Got to thinking about it. I identify myself as a Chattanooga area artist, which is true. Nearly everything I have done artistically, such as shows and galleries I have been involved with have been in Chattanooga, but the hard bruising truth is that I was born and live in Dalton, GA. Now I am all for being proud of where you come from, showing respect for your roots,,,,but this town is hard to deal with. It is dying a slow painful death and taking it's inhabitants with it. There is nothing here but carpet mills and hard working, not too bright people (with very few exceptions). The carpet industry has a strangle hold on the economy and always will. They have kept every other industry out and now the carpet industry is starting to die. You start to see what corruption does to a society on a smaller level over time. Everything stagnates and then starts to die. You can only shit on one spot so long before it becomes to rancid to take. The only thing growing in Dalton is the business area around the main interstate exit, which consists of restaurants, grocery stores, Walmart, and recently, clothing stores. It all looks good if you don't go over two miles from the interstate. The only people who really have anything are the carpet mill owners and execs. but even they will not buy art in Dalton because they are ashamed to say that it came from here. The local art guild is a pile of crap and has never really been of use to anyone who does not sit on it's board. Art doesn't matter here. Whatever. So I sit here in the Trailer Park and wrack my ragged brains on how to be seen. I wave the flag but it remains invisible from here. Now I will save my Chattanooga rant for another day, but things are actually worse there...I will explain later, it's a good one. I tried to raise the flag there, but someone set it on fire and pissed on the ashes. The frustration of trying to do what I do in the middle of the bible belt is quite maddening. So, what to do. Don't really know yet, but the harder it gets, the madder I seem to get, and I think that is good. I think that if you live in this country right now and are not mad as hell about something then you are a corpse. The thing is I don't know if my battle can have a good outcome, but I am going to fight anyway. Maybe the work I do isn't valid, but to me it is, and it is what I love to do so fuck it. And if you don't understand or share my struggle then I wasn't talking to you anyway.