Last year for the first time in my art career I felt ready and eager to do an artist residency. Since money is tight I only applied to residencies that are fully funded, which are obviously more competitive. Although I did not get a residency, I was in the final 10 applicants for one residency and I was wait-listed for another. which made me proud. At the same time I also was a bit relieved as looking back I am not 100% sure my thinking about what I wanted to accomplish while attending the residency had gelled enough and I had a lot of disparate ideas about what I wanted to accomplish.
This year having worked on the “Marcescent series” something clicked and a strong vision and desire of what I want to create and how I want to go about creating it emerged. It’s like I finally have figured out how to turn all my little works and ideas and visual poems into one giant masterpiece. And that vision occurred when I saw Roen looking at the Asian Screen at the Harvard Art Museum and remembering how much I loved the shifting perspective in the Ancient Chinese Scroll at the British Museum. I imagine the Marcescent series being immersive. As I said to Joel when talking to him, I want the viewer to be drawn into the tangles and feel themselves pulled into the chaos so they can come out the other side.
I am not sure what compelled me to apply to the Macdowell Residency. But the application seemed easy and it only cost $30. As always what starts out as a simple one day project to write up my idea, grows into a multi week project of edits and re-writes and reimagining of my goals and project. I confess I enjoy this process almost as much as I enjoy drawing. The problem is that what begins as a random shot in the dark…a long shot that I fully expect to be rejected…morphs into something I am super attached to and determined to find a way to make a reality. I am trying to figure out if I could make this evolving scroll about Marcescence in the limited space I have. Or maybe I need to periodically pay some money and go to Turtle Studio. I had a dream about Turtle studio last night and maybe that is what the dream was telling me. One thing I think I am going to do today is order a roll of paper (not too big so I can work on it in our apartment and start playing around and seeing what I can do in this space. Watch for scissor forests and fallen structures and wild plants to take over. To be continued. Meanwhile I need my photographer to get well so I can get the hi-res images I need. Yikes