Initially upon being assigned this project, I was unsure of how to approach it. Viewing the selected inspired works for the project I decided to choose something moderately up-surd to "collect" and create my sculpture from.
I chose dust. Now came the hard part... how was I going to form this dust into the likeness of myself, and a little bird-y suggested that I make a packaging tape form mold of my head, I had seen the process done many a time by peers but had never made one myself.
As the process continued, after collecting my dust, and making the tape mold I needed to find some way to seal the dust in. Originally I was just going to use hot glue, but discovered the wax station and began to experiment.
The end result I believe is successful, but has caused a sort of conundrum with in me. When looking at it I feel it has the potential for a deeper conceptual feeling. I can find connections to the piece. There are feelings and expressions within me that are conceptually realized by this piece, but the question I am now asking myself is, can I actually call upon these stoic after thoughts? Is it okay for me to say this piece is representational of something it wasn't created to express?
Hence these thoughts have left me with two titles. The first of which being Rushing to my Head, though I do feel that if I were to display it as such I would also require an artist statement to properly depict my thoughts of the work. On the other hand the second title is true a depiction of what it is, an Untitled Experimentation. I feel more inclined towards the second because I have found that I feel art should be displayed for what it is in essence. I generally prefer to leave my work untitled because I want the viewer to take the work as they see it. After all what does the work become when the artist is not present to defend it? Do my ideas of it matter at all, I would say they do if it was created with an intention, but seeing as this wasn't; Where does that leave me the artist, and the titlist?
Letchworth State Park is such a beautiful place! All these pictures where taken on a trip with a Rochester photo group and boy was it a beautiful day. I was using a Canon Power-shot and although they where good pictures most of them I touched up in photoshop. I always feel guilty using photoshop to edit images because I feel that if you are showing them just as the image its self that you should have just taken an amazing photo to begin with. Not that that is so easy to do, which is where I think the line is drawn between amateurs and professionals; somehow I feel these days there are more professional amateurs than professional professionals. That is people with really nice cameras taking "nice" pictures and editing the crap out of them until they look professional. Maybe I just don't know enough about photography, but perhaps with all those expensive camera's out there if you're willing to pay that much for one you just get to slap a "I'm a Photographer, and I always take awesome pictures with my awesome camera" sticker on your chest so everyone knows to "OOoohhh" and "Ahhhhhh" at your pictures. ANYWAYS...I've done exactly what I hate most about photography today and edited most of these using tools like "exposure", "brightness/contrast" and "selective color" on photoshop. So maybe these days the real photographers and artists are the people who scripted Photoshop. That being said...these images brought to you by Photoshop personnel in the hands of an amateur photographer. 
