Come In and Visit was my first real project as an MFA student at The Burren College of Art in Co. Clare, Ireland. It was a 3-day multi-media installation in 3 empty studios that I adopted. The project came to be out of frustration and desperation. I experienced an inability to produce satisfactory work at the onset of the school year. I felt unable to explain or defend the work I was attempting. I think that this was because I was trying to continue along the artistic path I had been following for several years, but subconsciously knew it was time to push my art further and possibly in different directions.
In order to break this artistic inertia I decided to reexamine all the thoughts and images I had recorded since my move to Ireland. I wrote out many of my entries to my journals, printed out loads of my photos, and projected and drew some of the small drawings I do whenever I have a pen in my hand. My idea was that I would spread them all out and would find direction for my art work.
For all my thoughts of being stuck I had managed to do a ton of work, but it was not the sort of work that I normally associated with my art practice (painting, large drawing). In order to display this collection of thoughts I took over a group of small unused studios so I could place everything up at once. During this process I had a number of discussions with our tutors which lead me to decide to open the collection up as an interactive exhibition and also to incorporate performance as part of it. The installation involved drawing, writing, photos, videos, music, and performance. My hope was that the end result would be a visualization of the working of my brain.
The show was open for three hours each on three days, all of which I spent blindfolded in a large cage/ bell jar writing and drawing in a new sketchbook about the experience and where I thought it was taking me. Basically starting the whole process all over. Since I was unavailable to assist the visitors my friend Jon Rentler acted as host and observer.
Before the first of the three days I had placed red X's next to ideas and images that I found significant. The visitors/collaborators were invited to place blue X's next to things they found significant. Before the second day I strung red string between ideas and images which I felt were connected. On the second day the collaborators were invited to do the same with blue string. On the third day the collaborators were asked to whisper comments and reactions to me through ear holes in my cage.
I feel that Come In and Visit was successful both visually and also in serving the purpose for which it was conceived. It forced me to look at things I had been avoiding and glossing over in my art. Most of the work I have done since had part of it's origin in this work. It was very hard putting my private thoughts out there for the public to see, but this showed me how kind and respectful people can be. I no longer feel that I need to hide the darker side of me, which is very important because it is through the art making process that I am able to exist and work with that darkness.
-I think it’s been on the outside a lot
Obsessive/ possessive
-the little prince –I am visiting other planets when I try to see as others see!
-reflection, evolution, mutation, revolution –both revolving and revolting
-circle the target then shoot and hope nothing comes to get me
-sometimes I think it would be fun to be a lunatic
-I like it when it seems like I am looking at my own vision, but through someone else. But I also get sad because they expressed it before me
-I miss painting for the joy of painting. It’s feeling wrecked right now. I feel like I need to explain and analyze it before starting, which stops it because the reasons why I do anything usually become clear as I paint- my clearest, freest, and happiest time
-I hurl myself into an idea, know exactly where I am going. Then it usually gets to a point where it’s all fucked up and needs to be rescued. Then I question it all- why, how, should I quit and start anew, it it worth continuing with the idea? –almost always in a way
-pressure/ fighting back
-blocks/ barriers/ fences/ snarls – constant – isolation
-why do I never show the open? I make obstacles for the eye to navigate, but to get to what?
-what is up with me and trees –I really do like them, but they have become animated in my imagination
-I am nicer than ever before. I think I maybe care less
-I miss color, why do I use muted colors now? I think it’s a part of a certain timidity based on uncertainty -of place and understanding
-color is joy and chaos and freedom and confidence – not confusion
-fewer colors and less to understand and control – but doesn’t work – I crave color – better to throw myself off the brink into?
-I like it when an artist forgets something and obviously goes back and sticks it in – supremacy of the idea
-I hear better when I draw- why? How?
-twist landscape artist- I picture inward in the landscape –about self in place. Landscape = place to me. A metaphorical landscape.
-why do I always draw my fat little roundy people/ scary birds/ circles/ people with crazy anxious eyes?
-I find that I have a hard time maintaining concentration – my doodlies act as a filter
-I am distracting myself in a passive way in order to avoid further distraction
-I do have a recurring sense of melancholy in my work –a reflection of my years of depression and what came of that
-sometimes I feel like a pair of floating eyeballs
-I seem to have returned to my beginning.
-I seem to have returned to my beginning. I feel doomed to go in a circle forever
-I need to get spun out of the cycle and fly out into the unknown
-something like the Ophelia
-poor impulse control in my history – less so now, perhaps too much correction
-confronting things I hide- but I don’t feel this must be through my art
-what matters most –the process or the end piece – for me they are one, but nobody else really cares about my process unless it relates to them
-holes become figures
-it (I) fight to be free, but the struggle doesn’t show
-what do I not want to do?
