final post of the semester!

It's hard to believe it's that time of the year! I feel a little extra push to make this post count.

So after my last post about getting back to the basics of what drives me to make work, it makes sense to follow up with some classic, personal inspirations.

I believe that it is my job as an artist to make visible the art that already exists in the world. Even though I tend to kind of be scattered during the weekdays, I am still always inclined to stop and look a the patterns that my coffee grinds have left on my filter. I still view my daily lists as drawings, examining them compositionally and aesthetically, rather than fully on what these lists patiently wait for me to complete. My art is always examining these ephemeral, frequently overlooked artifacts of daily experiences and trying to figure out how to prompt others to appreciate these aspects of their lives as well.

I believe that the best art is that which cannot be created by the artist. Just last night, I was working on another version of the hymnals piece for class (actually this is the one I originally set out to make-- the one from the last crt took a different path) and I cut the spine out of one of the books with a utility knife. I noticed that all the tightly stacked pages was incredibly beautiful; they implied so many things that interest me all at once: the likeness to skin and the body, the ephemeral nature of the paper itself, the pages that would be beautiful one page at a time, but take on a whole new beauty as a whole, the aesthetic of time passing, memory. But I think what made it especially beautiful is the fact that I didn't plan for it-- although I cut the papers, I didn't plan to make something beautiful. It was unexpected and unforced. I know that art that combines some element of chance (or maybe something else) always has the potential to be stronger than something I have planned and fully manipulated.

Reading books such as Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life by Allan Kaprow and The Reenchantment of Art by Suzi Gablik have been especially helpful and interesting. Kaprow's book is a collection of his essays over the decades that all relate on the connection between art and life, and Gablik's book makes the case that art needs so become integrated with life, rather than being autonomous like during the Modernist era. (If you're interested in Kaprow's work MOCA has a great site: http://www.moca.org/kaprow/index.php/2008/05/13/documentation-of-18-happenings-in-6-parts/#more-230)

Well I guess that's about all for now! Have a great break everyone and happy art-ing.