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...