Lastly there is a fork.

The past several weeks I've been thinking about my drawings in a way which is I found to be a dead end, but I'm glad that it happened - it's not often I reach a satisfying conclusion in my work (a satisfying dead end?). I was introduced to the concepts of structuralism and semiotics, which I will let wikipedia summarize, but I fluctuate back and forth often as to how focal these concepts should be to my work. The most obvious connections are in how my work is reliant upon bringing in information that isn't objectively available (an understanding of something on an arbitrary level) and how I use a fixed set of actions to create an object. It's actually fairly easy to discuss my work in these terms. However these terms don't strike me as particularly functional, except perhaps to provide some legitimacy through linguistic theory. It's easier to discuss my work in other terms that are less alienating, especially because it's not all that close to being my sole focus. If someone views my work in this manner, I would be comfortable with discussing this and knowing that it is not off base at all. But I also want to keep it from being the sole hangup that people respond to when they view my work.

It's called that for a reason you know.

First on the list is the idea of one's (my) place in the world that is not the self (me). One of the first concepts I wanted to address in the series, I wanted the process of drawing - placement and concentration - to be a reaction to my immediate state and in doing so, each individual object reflects its relationship to those closest to it. The goal is to eliminate any detachment I have from the drawings, a state which I find difficult to achieve but is ultimately rewarding.

I'm no longer as focused making my drawings process-central as is necessary for this reading but it still informs my act of drawing - sitting and repeating the form is a sort of meditative state which I think does translate into my pieces, and awareness of what I am doing becomes key and a fulfilling act in of itself (I'm not drawing split pieces of wood just to end up with a bunch of split pieces of wood). But this is a back burner sort of idea that is important for production but not in explanation. This I can let go for now.

In which Jeremy pares down

This past week a respectable source firmly suggested that I articulate and solidify the concepts in my drawings. I get as far as some tasty ways of phrasing what I'm thinking about but get stuck a few sentences in. It's time to quiet my thoughts, decide which I'm comfortable letting go of. Lists might be helpful.

Awareness of the self and surroundings
Symbols and what they represent / how they relate
Recognizing and organizing patterns
Why I'm resistant to 'repetition' and 'obsessiveness'
The summation of parts into a whole... and beyond
Comfort
Ambiguous forms
How and if 'human' processes all of this differently than 'nature'

All these and maybe more to be sifted through and potentially discarded. The roundabout path in which I currently have to take to reach my point does not sit well with me currently. I'm making drawings of earthworms, sproutlings, split logs and radiators for goodness' sake.

In which Jeremy gets down

I think I made a post once and claimed many times that restricting myself in some ways forces creativity in others. Sometimes I impose this upon myself ('if I can say what I want, I can say it in these frames which I already built'), sometimes they happen to me out of necessity. After visiting the room in which I'm displaying yesterday I had to begin to consider how to display as much as I want in not a very large area. And I think this is good for me because it's making me rearrange things in positive and meaningful ways (as opposed to a sharp-looking row of drawings. Vertical pairings - one airy field of tiny objects above one solid field of tick marks. Feeling good until it needs to be revised, which it will not.