Friday, June 18, 2010

Yikes!

It has been a looooooonnnnnnggggg time since I've posted anything!

Things that have happened in that time:

#1 - I finished my MFA degree at California College of the Arts

I guess that's the main thing. We had our MFA show, which was up for a week from May 6th - 15th. It was great. The Opening was so packed we had to turn people away at the door. Granted, part of that is that the design, architecture, and BFA exhibitions opened the same night, but still I like to consider our show the main attraction.


The month before the show was insane! I completed a written thesis, which I handed in on May 15th (or something like that). It is called "As If By Chance" and is a sort of a mental walking meditation through the subject of "finding".
The thesis project that I did for the show was also about finding.
During my second year I worked on developing an institution called: The Center for the Study of the Phenomenon of Finding. Using the structure of this institution as my backbone I completed several projects that explored the subjective experience of sought and unsought finding. The many projects, and experiments that I engaged in led to the beginnings of a methodology of exploration that could be useful for examining sites and objects. The work that I completed for the MFA show was the first application of this methodology to a specific site.
I engaged The Center (Which is abbreviated CSPF) to set up a field research station in my space in the show. CSPF then conducted an examination of the building, 1111 8th Street, using it's specific methodology. What makes the approach of CSPF unique is that it has recognized that the most important finds we make are often unsought. In other words the things that end up being most valuable to us tend to be things we were not looking for, and perhaps, didn't even know existed. Therefore, CSPF focuses its efforts on collecting specimens and data that are considered to be completely unimportant. For these could very well prove to be the most important for the future!
Anyways, I decided to do this on site project about two weeks before the opening of the show. I created all new work in a totally different way than I'd been working. It was non-stop. And it was great. And it all worked out. -- pictures to come---
Now... I'm out of school. Settled into my new studio. Thinking about how to design my website(s). Etc. Etc.
Okay. Update complete.