Omaha, my hometown, is an ugly city where cool places are constantly being opened and innovative concepts are attempted, only to be beaten down by an indifferent populace more focused on going to restaraunts and watching football. I went back for a few days to collect materials for a shoot, photograph a model, see friends and family.
One of the interesting bits of the trip was being around other artists and photographers-- I have next to no artist community in Phoenix, and certainly not anyone who has known me for 10+ years, where we can tie our mutual life experiences to what art we are making. There is art that is not tied to an artist's personality or history-- let's call it "commercial work"-- and there is a time and place for that, however I am interested in how, say, being a newlywed or coming out of the closet changes the creative impulse. For the first time I understood why a friend always painted a type of girl because I understand that traditionally female figures are a substitute for a creative ideal, tied to some kind of subconcious need to understand feminine mystique.
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It was also really interesting to see how art bled into and affected people's personal lives. Someone outside of the artist gets deeply hurt or falls in love or looks at themselves differently because of what the artist creates. That has happened to me but never so much as right now, where the art I make is totally changing relationships at home. In a lot of ways that is hard to understand-- most of the time I feel like I just make things and it should have no bearing on anyone else... 
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