"I Am Singing for Good"

reflectionschildhoodjournalmemorywhy I create
Written By Robbi Firestone

Assessing my life is an act I endeavor weekly, if not daily. I believe we design our lives. This intentional focus is to steer my ship toward a horizon of Good. To speak through action, thought, and deed to "my god." (A very personal definition, I assure you.)

I do it for Her. This little girl (who is Me.)

I grew up Appalachian poor, in a cold house that was often cruel and negligent.

And I was the little girl told to "shut up and sit in a corner."

I remember I LOVED going to church. People paid attention to me. People heard my voice, as I sang in Catholic school choir, often the lead.

Every Sunday, my scrawny little legs raced to the front pew (to be closer to God, ha!), much to the dismay of my extremely self-conscious step-mom, whom I loved dearly.

The pianist began. I felt the joy rise as I heard the opening notes and recognized the Prayer of Saint Francis. I closed my eyes, lifted my heart, and opened my pipes. I sang my nine-year-old heart out.

After the chorus, my mother shushed me. "Be quiet," she said. "You're singing too loud."

I turned to her, calm, my heart full, and explained gently. "But Mom, I'm not singing for these people," I said. "I am singing for God."

I'm sure my mom blushed. She knew I was right.

I was being innocently honest. I wasn't singing for anyone but me, and my god.

Who says that at nine years old?

That's why and how I make art to this day.

I have a very intimate relationship with the Spirit, as I understand it, in this lifetime.

My brain was always independent, justice-oriented, rebellious, and connected to a source much deeper than the society around me.

That's why I keep a constant inventory of my life: how am I doing with my relationships, my loves, my creativity, my finances, my kindness to nature… This ongoing, intentional accounting, which I keep in my Artist's Way journal, keeps my values straight and my eyes on the prize: fulfilling my mission on this planet, in this lifetime.

So today: am I singing (making art) for the people around me? Or am I singing (making art) for my god?

Robbi Firestone

Robbi Firestone is a contemporary American painter and conceptual artist working between New York City and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her practice spans three decades of sustained inquiry into how beauty, urgency, and ethical responsibility coexist in a fragile world.

Her paintings, in oil, acrylic, pastel, and graphite, emerge from sustained observation of landscape and sky, rooted in the high desert of New Mexico. These are not depictions of place but states of being: the land as inner weather, the horizon as meditation on presence and the radical act of sustained attention.

Her conceptual practice, most notably the 2026 series Existential Snacks: Food for Thought, deploys mass-produced consumer materials as a Trojan horse, seductive in their familiarity and disturbing in their implications, addressing ecological collapse, cultural numbness, and the human tendency to consume without thinking.

These are not two separate bodies of work. They are one philosophical position expressed in two registers: feeling as the ground from which thought becomes possible; thought as the ground from which action becomes necessary.

Firestone's work has received formal recognition from leading figures in the contemporary art world.

Louis Grachos, Executive Director of SITE Santa Fe, writes: "Robbi Firestone's Existential Snacks project is a brilliant contemporary extension of the longstanding tradition of Satirical Artworks. Innovative in her use of materials, Firestone's paintings/sculptures reveal a sense of humor, are clever and reveal a substantial insight into her subject matter which makes this series so successful."

Merry Scully, Head of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Contemporary Art at the New Mexico Museum of Art, wrote of The Infertility Project: "You are telling a powerful story...this project may take on a life of its own and take years to unfold," drawing comparison to Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party. The National Museum of Women in the Arts described her work as "a testament to the power of transforming personal pain into a benefit for the greater good."

The Infertility Project premiered at the United Nations in parallel with the Commission on the Status of Women. The project became the subject of a documentary film by Betsy Chasse, director of What the Bleep Do We Know, available on Amazon Prime.

Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Worth Magazine, the Boston Herald, the Huffington Post, and the Santa Fe New Mexican.

Firestone's work is held in distinguished private collections across the United States. She is currently represented by 203 Fine Art, Taos, New Mexico.

Studio visits are by appointment in New York City and Santa Fe.

https://www.FirestoneArt.com
Next

Why the Blood & Bones Series?