Lay It Down, 2011
Michael Stoltz

Lay It Down is the first complete, cohesive and serious, work of art I have created in two years. The piece is about my struggle to come to a place where I can breathe and make art. It is a four-channel piece with one large projection and three television monitors evenly spaced below the projection. On the projection is two visual layers, one of abstract shapes of color and the other of a manipulated instructional meditation video. There are also several aural layers, a jumbled mash up of instructions on meditation. Below, each monitor has two visual layers and two aural layers. Each monitor has an image and audio of a spiritual leader of some sort that is giving advise interlaced with an image and audio of an abstracted dog that is barking. A dog barking can be one the most annoying and distracting sounds and also can be very frightening. I see the three dogs as a pack or as a three-headed dog representing the distractions and fears that keep you from your goals in life. The guru's and meditations represent the goal of living a meaningful life and attaining some sense of peace within one's self. When all four channels are viewed at once it becomes impossible to focus, the end is a stressful mess of mixed messages. For me being at peace and making art are one in the same and when involved in the process of art making it is meditation. In this piece I think I succeeded in combining aspects of autobiography and visual display without including my own image, bridging the two year gap between my life then and my life now.