For a while, I actively gave up producing photographs all together. I traded this in for an intense “moment collecting” practice that involved recording written accounts of experienced events accompanied by an artifact from the scene and then classifying this combined specimen. The focus was on the sign, rather than the signified – specimens were classified by what was observed, not the object that was collected. As my collection grew, I was able to extract and organize data from the collected specimens to create diagrams and narratives.

 

 

 

Working in this extremely defined system satisfied my hyper-analytical brain for a while and let me explore different real-world structures: educational institutions including museums and libraries, and organizational systems applied to various types of collecting including butterflies, books, and police evidence. Institutions rely on standard protocol that eventually, and sometimes rather quickly, becomes obsolete.

 

Coming right off of the moment collecting project, I completed a three-week City as Site course in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The final project reflects many of same elements seen in the previous work. Moving on to my next large compilation (1 , 2 , 3) of work, I relied much more heavily on sequencing and perhaps an overload of auxiliary information to convey the feelings of various experiences.

 

In art you say, here are the materials, here is the process, find any solution. In math you say, here are some processes, there is one solution, find it. Those two concepts of process both collide and intersect beautifully. This idea plays a huge role in both my personal creative process and my teaching. We must make the pictures work in our heads first before they can work on paper. Be the “picture” a visual image, a mathematical formula, or an athletic performance.

 

When experiencing and recording events I find myself classifying them in terms of feelings and relationship to previous experiences. As such sequencing and juxtaposition continues to play an important role in my work.

 

riding a tandem bicycle by yourself

phrased as a question with only one answer