Bridging, Binding, Connecting

May of 2013 I was invited to be member of a panel discussion. By the time came for my comments before opening comments to the group, our time had long since elaapsed so I condenced my thoughts into a two minute comment. Due to the popularity of the panel, each member was invited to send their comments for publication. I spent hours expanding the notes I had jotted in my sketchbook then condenced down to two minutes into a formal article. The process was painful. Words are not my native language. My editor was amazing at helping me wrestle words into submission.

July of 2013 when the article had moved past the writing and editing phase and was awaitng publication, I decided to create a visual artowrk that would communicate what I had tried to say in words. The process took only a few enjoyable days to complete “Bridging, Binding, Connecting”.

Fall of 2013 several artist friends and I participated in an Artists Exchange. Our group included three visual artists, three writers, and three composers. We each prepared an artwork, which we passed to another artist. We then each created an artwork in response to the artwork we had received. We then passed both the original artwork and the response artwork to a third artist, who created an artwork in response to the pair of artworks. The response artworks were both gifted to the original artist with their original artwork. In the end we had created trios of visual, musical, and written artworks.

I decided this Artists Exchange was the perfect opportunity to see if viewers understood the message I wanted “Bridging, Binding, Connecting” to communicate. It would also be an opportunity to give an author the chance to communicate my message with words. In his poem "Have we not all?” Martin Earl crafts words which share the message of “Bridging, Binding, Connecting” perfectly.

Following prompts by Curtis Smith we used our (mostly pre-smart) phone rings, alerts, unique tones realed to specific contacts, etc. to create an improv composition. Standing in a circle at times focused on our phones and at times connecting with those in the cirlce, we considered forms of communication that bind and connect us.