Joey Nebiker : Assignment 1

I was intrigued by the installation based on the idea of behind the work. The concepts behind the artist’s works were centered on memory. While art is usually personal, it seemed that the use of memories allowed an even more personal bond between the artist and her work. The room was set up in a very orderly fashion. The white walls made the room visually and aesthetically calming and very relaxed. Her work was clearly cohesive but by no means similar from one piece to the next. Also the pieces that were visually linked seemed to be spatially separated allowing for a more random and disjointed approach to the experience. While most of the work was in frames, some were in jars or even on blocks. Overall the exhibit was very well put together. Clearly a great deal of effort was put into the flow of the room, as well as the pieces themselves. I really enjoyed the creativity behind the idea of the artist’s self portraits.

There was one piece I found to be most interesting called Story Told. The artist described the piece as an accordion artist book with shelf. Visually the piece is made up of an accordion style picture frame with clear glass on both sides. There were 12 separate black frames linked together by hinges. Each individual frame was unique inside but filled with the same items found in all the others for the most part. In each frame there were words and sentence fragments stacked on top of each other. The words were printed on transparencies and cut out in rough, jagged shapes. Surrounding the words were box-like shapes drawn in black ink. Some of the boxes were bigger than others, some overlapped each other, and some were drawn darker than others. There were also random and erratic lines drawn in-between the boxes in some places that were similar in shape to a tornado. In each new frame these same elements were used, just different boxes and lines, as well as different words and sentence fragments.

My thoughts on this artist’s intentions with this work are not exactly clear. I like the work because it’s complex and not very easy to figure out. I would assume that each cluster of words is a story from the artist’s memory. Each story is separated by an individual frame but linked to another story in the accordion frame. This might represent the idea that stories from memory are often different and separate but linked together somehow. The idea that the stories aren’t simple to read, but overlapped and difficult is another interesting aspect of this piece. I think the artist was intending to show that memories are disjointed and stories overlap. When you tell a story from memory it’s never the same twice. I feel that the artist was trying to show the complexity and randomness of memory. It’s not just something you can call on and read word for word each time. This piece seemed to show memory as I see it, which allowed me to relate to the work in a more personal sense.