Heavy Soul

Well, MFA completed. I will not, however, be abandoning this blog.

Continue checking in from time to time as I continue on. I have already been working on something new, well old but new.

My last image posted, Bedroom I, will be the start of something new, I think. Instead of the last of another series, it will be the seedlings of a new body of work. A work of both truth and fiction, melding the two into a description of a somewhat real experience.

Swan Song

Looks like the end is fast approaching. Got the Artist Talk written and practiced (mostly), images ready(ish) for installation and thesis ready for defense (I Believe). All in all, seems like I'm getting near the end, ready or not.

I have been spending alot of time planning exactly what it is I am going to install next week, and have the whole thing mapped out in my head. I made small mock ups and played around with different set ups before finally figuring out what is going to be the strongest. Know the nature of the beast that is the group show, however, I have left a little bit of wiggle room for some restructuring that may need to be done when I actually see where in the gallery I am going to be. Creating something that has both the malleability to be flexible in a pinch while still retaining that strength of its concepts has proven an interesting undertaking. I've worked alot on this with my mentor Shellburne Thurber, and feel pretty confident about what I am walking in with.

Now that I actually have the final prints in hand, and can see that I am happy with them individually, I am beginning to see the installation take shape as a whole as well.

It's been interesting seeing all of this come together, and will be interesting to see how much changes even still. I've learned that nothing (and I mean nothing) ever goes quite the way I plan it. As a result I am trying to prepare myself for anything. Should be interesting...

The Devil & Me

So, the thesis is finished. For better or worse, it has officially been submitted.

I have been focusing on getting my installation together, and making some new work that I haven't had time to do. Here's an example.

This has been one hell of a semester (in more ways than one) and now it is time to actually get back to some studio work. Made this far, just keep going.

Seven Years

I have actually been meaning to post to this for quite a while, I swear. It has been an insanely hectic month or so, and I'm coming up on the last draft of my thesis. It seems to be going well, but it does take more time, thought and energy than I had initially anticipated.

The whole experience has been one hell of a process in which I have trudged uphill, closer to ultimately understanding what the hell it is that I have been doing for the last two years. Truth of the matter is that I don't always think ahead, or know what I'm doing in advance. More often than not, in fact, I work from a more guttural place, and slowly understand what I've done only as subsequent years follow. This whole program has forced alot of growth into a short period of time, and has really made me come to terms with who I am as an artist, and why it is that I am doing just what it is that I am doing.

I've begun to consider what the Graduate Exhibition will look like, and it is starting to take shape in my brain. I don't think I will have a single image, or even a few, but really more of an installation that encompasses alot of what I have done throughout the course of this program. Working with my mentor, the amazing Shellburne Thurber, we are starting to construct something that will encompass not just what I have done, but will also reference the scope of what I have been doing, referencing the experience of memory and passage of time as well.

I will have more images to come, but they will be but a few and far between. There's still alot of work to do, and nothing is set in stone as of yet.

Electric Worry

So, I have been amazingly remiss in posting as of late. Apologies. Being wrapped up in alot of the writing, I didn't realize how much time had actually passed since my last post.

To Update:

I have been plugging away with writing, research and studio work. When one overwhelms or dead ends, I switch to another. This rotation is what has kept me going. I looked outside the other day, and apparently the summer ended when I wasn't paying attention. Oh well.

Off to another meeting with my mentor to discuss the studio work I have been doing. That is interesting in and of itself, I have been spending alot of time photographing, but have very little final product to show as of yet. That also informs, to a certain extent, my lack of posting. Check back in the next week or so, and some of what I have been working on should be done enough to post. In the meantime, here's a teaser to hold you over.

I Should Have Known

So, as I lay in bed last night at two in the morning listening to the song this post is named for (all of my posts are actually named for songs somehow related to what's going on in my life/work - music is a big part of what I do), and I began considering all of the many varied aspects of the things happening right now some things occurred to me.

As I am writing more, things are becoming clearer. The deeper into this I get, and more I continue down the road, I am understanding what all of this has been about. In so many ways, from different angles and through different methods, I have been dealing with the concept of home for some time now. Wondering what it is, how we find it, how we make it when it can't be found and so on.

It seems to me that home isn't either external or internal, but a marriage of the two; a balancing act between the world we see and experience and the way we interpolate/internalize those external forces.

The desire for home and community, a place to belong - however one may define that for themselves - is central to the way we live our lives. I have begun to research this more, and am digging into the meat of alot of it. SO much of home has to do with memory, both collective and individual.

The subject matter I choose, the way I present/approach it, all serves these questions and desires to understand what home is. What does it mean to have a home? What does it mean to be displaced from that home? What happens when you remain but your home fails you, or is stripped away from under you, piece by piece?

An individual makes home, constructs experience. It is in all of us, and executed in ways both grand and subtle. Sometimes unnoticed, sometimes painfully obvious; We all want home - whatever that means.

Avalon

If there was no tomorrow, would you remain the same?

The semester has officially started. Met with my mentor, started writing my thesis and shot more work. This is going to be rough. I know the answers I'm looking for are going to unfold as I jointly write and shoot more. I am not going into this thesis semester in ideal shape, and I'm certainly not going by the book here. I have to just kind of make it up as I go, and balance all of the intricate parts and pieces, paying attention to whatever needs it most at the moment. Though bruised and a little battered, I'm far from down and out. Keep checking in, this should be interesting to see unfold.