"For a collector...ownership is the most intimate relationship that one can have to things. Not that they come alive in (us); it is (we) who live in them." - Walter Benjamin.
The gallery gods are shining down on me this week because at the same time I'm contemplating the idea of collections for IP, Ed West curates this amazing show called "Creators Collect." This show is filled with a wide variety of little collections from different professors and artists.
How perfect is that?
Some pieces that really spoke to me were Michael Rodemer's Lint Traps, Jim Cogswell's Encyclopedia Britannica, Ninth Edition (1894), and Susan Crowell's Family Photos. The lint traps were great because I liked the idea of "valued material transformed into valueless material" (though I think the opposite can be just as compelling). This
also brought up the question for me, does a collection have a definite value? While things may seem worthless to some, might they be the only thing that matters to others? I thought Jim Cogswell's encyclopedias were just simply beautiful. All that history and information, sitting there ready to be absorbed! (but I'm partial to books). The family photos immediately transported me back to a different time and place, Susan Crowell's words described it perfectly - "the photographs activate in me a highly elastic sense of time, as well as the s
heer pleasures of looking and imagining."
IP Studio Weekly Summary:
Tuesday - 15 min speaking to Amanda, 60 min sketching, 30 min research, 30 min working on studio, 45 min faculty show.
Thursday - 15 min scanning sketches, 45 min hanging things in studio, 60 min taking pictures and notes at faculty show, 30 min writing, 30 min sketching.
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