April Field Notebook

April Field Journal

Same Time, Same Direction

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I wasn't as thrilled with this month's experiment as I'd expected to be. There's an interesting thing happening here; a split between my own intentions and what others are reacting to. I see this piece (as a whole) as data, science... but others have articulated that what they find most compelling is the personal narrative. My instinct is to remove the data from the context and explore it separately. But when I do so, I hear that the pieces aren't as compelling as the photos themselves. (Awesome on one hand- that means way less work for me.) 

I guess it comes down to one of the basic questions artists have to ask themselves: is my own intentionality so important that I have to change to work to better communicate my goals? Or do you let the work portray what it's going to portray and allow it to be it's own entity? Luckily, the parameters of my project don't require me to answer those questions immediately and, while I slog through my feelings about them, I can keep swatching, and I can allow my conundrum to effect how I take my swatches.

The first four months of the year, and the themes that each month represented, were all based on Time. A somewhat scientific parameter. The second quarter of 2013 will move in a more personal direction (all the specifics to be decided as I go.) May's theme is People: each photo will not only include the sky and the swatch but people in my general vicinity. I anticipate that this will stretch my comfort zones about swatching in public. (Haha, guess it's time to give up and just embrace the "that crazy art girl" title.) Let's see where the sky takes me now.