As a kid I didn’t do much art. I played basketball. As an obsessive kid, basketball became everything to me. To the point that during my most influential years of development, on the daily, more than anything else, I was thinking of basketball–practice, film study, games, collecting stats of favorite players, conversations with friends who share the same interest. This part of my life has left a permanent mark on the language of my internal consciousness.
Example: As I kid, I saw an iconic picture of Michael Jordan, with a baseball bat in hand, cigar in mouth, sitting in front of a man size chart of daily practice, workouts, film studies, shot, attempts, etc. As an obsessed and impressionable youth, I started doing the same, charting thousands of shot attempts, dribbling drills, etc. Now I do the same thing with my artistic practice. I chart my daily hours of creative work. I compare and compete against my past daily performances, and continue to structure and internally communicate to myself in this language of basketball symbols.
Here we are, Chet and I, in Louisville, KY, backpacks braced, wagons loaded with comics, artwork, banners, and other equipment for our weekend long Comic Book Workshop Booth at the 2023 Popcon Louisville. The biggest show we have done to date. Nervous, excited, vibrating on morning Panera coffee, we hype ourselves up like a team in the tunnel, preparing to walk into the Convention center. The bluetooth speaker in my backpack booms with the bass of Wu-Tang as we make way to locate the place of our booth. Resurrecting the spirit of my pregame youth, masking jitters with a confident gait, I attempt to find comfort by projecting an internal language of the past onto the present. I personified the moment into a game.
It was always in that tunnel before a game, anxiety awkwardly bubbling, that I would take stock of myself, of my preparation, and of the expectation of my performance. It was in this tension of recognizing my readiness that I could materialize the confidence that I had so long practiced to prove. All of it led to this, and now it was time to play.
We turn the music up–UP FROM THE 36 CHAMBERS–we jump up down, beat our chest with pride, Rick Flair Whoo into the tall convention ceilings, and make our presence known, to show the others we are ready.
