The summer of 2021 was the beginning of enormous change and transformation for me. Aside from becoming completely sober for the first time in my adult life, I also gave up my job, my living situation, and pretty much all stability whatsoever. In the midst of this upheaval, I was also in the midst of taking the major leap of opening an art gallery and community space, Moth Belly Gallery, in my neighborhood, the San Francisco Tenderloin, with my friend and fellow artist KT Seibert. My creative journey and art practice also took a major turn. After years of being known primarily as a collage artist and a surrealist, and at a point where I was arguably at the height of my success, I found myself experiencing heavy burnout and somewhat of a creative identity crisis.

Starting in June 2021, I set aside my X-Acto knife indefinitely and began exploring drawing as my primary artistic medium. Working mostly with micron pens or oil-based colored pencils, the drawings in this collection were done over an almost three year period. They reflect my journey of self-discovery and the resulting creativity as I transformed into a new, different version of myself. The work gravitates between rotating styles, yet draws from a consistent visual language of patterns and motifs, as well as influences from my roots in surrealism, to folk and naive art, to the world of tattooing, which I worked in for three years until the pandemic in 2020.

The title of the exhibit, "All The Little Things That Happened In Our Heads," is a testament to the communal effervescence that I feel is infused in the work—almost all of the drawings were created while sitting at the desk at Moth Belly, surrounded by ever-changing exhibits showcasing the thoughts, dreams, and ideas of artists in our community. It also reflects the creative process of making this work— over the past few years, drawing has somewhat taken on the role of journaling for me, giving me a way of both documenting my creative whims and impulses, as well as the happenings in my life and my relationships with people.

As I write this now, looking at these drawings in retrospect, I feel this chapter in my life and art practice quietly coming to a close. While I have always drawn throughout my whole life and know I will continue to draw in some way or another, I can feel myself gravitating again towards different mediums and styles. As a creator, I've never really been able to "stay put" so to speak. The moment I begin making strides with any one thing, I become restless or exhausted and need to move on to something else to keep my mind stimulated. But wherever my creativity takes me next, I will carry with me the lessons I've worked hard to ingrain in myself through these drawings: to prioritize play, to embrace humor, and to do my best to accept, if not appreciate, my own imperfections as a person and an artist.

–John Vochatzer AKA Calamity Fair