Come join Waldo's and Co for May First Friday!

Featured artist: Colby Sirbaugh

Reception from 6-8 PM
Community Dinner at 7:00
Suggested Donation for dinner is $5
As always food is first come first serve and when it's gone it's gone.

Biography:

Colby Sirbaugh is a writer and visual artist based in Maryland. His focus is collage and poetry with foundations in drawing and photography. His work began to take form while researching sexuality, art vs. pornography, politics and censorship for the International Baccalaureate Art program. The body of work you can see today exists because of the inspiration he found during his time working for The University of Tennessee Knoxville’s Ewing Gallery of Art & Architecture in which they featured work by Richard Meier and selections from the International Collage Center. His work has been featured in The University of Tennessee Knoxville’s campus Literary Arts Publication, Phoenix and has been on exhibit courtesy of SHE/THEY at Area 31 in Frederick, Maryland.

Statement:


"I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me... I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign & re-create myself—". I began to fully understand my work and what it means to me from the first moment I read this Anais Nïn quote. Art has always been a way for me to understand myself. I create so that I don't suffocate. I create so that I don't destroy—so that I am.

First and foremost, my work is for myself. Really, I just need somewhere to put my thoughts and feelings—somewhere less crowded than my mind. I use selective imagery to evoke thoughts of love, loss and identity because I want people to relate to my work—to find themselves or get lost in it completely. We all face some levels of physical, sexual and emotional violence, but we have varying degrees of privilege. To be policed is to be politicized. Artists are politicians, there's almost no choice in the matter. The art becomes political because it is a reaction to the world I live in and how that makes me feel. My work, in and of itself, is activism. I believe that applies to every
marginalized artist even if that's not our intention. To exist in a world where you find yourself unwanted, unaccepted, invalidated—in a world that tells you no, existence is resistance. The more I live, the more I create, the closer I get to my truth, the closer I get to self-actualization. My work is a constant attempt to make sense of life and a testament to my own.