Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Back Track


In the course of one's creative progress, is it ever ok to back track? To re-visit, re-work? Resurrect if you will?

I'm rapidly approaching my thesis year, but for the past couple days, I've been thinking about these, which I did in my third semester at Towson. I've always really loved these because they're fun and experimental and I got to try a lot of weird stuff, and nobody can really tell what they are, exactly. I haven't shown them much, most of them fell apart, and I never got really good photos of them.

My themes, and ideas have changed since I made these (mainly, I have a clearer notion of what those themes and ideas are!), but I was wondering if I could revist these in the context of my thesis work. Could I view each one as a prayer or a daily devotional of some sort? I'm not sure if I could manage one daily. They seem to work up better in batches, but I think individually they could represent the idea of a daily practice. I'm thinking of a large installation. At least 40, maybe more.

Thoughts?

3 comments:

Lynette said...

I think its a great idea! Obviously you and I have very different work, but I did a similar piece for my thesis show and it ended up being my favorite thing (and the favorite of almost everyone else as well). The piece I did was an installation of found spoons with additions of silk and pearls...each one different but all really similar. They felt like little sketches to me. Fun little things with no pressure. They were so fun to do and ended up being really gratifying. I thought people would just walk by the installation, glance at it and think, "hmmm, a bunch of old spoons" but what amazed me was that people ended up looking at them forever, studying each individual one. It was awesome.
Anyway, I say go for it. Its fun and freeing to be able to work on small little things that can in the end come together as one big piece. Do it!

Liz Steiner said...

I LOVE those spoons!

Yeah, I think I definitely need to go back to some things I did a year or two ago.

I'm not sure how everything is going to come together, but I'm excited to find out!

Lazymuse said...

I think it's always a great idea to approach an old idea with a fresh perspective. You get the benefit oh having your feet planted on some familiar ground, while your imagination is free to explore.