Date of Submission

Spring 2024

Academic Program

Studio Arts

Project Advisor 1

Julianne Swartz

Abstract/Artist's Statement

It feels like home. It feels like being a child laying down in the backyard looking up at the sky. It feels like staying up late talking to your friends at a sleepover. It feels like summertime. It allows you to lose track of time. It reminds you of when the windows are open and the wind billows in the curtains. You wonder if the tree is the same one that you pass every day on your way to work. Your arm touches a stranger as you lay next to them.

This installation is about being alive. It’s about those moments of wonder that make you feel so awed and inspired so profoundly that there’s also a kind of sadness that creeps in. I wanted to make something beautiful that could be understood and experienced by anyone, regardless of their background or formal knowledge of art. I wanted to create a feeling more than anything. A feeling of connectedness and joy mixed with a deeper, softer sense of contemplation.

The content of my work draws from things that I find beautiful and that evoke awe, inspiration and curiosity. The audio consists of field recordings of nature, washing dishes, children playing in the park, and conversations with friends over dinner. All of this is overlaid with recordings of myself playing synth and banjo. I recorded and mixed the audio and video myself using primarily clips that I took this past year, along with some material from videos that I had taken as far back as 2016. The video is made up of nature shots, clips of my friends outside, and videos I took of myself on a solo camping trip and in my room in preparation for the trip. The videos and audio layer together to create an ambient visual backdrop and a sonic sensory experience.

Making time based work, I discovered the challenge of getting people to experience the work for its full duration, especially when it is slow building work that requires a deep level of attention. A major part of my work is the experience of slowing down and taking the time to relax and just be, which is where using beds and bedding as surfaces for projection came in. When visitors lay down, their bodies disrupt the projection and they become a part of the work. Laying in a bed with others can be such an intimate and vulnerable experience. Putting it on display and inviting strangers to do it together creates a communal experience, and forces people to confront whether or not they want to make themselves vulnerable in order to have a deeper experience.

For a long time, I didn’t know why I made art or what my work meant. I knew that I wanted to make something beautiful, but I didn’t interrogate why until the making of this project. I realized that in my long and tumultuous search for meaning in life, I always came back to those experiences that make me feel awed and feel like oh, this is what it means to be alive. This is the feeling that makes everything else feel worth it. In my experience, those feelings come most frequently from music, nature, and friendship. I want to make art that encompasses these things but that also holds some of the loneliness that has been inherent for me in the process of growing up, and understanding who I am and what is important to me.

Early in the process I free associated a list of words that connected to my inspiration and desire to make art:

being, feeling, knowing, growing up, wonder, the ocean, ritual, beauty, laughter, transparency, joy, glass, arms, sound, distraction, home, joining, friendship, language, questions, understanding, music, movement, time, being alive, being five, rhyming, blankets, softness, loneliness, journals, reflection, intuition, caring, lists, connection, friendship, being in love, repetition, having parents, belonging, meaning, terms, healing, childhood, searching, closeness, touch, feeling, sensation, teeth, decisions, rules, asking, patterns, questions, momentum, slowness, quiet, warmth, seasons, knowing, doubting, holding, peace, belonging, reflection, permission, invitation, opportunity, impermanence, realizing, forgetting, coming back around, trying new things, learning, being ok, failing, privacy, unknown, dreaming, reaching, poetry, examples, handouts, envelopes, wisdom, windows, music, doors, alliteration, speaking, trying, misunderstanding, laying down, cloud watching, breathing, sweetness, possibility, boredom, waiting, leaning, reading, folding, questions, reaching, holding, meaning, trying, being

Through my work I am creating an environment that holds contradictions. It is a space to feel calm and comfortable. Its a space for laughter, and a space that might make you cry.

*The first paragraph of this statement are things that people told me after experiencing my work.

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