I’m not really sure what mainstream society is. Some people might like to think that white American sensibility is mainstream. Maybe the most commercial (whatever sells the most) is mainstream. If you can buy it on a clearance table at the mall or hang it on any hotel room wall.

It’s hard for me to imagine that appealing to anyone. I think a lot of people find it acceptable. I dont want my art to be acceptable.

The mainstream I’m interested in is my own stream of consciousness.

I’m not trying to be unique, I’m trying to be authentic.

I believe that if I can tell a story that truly means something to me, it will resonate with viewers. That stream runs through all of us, and has been running through many generations before flowing through me.

Lately I’ve been looking at old photographs that I brought home from my parents’ shed last summer. The first album I picked up contained pictures of my great great grandparents, and may have been glued to the fragile black pages by my great great grandmother a hundred years ago. I think it was my great grandmother who assembled it, because there are many more pictures of that generation.

In a stack of six albums, there are pictures of my grandparents as young teenagers and pictures of my father as a little child. My parents’ wedding, and even pictures of me.

Turning the pages led from my great great grandfather to me.

We’re not that different. They took pictures of their cars, their houses and the pumpkins from their gardens. Just like me.

I wish I could talk to them. I wish they could have known that I would stare into the image of their eyes looking for a similarity. A family resemblance.

And then I remember that I am here because of them. Their DNA is in me, and I can see them in my mirror.