, in fashion and avant-garde? I wanted everything, so I settled for nothing. I hope you enjoy all that I have to offer.

Happy holidays,
Kyle K

 

 

Rodney Hasty

 

Local audio insurgent and monster-by-vocation Rodney Hasty has been making people uncomfortable for over 25 years. Hasty is known for his crowd thinning antics as frontman of the party-noise band Yakuza Dance Mob, his professional horror performaces at the annual Atrox Factory Haunted House, and his convincing illnesses for medical students in University of Alabama at Birmingham's Simulated Patient classrooms.