I would like to share my intentions and motivations, the quiet humming thoughts that continue to propel my hands into making:
Growing up, I watched the world around me intently, like Harriet the Spy. I was quiet, but full of thoughts, watching and looking at the world in secret ways and noticing what other people did not notice. In this way, I developed a habit of honest keen observation.
Most recently, I have been preoccupied with the notion of the "ordinary," exploring the narratives of "ordinary" things. As I encounter ordinary objects (a door, a window, a pair of boots) or ordinary places (the kitchen, people's living spaces, public transportation stations, a tree stump, a bridge or pipeline or door that marks the sites I walk past everyday), I practice that slow, quiet habit of looking. I like people's beloved paper trail trash that they cannot throw away--cardboard boxes, ticket stubs, notes, certificates, the peculiarity of the stuff that collects in one's living space (peculiar because of the quiet way stuff tells us about one's habits, interests, idiosyncrasies, past, weaknesses.) I love to harvest from daily things the un-ordinary-ness of the ordinary daily experience. I am also interested in applying this kind of careful looking into looking at persons. I want to create grounds of mutual recognition and regard among people. Looking and beholding as a practice allow both the ordinary to become extraordinary (for valuation and new appreciation), and also the extraordinary to become ordinary (for mutual grounds of recognition). Taking the time and care to look at an ordinary person whom I may interact with on a day-to-day basis in a mundane place (in line at the grocery store, in the classroom, on the street), or a person who is stranger to me (someone who is very "other" to me), in a way that is not mediated by a screen like a facebook profile or a news report is, is a very productive way of looking that is beginning to disappear. Often, a misrecognition/misunderstanding of persons occurs when I don't don't take the time to be patient in beholding someone. And often, rediscovery, time, and compassion will return someone that has become invisible back into visibility (ordinary into extraordinary, extraordinary into ordinary). And so, I collect and develop drawings and paintings, or photographs in series, or I curate paper trails and magazine parts as collages, discovering the stories these subjects tell along the way. In doing so, I can test valuation, and perhaps open new meanings for myself and for others. |
"Our day to day circumstances are basically quite mysterious and weird." - Shaun Tan |