Blog / 2023 / “It Seems Like Everything Should Be Fine...”
September 6, 2023
Instead of Gwenn (which is to say me), in this video you’ll be hearing from Jen! She’s a neuroscient as well as a longtime supporter of my art.
Everything’s Fine is the series Jen is talking about, and the next phase of the project is turning the paintings into a coloring book and high school level curriculum.
If you’d like to be involved, I’m currently running a Kickstarter for Everything’s Fine. It allows you pre-order a copy of the book, buy special edition posters, or get a great deal on custom art!
For those of you in the Princeton area, Everything’s Fine is currently on display at the library, and I’m doing an art class for teens at the end of the month!
Princeton Public Library
65 Witherspoon
Princeton, NJ 08542
Open: now through October 15th
Hours: every day, visit PPL site for times
Hands-on art workshop for teens
Saturday September 30th from 3p to 4:30p
Register here!
Threat Level Cupcake
2023
acrylic on panel
12 x 6 inches
(Order prints here.)
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Between 2016 and 2020, there were so many opportunities to scream. And all of that anger and grief and frustration had something to attach to. In the post 2020 world, I think it some ways it’s harder, because there are fewer opportunities to have that experience of struggling as a community, and in that struggle feeling like you’re working towards something better.
Now, we’re all in this world where everything’s fine—it seems like everything should be fine. But it’s not. It’s sometimes harder to articulate the ways that it’s not and to know what to do with those residual emotions.
This is something that I’ve thought a lot about and that I’ve talked about a lot with my friends, but I haven’t seen anybody really talk about it on, like, a big public scale in the way that this series of yours does. And I think that’s a really beautiful and effective tool to maybe give people a framework or a way to re-enter that conversation.
One of my favorite pieces in the show is Threat Level Cupcake. Especially since I’m a neuroscientist, and so, like, thinking about how you would visualize or imagine the state of an overstimulated brain is so fascinating to me. I loved it.
And then, my other favorite piece was If You Were Me, I’d Call Me Us. I really liked the idea that a person can be their authentic self in different ways in different circumstances, and that that can change over time. And that the nature of that change makes it a more authentic expression and not a less authentic expression. I think sometimes people feel like, once they’ve established an identity for themselves, they have to, like, plant their flag in the sand. That’s, like, that’s who they are and that’s never ever going to change.
But you find yourself in these continually unprecedented circumstances, and of course that’s going to change you as a person—it’s going to change how you relate to other people and how you relate to the world. And I think the idea of acknowledging and recognizing and celebrating that kind of flexibility in our own understanding of ourselves in our relationship to other people and to the broader world is a really valuable thing to think about.
Gwenn-Seemel-dot-com-slash-everythings-fine.
If I Were You, I’d Call Me Us
2023
acrylic on panel
14 x 11 inches
(Order prints here or contact me to purchase the original for $1200.)
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