After all the chaos of midterm and my midterm piece, I'm finding that I'm unsure how to continue. During that week, all the emotions I allowed to surface through that piece dominated my thoughts, and I could think of nothing else but following them to future work. However, after taking a week to mull things over and relax, I'm finding that's not so much the case. Or at least not as literally or directly as I had thought. The most interesting thing I gleaned from that experience of midterm is something of which I was entirely unconscious: my role in the piece. It wasn't until it was pointed out to me in critique that I realized how much I had distanced, if not completely removed, myself from the work even though it came from a very personal place. This is something I find myself doing often, even if I'm not entirely aware of it... and it led me directly back to the early newspaper bouquets.
Like my midterm project, the newspaper bouquets represented a lot of silenced or unexpressed emotion. As I made them, they became theoretical gifts - vehicles of what I imagined as this overwhelming feeling of love or gratitude that was beyond verbal expression. Shyly, it could only be manifested in this way, and potentially never even presented to its intended recipient. What I've been pondering over lately is how this emotion we feel unable or uncomfortable expressing could manifest itself in an art context. I'm still continuing with this theme of "gifts," but maybe not as literally as I had previously thought. They may have to found by the recipient. I certainly don't know if I could - or should - actually present them. But! it's that kind of vulnerability and/or protecting oneself that I'm interested in exploring. That anonymity. That shyness. That distance we impose to keep ourselves "safe."
I've had a few ideas, but I'm not entirely sure how to go about them... I keep getting this visual of a room full of red balloons, each containing a small, handwritten, fortune cookie sized message folded so you can't read it. and glitter. because glitter has become my metaphor, I think, for that sparkling, glorious feeling of being alive... maybe it's silly, but that's how it feels. it's that emotion; it's bright, sparkly, and even childish. simple and beautiful, like light sparkling on water. But, each balloon would carry a little message, protected in secrecy within the folded paper and the exterior of the balloon. However, balloons can be popped. That line between the things I withhold and the real world is very thin and very fragile.
I also keep seeing lots of little envelopes, all lined up in perfect order, all addressed to the same recipient. As if you walked out your door in the morning and were taken by surprise by all these little envelopes addressed to you, lined up perfectly on the wall across the street. I am unsure what to put in them that could express that emotion (more glitter? It feels right, but I don't know if it makes sense to anyone beyond me), but oh well. I am starting to feel a lot like Amélie (from the film Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain), but I feel like that's a good place to start. I'm kind of at a loss regarding the logistics of these things: where and when am I going to be able to fill a room with balloons? What if the "gift" is destroyed before the recipient finds it? Will its only documentation be in the first-hand experience of the recipient and in photographs? Maybe I just have to plan well and take my chances. Overall, I realize I create all these things in my head by imagining scenarios and the way a recipient would feel upon stumbling upon all these little items, just for them... I guess there's no better feeling than knowing you are loved and appreciated, the way it just glows and sparkles in your stomach, and I want to give that to somebody else. I want them to stumble upon these things, be taken by serendipitous surprise, and experience that beautiful, pure feeling... Now, I think, I'm just putting myself into the picture, and considering more critically my role in all of this, whether I choose to give from a safe position or maybe throw myself out there. We'll see.
Until next time,
Erin
