What Pressure Reveals

Two years ago—though it feels both distant and immediate—I was home with a one-month-old daughter when a gallery asked if I could prepare three finished sculptures by May.

For many artists, that might sound manageable. For me, it was daunting.

I am not a production artist. I don’t replicate forms endlessly or work half-consciously while something hums in the background. Each piece takes time—sometimes painful time. Ideas arrive slowly, shaped by contemplation, doubt, and the need for each work to be distinct from the last. Nothing happens overnight, and when it does happen quickly, it usually hurts.

Still, I agreed.

At the time, I was working ten-hour shifts, often driving coworkers home afterward. Some nights I’d run a short loop just to clear my head, then head straight into the basement, pulling on overalls and carving until exhaustion made it unsafe to continue. This was during a two-week rotation, which meant working Saturdays as well. Sleep became a deficit. If eight hours was the goal, I was living on four to six—sometimes less.

And yet, the work I produced during that period remains among my strongest.

The Role of Pressure

Looking back, I understand why. The request from a reputable gallery, combined with the responsibility of providing for a newborn, created a pressure I couldn’t escape. Survival became motivation. The desire to be better than yesterday wasn’t philosophical—it was necessary.

That kind of pressure strips away excess. It forces clarity. It reveals what matters.

I was reminded of this recently in an entirely different context.

A Night in the Storm

After a family gathering nearly an hour and a half away, I began driving home through worsening snow squalls. Visibility dropped to nothing, then cleared just long enough to reveal another drift ahead. The road became a tunnel of white noise and instinct.

I had good tires. A solid vehicle. Music loud enough to keep me alert. There was a strange focus that set in—the kind that appears when there’s only one job: get through.

Near home, I realized I’d made a selfish mistake. My brother was still stranded nearly an hour back, stuck in the middle of nowhere as conditions worsened. Without much hesitation, I turned around.

What followed was hours of frozen wind, soaked clothing, cars abandoned in ditches, pulling strangers free, getting stuck myself, then helping coordinate a long, roundabout rescue. At one point, I rolled into a gas station with the gauge reading negative distance—somehow still moving, rationed by the hybrid system just long enough to survive the last stretch.

I was wired. Focused. All or nothing.

My sister-in-law later told me she didn’t recognize my voice when I spoke to her. That survival self had taken over.

Why This Matters to Art

As viewers, it’s easy to miss what goes into a finished work. The sweat. The exhaustion. The moments where failure feels imminent.

Van Gogh is an obvious example—not because of his suffering alone, but because his work holds both torment and grace at once. We feel it. His paintings carry the tension between despair and reverence for life, fused into something enduring.

I believe that kind of intensity—whether born of necessity, responsibility, or sheer will—brings us closer to our core selves. When an artist works from that place, something transfers through the medium. Not consciously. Not deliberately. But unmistakably.

What Endures

Sometimes, it’s the need to overcome—regardless of circumstance—that deepens the value of the work. Not because suffering is noble, but because pressure reveals truth. It strips away pretension and leaves only what’s essential.

When that drive finds its way into the work, it gives the piece a pulse. A weight. A presence.

And perhaps that’s what we respond to most—not perfection, but the quiet evidence that someone pushed through something real to bring it into being.