Thesis Photos

Just got a hold of some photos from my friend Jenn. I am working on getting some close up shots in the near future.

Thesis Exhibiton

This is a picture of me right after I finished installing my work.

The thesis exhibition was such a surreal experience and I had such an encompassing feeling of catharsis throughout the two hours of the opening. It was the culmination of an entire year of drawing and writing my heart out, literally, and I didn't realize how much of myself was in these writings and drawings until I was observing people interacting with my work. Any feelings of being vulnerable and exposed because of how much of myself was in my work dissipated the second I saw people pointing and taking pictures and coming back to look at what I did. I felt like people were really spending a lot of time looking at my pictures and reading my writing which somehow I didn't expect. I don't necessarily spend a ton of time at museums looking at each individual piece so I expected others to do the same thing, so to see people really spending time looking at all my work made me feel like all of the work I did the entire year achieved the intensity that I wanted it to. Even the installation process was cleansing in itself. Through the process of being present in my work the entire year a lot of my problems, emotions, and thoughts sort of seeped into my drawings and especially my writings. When I was staple gunning, tacking, and taping these things on the wall it was like I was releasing each drawing and the emotional state I was when I completed each one, and the obvious physical pain of stapling hundreds of drawings one at a time on the wall was an added layer to the process. I felt a very deep and genuine sense of happiness during the opening being surrounded by family, friends, and teachers that had inspired me and encouraged me throughout the year. Looking back on the experience I almost feel like it happened years ago if that makes sense. The whole opening put my senses into overload with all the people that were there, the things going on, observing others, having conversations. It was a beautiful thing to be able to share this experience with the people I care about as well as strangers taking the time to look at my work, and some of the people in my thesis group that I have gotten especially close with this year. I was experiencing a lot of emotions simultaneously during the opening, sort of the way I wanted people to process my installation which I thought was funny. The opening was a two hour span of time that denoted the end of my time at Mason Gross, as an undergraduate at Rutgers, and in that moment I felt a sense of stillness. During the opening I felt a lot of suspended moments, and I felt a sense of sadness especially as the opening came to a close, but I could take a deep breathe for once. A deep breathe where I was really ready for my time at Mason Gross to come to an end. There were several people that came up to me and told me they were really affected by my piece, and they had a lot to think about especially from my writing, and I smiled because I had accomplished what I set out to do. I think that was the biggest release of all, knowing that I did what I said I would do when I started this whole project in the beginning of the year. Anyhoo, I'll have more pictures up soon. I need to hunt down my family members and teach them how to upload pictures. Oy vey...

Crit Response (from March 7, 2011)

I really enjoyed the last critique that we had. I think some of the work shown has really progressed throughout this semester. I thought Jenn's presentation had a lot to say, and she was very focused on executing her idea. She is making this catalog archiving her possessions, like lipstick, pins, and a large mirror, which pertains to her actual installation of these objects that will be in the gallery displayed on shelves. Although for me it was not about these possessions being attached, defining, or part of her, just objects as objects. These objects are things in themselves, like a universal aspect of being a human, accruing crap over the years and things that we think define us when they are really just these inanimate objects. The mirror in Jenn's piece is the most powerful thing to me where the viewer gets to look and see themselves, imagine themselves owning all these objects. For me it really made me think about my own possessions, and looking at them objectively. I think in a way it is odd that we all have favorite items, or objects that we cling to. In a way Jenn is elevating the importance of these objects by displaying them in a gallery setting, but the objects are the only thing we have insight into, not into Jenn as an actual person which creates this interesting disconnect between the objects and Jenn. It speaks to how our objects, our stuff, defines us, but not in any tangible deep way. We have all these objects but they do not really let others gain access to who we really are from looking at them. You could learn that Jenn likes a certain color of lipstick, or that she owns a pair of vintage playing cards, but I still don't know about her character, decisions she has made, what she thinks about when she is by herself. I also feel like our objects mean so much to us, but it's never really about the things themselves. They are in essence little vessels that we put a lot of energy and feelings into. Jenn's concepts and the book she is working on for the show really impressed me. It's nice to see someone executing something with a ton of ideas and concepts to back up the work.

Crit Response

This was actually my first critique of the new semester due to complications that interfered with the past two classes. I thought I got some constructive criticism and appreciated how supportive the members of my critique group were. I realized through discussing this with the group that the way I was displaying my drawings was really not conducive to the actual feel of the drawings. Now I’m going to space them a lot closer, which somehow seems like the obvious choice now, with more of a collage-like element. Another good point was brought up about using a stable gun to hang some of the drawings since they are mostly drawn on found material, as well as tape and tacs, (which I was already considering). I guess one of the difficult things about a critique is that in this scenario the person leading the crit might not know anything about your work and sometimes it is difficult getting your point across. In a sense it is a challenge to represent yourself and your work accurately, but it is also a good exercise in being able to articulate yourself and being able to control the way your work comes across. It’s nice to be able to witness that struggle with other artists in their process as well and problems they are encountering. I have a lot of friends who are not art majors, especially the friends that I live with, and although they can appreciate the work I show them I can’t really get any constructive criticism or suggestions because they feel like they don’t know enough about things in the art realm. It’s such a wonderful thing to walk into a room and say “hey, does this work?” and get seven people answering at once with their opinions about what you’re presenting. I feel pretty focused after the critique especially since I have been wanting to make 500 drawings and I was told that I shouldn’t count the drawings, I should just do them. I think that comment has kind of made me a little less anxious about thesis and has made me tune in a little more to the actual process of just doing my art, which was what I wanted to concentrate on in the first place.