Things and not-things

I often have the experience where someone asks me a question, I think about it, I really look deep into my mind, and then I conclude that, at least in that moment, I can’t find any piece of an answer (= “I have no idea”). When I was on the train home last night, I was thinking of one specific instance of this experience I had and I found myself picturing an abstract painting at the end of a long, dark hallway. I think the experience of not knowing how to answer a question feels like what this scenario looks like, but I was also starting to think that all of this is what looking at a painting feels like more generally--how when you’re standing right in front of a one, there are ways in which it’s not also all right there in front of you . I’m inclined to broadly say that a painting is often much closer to someone physically than it is conceptually. And conceptually, it’s always an unattainable distance away (distance that cannot be traveled, or possibly another kind of distance entirely...

There’s a short essay by Danielle Dutton called Not Writing . I first located and read it in n+1 , and later in Danielle’s book, Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other. (The book is divided into these four, noun-titled parts, and the essay, excitingly, appears in the "Other" section) . Somehow, I’m inclined to not only keep reading, but to keep rereading (I don't know if there's necessarily a distinction here, but "keep rereading" is nice in its being an excessive way to express enthusiasm) this short essay, both because it interests me greatly and because I never seem to entirely grasp it. For a while, I’ve been sitting in the awe that reading it brings me--the feeling of receiving a powerful takeaway without being very clear on what the takeaway actually is. More recently, this has developed into an urge to write something down. I like the essay so much that I almost want to just describe it, or simply restate it (not something I typically feel a tendency toward or ...

I’ve been thinking generally and specifically about the interactions I have with objects I walk past on the street. Well, “interactions” may be a little too strong of a word; I’d describe these moments as mild forms of interaction at best–maybe “encounters.” (Somehow this term seems to more justly convey the passivity that is coming across a static thing.) Usually, passing by an object is fantastically boring. Here are some things I moved past today: crunchable leaves, a "NO THRU TRAFFIC" sign, squared off hedges, a piece of twine, pots of mums, a blue bench. (How do these items either build or get incorporated into my stream of looking? Do they suspend or extend the continuous process of seeing that I'm carrying out?) In defense of boring, I often think this quality gets attributed to things that are actually just difficult to know how or what to think about them. The boringness in the above examples comes from the complicated simplicity of seeing an everyday street item...

The problem of connecting one thing to another feels very present in the visual work I set out to make. Connection is always at hand because there’s always more than one component that I’m using (is it true that connection becomes a necessity when you’re dealing with more than one thing?), and a problem is always what I’d call it because connecting things kind of feels like the ultimate impossibility. (At least in the world of making by hand, can you actually make multiple things, multiple materials become one? One as in something with the appearance of a singularity?) Though, maybe it’s just that the methods I use for connecting (gluing, taping, placing next to) are processes that leave a seam in the line of connection--that don’t promote a flawlessness between entities. Some connections: A whole and a part -Doesn’t form something new and nameable. Two of the (almost) same item -May be strange and funny because there isn’t actually anything so strange or funny about it? An almond ...