A Transient Rumination

Original Post October 6, 2008

The genesis of my thesis work dealt largely with the physical body in relation to environment. Finding peace and deep understanding about this dynamically changing relationship caused me great consternation. Initially I was driven by a subconscious fear, a mostly undirected, vague, menacing sort of fear that I eventually realized was about the changes in my physical form and the process of figuring out how to be okay with those changes. 

My sense of self has been directly linked to my physical form, at least historically, and along with this link there has been the aforementioned unease simmering away. It was important for me to face this fear of the unknown and to come to terms with the reality of change in our bodies and the disparate relationship between our minds and the body that we inhabit. 

It was with halting steps that I began the journey of a two year project exploring various facets of identity, memory, and time. At some point along the way the morbid fascination with how my body was changing, growing older, and closer to death with each passing day faded away and I began to find peace with the realization that I am not a body. 

This post is probably going to appear nonsensical to the 2 people who may read it, but for me 2 years of work originated with a tiny seed of fear and doubt that led me a place of equanimity. I don’t think I could ask for any more from a project such as this. In the future I’ll be posting some fragments of the writing that helped me find my way.

Original Post August 23, 2008

This is an excerpt from my journal written during a directed study with A. Minkkinen almost a year ago.

I believe it is not the markers in our life that define us. It is the time between the monumental events and how we interact with our environment and with the people around us.  The journey between birth and death is the interstitial space that I explore in my work.  We are always in transition, each day, each moment and each breath; it is here that we live.  My work explores the process of how these in-between moments are the harmony and chaos in our lives.  I explore moments of tension, conflict, and moments of clarity that are like rare gifts.  The places I seek out are on opposite sides of the spectrum-metaphoric environments that speak of quiet awareness and chaotic discontent.  There are moments of clarity in each space and moments of tension as well as frustration.  My work attempts to explore polar opposite and to create visual tension in the series that begs the viewer to confront their own interpretation of the human experience. 

This project [my thesis] goes to a place that is deeply personal to me.  It is the most personal and most intangible place-the mind.  When we step back from the crush of daily life we realize that the goals we set aren’t necessarily the most important things in life-it is the process of achieving the goals.  While we look to the future constantly searching for the meaning of life we sometimes realize that life is happening now right in front of our eyes and the future never arrives.  I am interested in visual resolution of this relationship.  My images attempt to contain or at least represent the past, present, and future of our bodies in relationship to the environment.  In many ways our bodies and minds are separate entities from each other-some philosophers believe our mind to be the definition of who we are yet our culture is so wrapped up in physical perfection that I find a contradiction in the reality that I am living.  The body expresses the state of the mind and I use my body as a portal in my work.  The quietness of a desert landscape contrasting with the decay of an old wall are activated by the presence of my body-both can be seen as surrogate for a particular state of mind.