🍁US: Art Show & Tell, of a Point of Order, add a little ice cream, my just reward. A young woman, lingering with a tattooed crowd in downtown Edmonton near the library, complimented my artwork. After finishing my rapidly melting ice cream in the 24°C heat, I walked over to her gang to show the backside, titled Disorder. Suddenly, a young man lunged at me. "Get the f*** away from here!" he snapped. Before I could react, the group's matriarch—Mama Tattoo—spoke up. "I like your painting," she said, her voice steady. The young man’s demeanor shifted. He looked at the artwork again, his expression softening. "That's an amazing piece of art," he admitted. 
The Selfish Pursuit of Artistic Truth

🎨 Let’s get this out of the way: “Selfishness” is a dirty word — unless you’re an artist. Then it becomes a survival strategy, a compass, a tiny act of rebellion you carry in your pocket like a stolen hotel pen. I didn’t invent this. I learned it from the greats who shook me awake for decades inside the (AGA) Art Gallery of Alberta and from afar, Chicago's (MCA) Museum of Contemporary featuring Virgil Abloh's Figures of Speech, 2019.

Chicago's Virgil Abloh — the remix prophet. Virgil’s mantra — “Life is so short you can’t waste even a day subscribing to what someone thinks you can do…” — hit me like a brick wrapped in velvet. He didn’t just cross boundaries; he dissolved them. Architect, DJ, designer, theorist — he treated disciplines like Lego bricks. His selfishness wasn’t ego. It was permission. Permission to remix. Permission to study everything and belong nowhere. Permission to say “We wear what we believe.”

What they all taught me? Mindful selfishness — the good kind — is the artist’s oxygen. It’s the courage to defy conformity in pursuit of personal truth. Guard your mental and emotional health Turn pain into pigment. Let your work say what your voice can’t. Give others permission to be unapologetically themselves. These artists didn’t just influence me. They cracked open the door I didn’t know I was allowed to walk through. Their selfishness made space for my own. And in that space, I found my brush, my voice, and my .09% slice of citizen free press in a democracy.

XLifeY