I traveled to a midway point somewhere between Toledo and Ann Arbor to meet with the visual artist who I first worked with at the beginning of my career. His work really stuck with my taste and a year from our last discussion I was driving up the highway to go meet him. 

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Earlier that week I had interviewed a few other artists working hard to make it in the rough and gritty world of selling art, and was finding myself exhausted from the endless driving between cities. 

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I pulled off the highway to a small quaint town, down roads that winded around lakes and homes hidden in the forest. Winter had been upon us for some time now and the heat was on full blast cranked up in my mom's honda.

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I had arrived before him and grabbed my equiptment out of the neatly packed passenger seat, fastened it over my arm across my back and looking around the streets. Next to the building there was a structure being built and men in high vision jackets working outside of it with jackhammers to break up the pavement. 

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A woman walked across the street and I spoke to her asking if this was indeed the library. With her confirmation my thoughts began to rush and with the jack hammering growing more intense I walked into the library thinking how in the hell this was going to work. 

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Walking into the small building the noise outside became dulled with the thick walls and double doors and I walked over to a few individuals who seemed to be working behind a desk and asked where the conference room that I had reserved was located. 

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I was directed to a room that my eye had passed when I walked in and began to walk towards it. Opening the door and walking into a tightly packed space with a large table accompanying a set of ten chairs and stacks of old computers surrounded by filing cabinets that read "obituaries" in a white typewriter chop font backed with black adhesive labels.

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I took a deep sigh exhaling outward and began to unpack my equiptment. Screwing and clipping the pieces together faster than I had when meeting the artist Patrick Ethen, who's punctual and percise nature had critiqued my assembly skills a week before. Causing me to improve with simply threading techniques that before meeting him, I was unaware of.

 

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Once my equipment was stationary and functional I sat beside it thinking calmly. Imaging a figure walking through that doorway at any second not knowing what they will appear as. For before that day, I had not known the visual appearance of this artist I had interviewed a year before. And I continued to sit collected when a man approached and the door opened. 

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He said "hey" and In his hands was wrangled a box of materials, a few small sketch books and a few frames of artwork. I introduced myself, welcomed him into the tightly packed space and watched as he placed his items on the table before us. 

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He proceeded to ask me about a larger piece he had kept in the car and I suggested he go and grab that as well, for what layed in front of me was about to be a challenge to pull together. 

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He left the room and I glanced at his work, visualizing the ways that my camera would capture his life in a place that had no signifigance to either of us. My mind worked hard and in moments time Matthew Bremer walked back into the tightly packed conference room. 

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Through the process of pretending and sharp visuals that captured very item in his arsenal of art ten times over, I was able to capture his artistic process. 

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Once the first half was completed, I proceeded to take a series of portraits of him against a background, that was split light grey paneling on the only empty wall space in the room. 

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His face was tense but I coaxed him to a smile that was quickly followed by eyes rolling in a humorous manor that I did not mind. A few moments passed and I pressed the end record button, then directing him to the microphone. 

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The combination of his voice, his face and his movements pulled the portrayal together. Allowing me to once again feature this intense artist who's artwork rang vibrancy and whimsy. 

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I look forward to the development of this artists career. For any person who creates has the opportunity to continue for life. With all the people I have met in my life time, I have had the ability to study those who give up and those who push on... 

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I want to be one of the few who push on and go all the way. And I hope that what I do inspires others to do the same.