Welcome

EXPERIENTIAL STORIES

      "Experience is the result, the sign, and the reward of that interaction of organism and environment which, when it is carried to the full, is a transformation of interaction into participation and communication." (4)

           In the following section, my aim is to bring you into the driver's seat.  I am going to briefly walk you through how you can use the Note Archive, which is home to all of the documented notes recorded for my thesis.  This work provided me with a wonderful opportunity to extend beyond the boundaries of my perspective to discover new horizons of inspiration, ideation, and creative development.   

          My intent was to find each artist where they were within the process and document their progress.  Each meeting began without an agenda.  By focusing on these events individually and responding to each artist at their own tempo, I was able to keep the dialogue unobtrusive, informal, and flowing freely.  Following each conversation like a path took me on an artistic adventure I would not have experienced otherwise.  I hope my Note Archive inspires you through an equally meaningful journey.

A Guided Tour 

           We will begin with George as a starting point.

           I have included two multimedia frames below, both of which are also found within the Note Archive.  The first is a video from George's studio and the second contains the corresponding notes from the same session.  Click on the first video, and you will see me begin recording with the pen as I touch it to the paper.  The video has no sound, but will give you an idea of the context: George working through the night, holed up in the corner of his studio surrounded by an armory of tools.

 Video from George's Studio

Notes from George's Studio

          lets dive right in: 

Below the video (and above these words) you'll find the corresponding multimedia notes. Just above the midpoint of the page you'll find the word "finishing" drawn inside a box.  Click on the word once and give the file a few moments to completely load the audio. When lines on the page turn light gray, click directly on the word "finishing" again (if your having trouble, click here).

 "...yeah, they'll have a nice luster to em, and the color of the wood's gonna come alive..."

If I strain my ears I can hear the whining of the cordless screwdriver as George took apart his model. To get the context of the conversation, you can follow the dotted line from the 'finishing' box to the right all the way back to the turning point (Click on the corner before it heads all the way up to 'water'). 

  "...some of it is gonna get lacquered, and other bits are gonna get this gel varnish that i've been using lately, or some type of tung oil, like a hand-rub finish." 

Although much of his inspiration for his thesis stemmed from the great outdoors, his show would be inside (next to mine), and he had been telling me about the various wood finishes he was experimenting with. Lets jump down to the middle of the page and click on "models", which is what George had been working on at the time.

"...(Yeah, its a big commitment to start embarking on a big project)...If your the kind of person that likes to actually finish what you start, then a little bit of planning goes a long way..."  

If you watch the notes progress directly after this, a dotted line skips back to the "finishing" box above.  I write the word "planning" in between, and lasso in the neighboring "design" tag from earlier to connect all these concepts together in real-time. During the moments of our conversation, my documentation leaves a visual trail that I am constantly shaping and molding. During this short span of time, I am already re-referencing themes and pulling multiple meanings out of a single tag ("finishing"). 

Before we move along to a new perspective, please press stop on any of the frames that are still playing.   

Our next set of notes is of Mary in her studio. I traveled to the Rush Henrietta Middle School that day to meet her at work; in the back of a crowded storage room. She had been constructing portions of her thesis during her breaks from teaching art. Unlike the separate windows above, the frame below contains both the notes and video together with the audio synchronized. It is also recorded at a much higher quality.

Press play.

Following the bottom bar of the frame all the way to the right while the video is playing, you'll find controls to adjust the video up to High Definition (720p). From here, you can also click on the four small arrows in the bottom corner to enter full-screen if you'd like.

 

In the middle of explaining critical aspects of her creative process, a procession of bantering middle schoolers tromp by and Mary gets up to close the door.  When she returns, she seamlessly finishes her thought:

 "One of the critical aspects of making is finishing"

          Lets take a step back; I would like to identify an overlap.  Both George and Mary are describing related themes about the process involved with completing artwork, but from different perspectives. Mary describes a dichotomy of commitment and acceptance.  She emphasizes following personal intuition through the full creative cycle and describes her struggle with letting go of tangential branches.  George describes a meticulous and pragmatic approach.  He relates that making models and planning can be frustrating, but help a large project reach fruition.

           There are many layers of perspectives and interactions that we can observe within the notes.  My meetings with each of the artists, as well as my comparisons of their conversations, are currently being observed by you.  Through the interface of this website, you can comment on your experience using an integrated Facebook page (linked through the 'Feedback' button in the header), which invites interaction from other users as well as myself. 

It is this juxtaposition of parallel perspectives

that creates the framework for my thesis.

          This is where I pass the reigns to you.  There are many different ways you can navigate the notes; by artist, chronologically, and by overlapping themes using both word and image tags.  So what are you waiting for?  Go explore!  There are all sorts of wonderful insights and creative inspirations at your fingertips!  If you get stuck or have any problems, visit the troubleshooting section or email me directly.  You can see only the notes which include video by clicking here, which include captioning options.  Enjoy!