Again With the Chickens

1) The Red Junglefowl is a supercolorful member of the Pheasant family and is related to the domestic CHICKEN. Okay, so I mentioned chickens last week. Here's why this inspiration is different: label perception. Were your interests piqued by that exotic label used to spice up poultry exchanges and seduce county fairgoers? In the spirit of research, I conducted an experiment at the local Cambria County Fair wherein I swapped the placards of the regular chooks with the exotic birds. When people noticed the switch (which was not that often), the common birds received much more attention. I am now considering a career in Bird Breeder Businesscards.

In fact, I've been thinking a lot about how my artistic career is related to the business world. And if there is one thing that I learned from the upper echelon of CEO's, it is that networking is everything.

2) Networking is an amazing phenomenon that is both empowering and humbling at the same time. One finds herself with the incredible power to relate to virtually everything through some pathway, but she is kept in check with the overwhelming complexity of the thing as a whole. I am constantly plotting the points of networks I find in daily life by recording them in 2-D map form. This is inspiring to me because of a network's dichotomous ability to help me understand connections in life, yet point out more complex pathways.

3) Jeffery Vallance understands what I'm saying about Networks, even if you don't. In his quirky work, the relationship between objects is essential to the viewer's experience. The seemingly unrelated, broken, or banal suddenly become drenched in meaning as the invisible network is exposed. Both his printmaking and object making work is inspiring to me because of the incredibly strange and humorous dialogue created through the connections of mundane parts. And you guys, HE LOVES CHICKENS!!!