2020

As a reflective exercise to look back on 2020, as well as dispel a myth I was telling myself about the amount of art and writing I did in the past year (thinking that I wasn't really writing and creating much), I made a list of the various pieces that I produced and/or published. 2020 was the most fruitful year I have had as a writer and artist.

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One of the organizations responsible for much of that work, directly and indirectly, was Creative Colloquy.

I had three poems published by Creative Colloquy in 2020—"Warpaint Melville" in the print Creative Colloquy, Volume Six and "Death Notices" and "Funeral" published online (links below).
I also joined the Creative Colloquy editorial committee, which has afforded the joy of reading and recommending others for publication. I'm grateful to CC founder Jackie Casella and CC managing editor Elizabeth Vickstein for welcoming me aboard.

And through my involvement with Creative Colloquy the past few years, I met Jennifer Chushcoff. Jennifer issued an invitation for artists to submit pieces for consideration for The Body Beloved, The Body Betrayed exhibit she curated. My piece "Through a Glass, Darkly (after Jasper Johns)" was accepted. It was a shift in the way that I work, and a reflection on the year 2020 in its own right. Plus, it started a new series of pieces that it influenced and that I will continue working on in 2021.

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"Death Notices"
https://creativecolloquy.com/death-notices-by-troy-kehm-goins/

"Funeral"
https://creativecolloquy.com/funeral-by-troy-kehm-goins/

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"Through a Glass, Darkly (after Jasper Johns)"

Montana BLACK spray paint, Sharpie marker, and metallic silver paint marker on 6” x 6” wood panel. Baked polymer clay, each approximately 1.25” x 1.75”

What happens when 20/20 vision is clouded? When a year (2020) is filled with stresses that test both the mind and the body? What does one remember of a piece of art meant to inspire one’s own work (Jasper Johns. Target with Four Faces. 1955.) without a physical reference or reproduction?

Using 1 Corinthians 13:32 as a departure point, “Through a Glass, Darkly” explores the ambiguous space/spectrum that exists between mind/body, trigger/target, surveillance/witness—all the while remaining grounded in a context of global pandemic, racial injustice, police brutality, protests and counter-protests, and political and social unrest.

The three (right) eyes echo the suggested eye of the target, as well as represent the primary colors that are also the three interior circles of the target.