For some reason, I've been driven by this desire to make and make and make all week... but I still feel like I'm only at a process level.
Taking from the newspaper bouquets, I've been really interested in exploring emotion that doesn't get expressed and how it could be translated into visual language. So... I've spent all week scribbling down thoughts and secrets, cutting up letters, and generally trying to obscure all the messages I felt needed to be expressed but not able to share with others. I began by writing down these things down on little slips of paper - "secrets," but mostly just silly things I just felt uncomfortable making explicit or having other people read. I hoarded them on my desk, upside-down, then went through and censored everything that felt uncomfortable sharing. Next, I put some of these secrets, uncensored, in balloons with silver glitter and heart-shaped sequins... the balloon's thin skin acting as a fragile barrier between my secret and the rest of the world. I wrote three anonymous but personal letters and sealed them up in envelopes with the standard glitter/sequin mix (who doesn't love opening mail and having confetti or glitter serendipitously spill everywhere?); these were hung in a tree in Piazza dell'Indipendenza for anyone to open and find. I wrote a letter, but then cut out all the words individually, so as to obscure the meaning. In all these situations, the goal was to express the things I wished to make explicit, but, because I felt uncomfortable or vulnerable taking them beyond myself, never actually set them free - like censoring my secrets or never letting the letters reach their recipients.
Through this all, I find that I'm really fascinated by this personal need to sort of "hold back," or why I feel uncomfortable sharing certain things with other people, even if they're silly or trivial or beautiful or should be said.
In terms of moving forward, I've been reflecting, but I still feel as if the adjustments I can make are only minor and that I'm still in a making and making mode. I may set up suggestive narratives (in photo? video?) where the balloons have gotten stuck in trees or where i fill all these balloons with secrets and glitter and helium and release them off into the sky... I'm also kind of interested in opening this up to others, maybe creating a sort of secret depository, where people can add their secrets (censored or not, anonymous or not?), but I'm still not sure. I guess largely I'm really investigating metaphors for all this emotion that goes unexpressed... but, is it even expressible in words, verbally? The more I write all these letters, I begin to think no; the emotion only gets limited. Can it be fully expressed visually? Is the build-up of all this stunted expression just sad? Where am I going with all this?
P.S. really into these things from il Giardino di Daniel Spoerri from this last Friday (where I very elegantly fell into a ditch with the whole bus watching). big surprise.
Until next time,
Erin
[ more photos. ]