-give in/ give up
-I often have an overwhelming sense of pressure
-I think my art relates to a personal mythology that centers around fear or sex or the one regarding the other
-I have always exposed myself in my art –it may seem vague but to me it’s quite obvious
-caught/ trapped/ blocked
-I think I see more in my own art than is actually there to see
-pushing back like looking toward an emptiness
-I make screens to push through to get free –about love and sex and relationships
-break through or shut out
-I think that self-rule is my motivating force. Usually makes me work extra hard so I cannot be caught
-want to be clear/ not empty
-holes with escape holes
-I like the physical nature of the senses –vibration, microscopic particles (smell has weight) –except vision, it has no physical
-keeping things out or trapped
-I like to think that my art is very personal, but maybe I am just inventing justifications
-I take about 1000 photos a week, I am able to not worry about the artistic integrity of them. Not because it doesn’t matter –more because I crave the immediacy .
-I am confident in my ability to take photos with which I am satisfied… I often wonder why I never relate to my photos as art
-I think I see the camera as such an extension of my brain –more a vision of my inquiry and obsession.
-brain: blue, blue, blue / camera: blue, blue, blue
-to break free of boundaries. Feel like a caged animal
-Me as one of my peoples
-I can feel people watching me
-Big Star always makes me think of . I always feel sad when I think of him. But I think that is destined not to be.
-Everything makes me feel colder. –the music, the people talking
-Cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold FUCK
-What the fuck was I thinking!
- I am going to write using the camera.
-I really should get back to my experiments in synesthesia
-I think it’s weird that “I feel like floating eyeballs” was my most significant idea to me
-had the most connections
-I think I am being watched
-I think today is harder, but I thought it would be easier
-I am so aware when people are near me
-This is such a strange feeling.
-I am definitely starting at all the noises. This is much more like being in the woods
-I swear a lot in my journal. I wonder if I could ever stop swearing. Even in writing
-Someone is right here. This keeps fucking freaking me out
-I am hearing things that make me sad again.
-Am I his Ophelia?
-Today was more and less intense
-I am being watched
-I’ve been in here too long
-It’s so cold and empty in here
-This has changed completely now
-I am only drawing dark today
-I think I resent being looked at but I made myself be like this
-I am eavesdropping. This is so strange. People are having personal conversations here- forgetting that I have ears.
-It’s sort of like if you don’t talk they think you cannot hear
-I am happier with them ignoring me, but I sort of miss the attention
-The girl with the crying flower eyes
-I think Jon has left me? Did he go somewhere else?
-I feel left to die
-Music like snakes
-This is a huge waste of time
-I will ignore the outside now. I will only listen to the music. I can’t do it. I only want to stop feeling like this. This song doesn’t help
-I’m starting to get sort of sleepy and a bit meditative
-I wonder if this is still working?
-I will draw all of my favorite things now. Just to keep me from freezing my ass off.
-small dogs, spaghetti, American cheese, black gel pens, the flowers in Mommy’s garden, gallows frame mines, PBR, the bright blinding sun, roadtrips in old cars, shows
-I wonder if people think I am sick or crazy
-Definitely obsessive and self-obsessed
-I think I am understanding more of what this is really about. I’m not sure that I fully know though
-I am prompted to ideas and reaction by people and music and my own brain. Mainly the music
-I am sort of forgetting that other people exist
-It’s so weird what’s going on
-Someone is close again. I can feel them circling.
-Fucking sharks-how odd, I am starting to respond in an animalistic manner
-I think that people think that I cannot react or do anything
-my cage is starting to feel smaller
-The dynamic changes according to who visits.
-I want to get out. I have impatience
-It’s so odd to not have this place be about me. But I like it too. It seems like at least it’s a place that people feel okay. Which is strange because it’s surrounded with me
-I Love, Love
-I should just loop this song over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over
-I didn’t realize that I now sense the presence of certain people
-This is generating personality specific reactions by me
-This is going on way too long
-I now understand what they mean by this being an endurance piece. But the only thing that bothers me is that I am freezing.
-And how hushed people are
-Is this that serious?
-I feel a bit pretentious
-I hope I haven’t hurt anyone’s feelings
-This would be horrific without my notebook
-This song reminds me of my lovely childhood. I love when I am instantaneously dragged back to my happy times
-But certain people definitely make me feel like I am in a cage.
-I am doing a performance for nobody
-It’s sort of nice
-Definitely the most relaxing this has been
- ’s lovely song is on. The one about . I wish that someone would feel that way about me
-Today I am learning to not rely upon others. Yet again. It’s something I just don’t understand. I would never just leave someone hanging like this
-This is the most comfortable I have been in here. Probably because I don’t feel so exposed
-The in-between is both too much and too little
-I remember that this process is about me
-The girl who cries string
-It’s best when I forget where I am at
-My drawings are so dark. Why do I always draw dark things.
GIRL: I think you are very brave to let people inside of your head
response to BOY: -I don’t know if I would agree with it if he means being critical in the work. By that I mean addressing things –I think it’s important to be honest in ones work. I find hiding ones opinion to be cowardly or fake. At least for me. I prefer to let my opinion be known –and if I were not to do this in my art as I do in my life wouldn’t it be a bit of a sham?
-I think some feel I should tone things down a bit, but I won’t and can’t.
-I am actually starting to like being in here. It’s a bit comforting.
-I am starting to think of this as more of a nest than a cage
-Get out of my head
-Is there a reason I am in a cage?
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