THRESHOLD (2014)

"Threshold" is an installation that investigates what it means to be in the liminal space of an artist residency. An artist in a residency removes themselves from the flow of daily life to in order to enter a particular place and mental state. The residency can sometimes mean isolation and alienation for the artist even as they open themselves to echoes from the artistic realm. This artwork is a documentation of my current residency in the Netherlands.

In arriving at the Netherlands for my residency, I was taken with the idea of entering a portal, of stepping out of one world into another. For me, the site of the artist residency is where this magical/unseen/mysterious transition takes place. I am also drawn towards the idea of manifesting this "magic" into the physical realm. Is it possible to externalize the experience I feel when I make work? My first step was to find a site on the OBRAS property that would be appropriate for careful observation. A quiet journey let me to a corner where Ganesh already resides. I took care to spend time in the space: raking and sweeping the area, contemplating how I might build my portal and what materials I might use.

After making a series of decisions about where and what, I had to make a frank one as to how I would construct this portal. What materials could I find that would enable me to translate this experience I was having to the "real world" around me? As a predominately digital and performative artist, I rarely build with my hands. Part of my desire to make manifest the threshold that artists step over to create their work comes from a wish to take a risk/journey in making something that I can't clean up with "control + z".

Finally I devised a method to use materials that I found in the yard to create an object that would embody this doorway to the "artists mind". Through a weave of twine and organic material I am working/meditating on what it means to enter this point of departure from the expected, from the practical.For my process, the physical act of making is as important as the outcome. The slow build up of leaves and yard detritus allows time to think away from my computer, away from my phone, away from my habits - to think about this particular physical experience on a wet late fall day.