developing new ideas...

some rambling and some thoughts on life and art...

some of my many influences...

developing new ideas...

After being able to see all of my thesis work displayed in the gallery, I was able to think about things that I could adjust or change so that they might explore my ideas in more depth.  I also was able to think about how these ideas and this body of work might develop into bolder ideas. 

The following concepts and words have captivated me: wrapping, assemblage, collectivity, clutter, repetition, chaos, maximalism, accumulation, juxtapositions, contradictions, nature, asymmetry, nostalgia, physical tension, the power of the unknown, hiding vs. revealing, looking upwards, backlighting and silhouettes, the unplanned humor of chance vs. staged humor, interactive sculpture, installation artwork, gaining and losing an identity through concealment or exposure.

In my next body of work I think that it is very important to narrow my focus on more specific problems such that I can more easily get my ideas across to the viewer, even if I were to incorporate maximalist principles.

I would like to explore a wider range of scale in all of my work.  My pieces have thus been fairly consistent in scale, and I feel that pushing the scale to extremes would allow me to explore my ideas in a far more interesting context.  I would like to experiment with stretching objects such as fabric through space in order to alter an environment.  I am also very interested in fabric largely because of its dually opaque and transparent quality as well as its ability to adapt to almost any situation.

I would furthermore like to find a way to create a deeper connection between the bodies observing my pieces and the pieces themselves.  What if my pieces were in fact observing the observer?  What if the observer became the piece only through a certain specific interaction that they could chose to have or not to have?  What if I were to make public installation art and plant a surveillance camera to see how people react to encouraged interaction through destruction or disassemblance?

I am very interested in the feeling people get when they are surrounded or enveloped completely by something.  Are they comforted, claustrophobic, scared, curious, or apathetic?  Instead of wrapping objects, what if I wrapped people?  The temples, mosques, caves, tunnels, and homes that I saw on my recent trip around the world played vital roles in revealing how people interact with the world in large part through religion.  The Buddha statues in Thailand and China could be so enormous that a single statue would fill up a temple completely.  At times you could not see the roof or even the other side of the room.  When observing, there was never a doubt that you were squeezed into the same space as an overwhelming presence.

More thoughts and problems that interest me and inspire me to pursue the answers through sculpture:

•Wrapped forms within wrapped forms.  Do the two or more forms remain separate entities, become one piece, or fluctuate between being separated and unified.  What happens when there is or is no clear separation between objects?

•happens when there is or is no clear separation between objects?

•Repetition vs. the stand along object: designs, ornamentation, graves, spaces, rooms, buildings, temples, herds of animals, nature, people, traffic, and trash are things that I have thus far considered.

•The planned event or happening vs. the haphazard and the spontaneous event.  The hopeless flaws and disadvantages of each as well as the beauty of each.

•Why is it so easy to feel so lonely while engulfed in a crowded room?

***Please Note:

Specific works are talked about in greater depth under the link, “Works, Exhibitions, Publicity.”

You’ve read my thoughts, now tell me yours: