In October of 2014, while traveling and away from my daily routine, I had the opportunity to step back and ask myself what I wanted to create as an artist. If I spent my time making art, what did I want that art to “do”—what role would it take in my own experience and what would it offer the world? When I allowed my pragmatic mind to discount any potential for my work to have a meaningful impact, it seemed a daunting question. An internal response eventually arose that was full of genuine energy and unguarded in a way that seemed almost embarrassing when considered something I would share. In a flood of ideas, I recorded various phrases that seemed urgent for me to express. While challenging myself to offer something of value to others, I realized later that the phrases were more important for myself to ponder or dare to enact.

The Notes to Self series is slowly taking form in various media. The first finished work in the series, Clear Mind, Open Skies, is embroidery on linen. Clarity, a chalk pastel on paper, is the second completed work. Future works include such phrases as “Religion of kindness,” “Your misery is great, I am small,” and “What lasts,” among others.

Between late 2014 and 2017 when the first works in this series were realized, my world shifted in ways that gave me courage and sense of urgency to create these intimate and revealing works. In 2015, while I was working with Susan O’Malley, a brilliant young artist and curator, as a participant in a group exhibition she curated, Susan passed away suddenly, a tragedy that deeply affected her expansive community. With shock and grief, I spent time researching Susan’s own artwork, about which I knew very little. I was moved by her work, which included many text-based pieces with heartfelt messages. Susan’s bravery in being utterly sincere and vulnerable in her work, and the fact that her opportunities to share more with the world had been cut short, encouraged me to go through with my Notes to Self series. In 2016, when I revisited the phrases I had written a couple years prior, our country was in the middle of a political election that brought out hatred, social division, and gross manipulations of the truth. Like many people, I have felt saddened and near hopeless about these realities. Though I have no illusions that my artwork can change the world, I will at least spend time dwelling on and displaying some words of hope and contemplation as one tiny counterbalance to the strife.

-Chandra Cerrito 2017