I moved to Colorado in 2010 and immediately fell in love with the local art community.  I joined Next Gallery in the Navajo Street Art District in 2011, and over the last decade or so I've seen artists all over Denver struggling to hold on to their places.  At first I was excited to see trendy new restaurants and bars opening in the nearby Highlands district, and I imagined our galleries nestled among them.  Over time I became dismayed to see old buildings full of character and carrying the weight of their history coming down.  The artists in the district watched as our old neighborhood disappeared and nearly identical rows of generic condominiums went up just 12 blocks away. Then 6 blocks away.  Then on the next block over.  Most of the galleries on Navajo were forced to move.  The very culture which creates vibrant communities that make Denver a desirable place to live is being pushed out.  The thing is, we lost a gallery space that we loved but we redefined ourselves and we moved on, and as a group Next Gallery is stronger than it’s ever been.  Perhaps the compulsion for redevelopment isn’t unique to Denver, perhaps it’s a part of what it means to be American.  Our society doesn't recognize or value a collective culture, we neglect and then tear down our history to replace it with something new.  Not better, just... new.  Sometimes I look at our impact on the environment and I fear that it’s not just a part of what it means to be American, but a defining quality of what it means to be human.  Perhaps our ability to overcome comes from a healthy need for growth and redefinition of ourselves.  Perhaps it’s simply a wasteful and destructive impulse that we’re not in control of.  I don’t fully understand why we do this, but I can recognize the compulsion toward this behavior and the drawbacks to it, and the exploration of these human qualities is the purpose of this body of work.
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