“All human beings create their own mythologies, and
I’m in the somewhat bizarre circumstance of creating a big mythology that gets
shared with a lot of people. In some ways, doing the work that I do is about
reinventing a value system. More or less, there’s a ubiquitous value system in
America, these markers that signify your rite of passage into adulthood or into
validity: getting married and having kids and having mortgages. But I always
felt a little bit like an alien cocking my head to the side at various cultural
milestones, going, ‘I would never aspire to that.’
I’ve chosen a line of work and a community that
doesn’t abide by the same value system. My markers are more about the things
that I make and do, and I am happiest when I’m forging ahead and watching the
Rubik’s cube slowly come together—or being midway through the process and
going, ‘This isn’t a Rubik’s cube at all.’ That’s not any sort of indictment on
other people’s mile markers, they’re just not mine; those markers aren’t a
threat to me, and my choices shouldn’t be a threat to them. I just had to
eschew one paradigm to be free enough to construct another.”
St. Vincent
