The end of a Semester

My first semester at graduate school is finally over. It was a rough several months: leaving friends, parting with the familiar, moving to a new city, into a new house, into the unknown and re-entering the education system.

I handed in my final paper last week and my final project on Friday. I hadn't been in full art production mode for a while, so all semester i've felt a little rusty and out of practice. It was a rocky first semester for me (hospital and time off included) so I was happy just to get my project finished and handed in on time. I had no idea what to expect from this particular group of individuals.

I was moderately happy with the final outcome of my final studio piece. I did what i could in the time allocated. I did not have time to thoroughly think through all aspects of the piece and i spent most of my time in execution. I know I could have done better, but am still happy with what got done. I was glad my classmates took the work for what it was, gave sound feedback, provided helpful criticism and positive thoughts as well.

"In this work I piece together fragments of memories, scraps of paper and found objects to recreate a dream-like existence. I am interested in the delicacy and transience of thoughts and the inner workings of our unconscious realities.

Using a combination of techniques influenced by the Surrealist movement and Dadaism I compose pages of uninterrupted, ‘automatic’ writings on a typewriter. I then pick phrases at random to create chance poetry. I trace and cut each letter out by hand then string the words across the pieces of an old dresser I broke apart and reassembled."

here's a link to my pix on flickr:
http://flickr.com/photos/shaynakatherine/sets/72157611038315631/

I do think I left the display and layout of the text a little unresolved. The care i took in creating each letter does not translate to the piece as a whole. The formed words are too sprawled across the wall along a flat plane and probably could have been more strategically placed and considered. I do like the aesthetic of the lighter, more broken apart wood on the top half of the piece, but the wood on the bottom half is too solid and darker in tone. Also I was not pleased with the flatness of the work against the wall. I wish i had more time to play with the arrangement and display of the words. Maybe i would have made the wood form a corner or a room to enter... but alas, the semester is over and that's that.

That day, itself went really well too. Everyone in the group showed really impressive work, and all my peers had insightful and helpful feedback. No one talked too much or seemed to love the sound of their own voice, no one got defensive or aggressive, there was little to no redundancy in commentary and on the other extreme there was never a moment of dead silence. For 6 hours we moved smoothly from person to person. It was quite a feat.

Although this past semester was kindof a train wreck (in so many ways) I am happy to be at Columbia, sharing this time with an impressive group of peers. I'm also happy this semester is over and looking toward bigger and better prospects in the spring.