But most importantly, I'm learning about myself and thinking about my responsibilities. For this work, I'm thinking about my position in these various spaces, from history, to institutions, to my role in society. Vague? Agreed.

My work has always been about the autobiography and identity. In this latest trajectory, I'm thinking about how history, institutions, and society inform my behavior, and most crucially, how I got where I am.

I'm thinking mostly about race. My race for one, but also how race, or the idea of race, has been used to separate people, or more specifically, my own separation. I'm thinking about how institutions and the members of society maintain the many ways we are separated, from race, to class, to sex, to religion, to so-called foreigners with borders, to the demonization of anyone we deem unfamiliar.

It's a lot to try to funnel into static works of art. And quite honestly, it's not apparent in my work just yet. It's nascent still. I have a lot happening with the work. It's collage on dirty stepped-on paper with glue smudges and cheap xeroxed copies of photos I took of my white hands, my white fingers, my white body in an act of nail-chewing. I'm very subtly implying history by thousands of poked holes in the paper (my idea being that history is formless, but infinitesimal in it's existence around us, constantly haunting us, impossible to grasp). The work is composed of 8.5 x 11 inch paper in distinct rows, piece by piece, like stacks, but made of so many different elements. When I think about institutions as some abstract controlling apparatus, I think about heavy stacks.

And then there is me, the member of this society, the product of this history. And this is where it gets complicated.

I have to somehow address some very abstract ideas about privilege. Because the fact is, I am a white male. Yes, I am gay, but I live in a society that favors my white male demographic. Indeed, I didn't ask for it, but I still benefit from it. I'm thinking a lot ideas of deservingness: what did I earn vs what was I given?

I work for a former model who complains about how painful it is to be a model. It's almost impossible to take seriously. From my perspective, it is a ludicrous thought that being a radiant beauty would be painful. I don't understand it, but I can't deny she feels it. I wouldn't know what it's like.

I think about my own life. As I uncover the layers of white privilege--things I didn't think about as they were never thought of as anything exclusive or unique--I do think about how it feels to have it. The feeling is abstract. It's neither a good or a bad feeling. But somehow it doesn't totally feel like a blessing.

I guess it's a feeling of separation. Separation from people, and separation from the self. That's a whole other tangent. In the meantime, I'm working on the collages very slowly.