My work as Handy Dandy is very different from my art work as James Worsham.

Handy Dandy is more versatile. It’s geared towards amazing design that showcases creativity with brand aesthetics in mind. The artist as James Worsham, the man behind the bow tie Handy Dandy Productions, is a little different.

I’ve never utilized art to express things about myself. I never felt I had anything to say with it. Instead, I told stories and jokes in person, making sure everyone was taken care of and had a good time. I use my humor as a mask and a coping mechanism, and that’s totally fine, but it also leads to a lot of things getting swept under the carpet. My uncle passed away this last winter. He was an artist and fellow gay dude who suffered from depression so great that he took the worst way out. I didn’t really wrap my brain around this until I saw his artwork again in person and realized that my work is my voice. I needed to use it to say things I couldn’t really express otherwise.

I started thinking through a lot of my ‘classic stories’ that I use to make light of otherwise serious situations or just ignored entirely. Drug addictions of people close to me, being a butch gay in drag race world, or even the loneliness of being an ambitious self-employed art kid. They’re not even all bad things. I’m never going to be somber, and that’s fine. I should use those things too.

I recently started a small series of marble slabs engraved with golden pills. I enjoy the fact that people can view this as a tongue-in-cheek reference to party drugs, but to me, it’s not. It’s darker and heavier. It’s also something I’m not exactly ready to write on a blog just yet. It deals with addiction, and glorification, and literally setting something in stone. But, by making work about it, I’m becoming more comfortable with it. I’m processing it. It’s not my own addiction issues, and if anything, it’s led me to be almost phobic of pills and medications entirely.

I’m looking forward to this new process and thought-line. If anything, I think it will make my work as Handy Dandy even better.

Personal Work