Well, my friends it has come to the point in the year where it is time to make strong and rational decisions about the upcoming spring Senior Exhibition. I've finally come to some conclusions with my work. I know that painting is not something that is proving helpful to me at this point. I have long enjoyed painting, but as an artist I feel that my bounds are expanding beyond the dimensions of a sheet of paper or a stretched canvas.While working with the idea of siblings has been interesting, I wanted to expand the idea into something further, more meaningful, and more universal. I have come to a conclusion that the loss of childhood is something that provokes great interest in me and also affects me as I am turning into an adult.
Everyone, whether they be younger or older, can relate to the loss of childhood. Everyone has to grow up. Some people have to do it sooner than later and some take until the day they die to make that leap into adult hood. The experience is different for everyone, but there is always a sadness in letting go of your youth.
For my thesis I am proposing an installation piece that consists of a giant tipi surrounded by floating hallowed out eggs. This might seem weird for some people, someone might as how a tipi relates to me? Well, there's this thing with being a child and creating nooks and hideaways. There is also my heritage on my fathers side which hones a small portion of Native American ancestry. My hopes for the tipi are just this: Standing at about 6.5 feet with an equal base radius, the tipi will make home for a place where a child would hide and the walls will be covered with an array of dark sheets with various patterns. White christmas lights, pillows, blankets, and a TV playing a video of childhood memories and reflection will fill the space along with drawings and paintings of my younger brother and I in our earlier days.
The space outside the tipi will be surrounded by hallowed out eggs hanging on fishing line. Each egg will be hand hallowed out and hand stuff with a life experience or a challenge that I personally faced in my own life. 500 eggs, approximately 41.6 cartons of 12 eggs, will hang for viewers to participate in smashing. Eggs are symbolic in a sense that as a woman I am born with a couple hundred thousand or however many. As I get older, the eggs leave my body through my menstrual cycle, they die out, or they die with me. As a viewer reaches up, like a child would to a parent, taking the egg from it's place and smashing it to the ground, there is a sense of aging and release. I progressively get older, my experiences become progressively more damaging or influential, and in the end all I am left with are shattered things.
Being able to present a project where people can both relate and interact is important to me. I am hoping that by starting this project, I will explore my abilities as a fine artist as well as someone who does installations. For this work I will do 3D construction, drawing, painting, video, and writing.
Image courtesy of John C.H. Grabill collection, Library of Congress, Reproduction number LC-DIG-ppmsc-02515. 1891, Oglala tribe.
