I found an incubator in RADAR, a biweekly performance art night in Las Vegas. It cultivated an environment where local performers were encouraged to take risks and develop material for a receptive audience of peers. I was a recent graduate, desperate to prove myself, and here were artists I admired. In the spirit of banishing my anxieties, I made work specifically to conjure or allude to them. Often, this meant running straight at my worst fears: weakness and failure.

After several pieces in this vein, I summoned sufficient courage to perform “State of Emergency II.” I emerge wrapped in a large unprimed linen canvas. I face my familiar audience and begin to discuss my artistic process. I try to speak deliberately and confess on the unstable nature of creative work and its codependence with my psychological and emotional stability. As the layers of my insecurities are laid bare, so is my body. I remove the canvas I bought and never used, revealing my naked body bound in yards of rope, paintings, drawings and personal journals. The thickest rope had a knot on either end; a noose and a lasso. A comment on a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. I read from my journals, capturing a history of youthful creativity seeking direction and structure. I touch upon a suicide attempt and how my desire to fulfill my creative potential twarted it. I recount tying my own self-worth to the perceived strength of my work; how it developed into a dangerous fear that strangled growth. I untangle myself from strands of rope, dropping them at my feet to describe how I worked feverishly, desperate to find others that share my passion. I recalled a time where a fellow artist, frustrated with the intensity of my highs and lows directly linked to my starts and stops with a piece, proclaimed, “It’s art! It’s not life or death!” As I sat bare, free from the ropes and unfinished paintings, I looked into those watching me and I thanked them for allowing me space to fail and emerge into a place I can be vulnerable.