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Just a Suit

by Raymond Gaston

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Raymond Gaston, Just a Suit, 2016, Sculpture—Paper and ink, 36”x28”x10”

Just a Suit, 2016

Artist’s Statement

I am interested in schema, that script we all carry around in our heads telling us what to do and how to react to repeated cultural happenings. And because I am interested in this, I am also interested in, well, not this. What I want to do, then, is to challenge that schema in a way that creates an entirely foreign experience. Endlessly, I am intrigued by the idea that we do things without fully meaning to do them. That our actions are not thought out in such a manner that we live fully conscious of each moment, but rather that we react and then later reflect. The idea that our reactions to things are based in shared experience rooted in culture is at the core of my work. That we respond to things based on a script in our head, not our experience at that moment. Because of this, I want to challenge myself to find these reactions and create a response in myself that is contrary to how I would automatically react. Each piece that I make is for a specific question and place. And each piece deals with my questions of schema, of what my reaction is supposed to be. And if my reaction then is something not unique to my own feelings, I want my art to question that, to push back and have an individual reaction.

Just a Suit is a piece that I created in response to and in combination with my novel, The Way Your Father Dies. It is a reflection on the idea, both literally and metaphorically, of being in someone else’s story, and yet, how that is also an impossible action.

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Raymond GastonRaymond Gaston received his MFA in creative writing from Antioch University, where he was the launching editor in chief of Lunch Ticket, a literary journal published by the Antioch MFA community. He recently spoke and read at the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, and was invited to the Institute des Hautes Etudes en Arts Plastiques, part of the Paris Biennale. His fiction has appeared in The Commonline Journal, Five2One Magazine, and the Evening Street Press. His artwork has been shown at the Brand Museum, the Santa Monica Gallery, and in private collections around the world.

October 2, 2017 lunchticket

2017 marked the 20th anniversary of the founding of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles. We are commemorating this occasion with a special edition of our journal.

Lunch Ticket Special: Celebrating 20 Years of Antioch’s MFA in Creative Writing features new and previously published works by Antioch MFA alumni.

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A Word from the Editor

Social justice can have an expansive or narrow focus. It can emanate from a handful of the like-minded, or a community—or even a country. It can encompass two billion Facebook users or the entire global community. On a daily basis, we telescope from the personal to the interpersonal, our friendships and peers, and then outwards to the struggles of communities, societal ills, or global epidemics. These spheres often clash…

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  • Home
  • Table of Contents
  • About
    • A Word from the Editor
    • Mission Statement
    • Masthead
  • Contact