Rachael Graham: Assignment #1

As I walked into the Sue O'Donnell's Exhibit, before the actual presentation, all of the pieces as a whole or individually appealed to me because of the eclectic variety of style used. Each piece seemed so crafty and unique, except for the two large grid pieces with many little stories and secrets put together. The difference between each piece was so refreshing due to the fact that I have never been to an Exhibit involving more canvas and paint. Before I was able to see all of the pieces, the presentation began. I was then shocked and saddened to learn that the basis and starting inspiration for her to begin exploring the type of artwork that she does, was the death of her husband. At this point, I began to see a connection. The unique pieces in O'Donnell's exhibit reminded me of all the feelings and emotions you could possibly have as a human being. One of her pieces was an altered representation of the period table of the elements, while one piece was a very scattered, yet beautiful web of memories and secrets, just written on in tiny connected bubbles. Still, it did seem that each piece was connected by the enormous amount of self she obviously let go to permeate her work. O'Donnell did mention that including her most dear emotions, thoughts, dreams, etc. in her work became therapy. After looking at each of her pieces in the gallery, it really did seem as if I knew her and could relate to her without even shaking hands. This was most obvious in her piece, "Memory Game," where there were an abundance of tiny picture blocks with sayings relating to her life, underneath a tiled piece with pictures from her childhood and excerpts of moments in her life, whether happy, utterly depressing or embarrassing.

One of my favorite pieces was the "Periodic Table of the Elements." The piece was comprised of precise, geometric shapes, squares to be specific. The setup looked exactly as a scientific Period table would look. The colors used in O'Donnell's periodic table are much more vibrant than colors used in a science textbook and certainly much more vibrant than the overall color scheme of the exhibit, such as bright yellow, dark teal, light pink, sunny orange, an indigo purple, light blue and black. Displayed below the table was a legend to the table, matching the colors to a group of Sue O'Donnell elements: Orange=Familial, Yellow=Spiritual, White=Unidentified, Black=Secrets, Indigo=Influential, Green=Relationships, Pink=Transitional and Blue=Emotional. Each "element" had a certain word which fit among each category, such as Love (Lv), which was also represented by a tiny white number in a little black square in the upper-left hand corner as well as a two letter, capital and lowercase, abbreviation.

As I was thinking about Sue O'Donnell's piece, "Periodic Table of the Elements," I realized that it seemed to be an oddball among the other pieces in her exhibit. The use of a variety bright colors, the very clean and crisp style, one style of lettering, seemed to set it apart visually, and also made me realize that it may have been a piece representing a certain point of recovery after her husband's death. During O'Donnell's lecture, listening to her describe the development of her art after her husband's death, it seemed to me that she tried many different, crafty, experimental ways somehow present her feelings in a visual sense. For the most part, each piece in the exhibit is so obviously very personal, and seemed to be put together in such a fragile, painstaking way, so as to express every detail she could: the toy blocks representing tiny moments of life, each cut out of a secret in the jar, the rest of the tiny, handwritten memory cut outs of her life spread into a map. Everything was right there for you to see and relate to. "Periodic Table of the Elements" seemed to me, to be a point in which she felt she needed to step back, and organize all of the emotion and priorities moving around her head, like writing a list in order to release the stress of food shopping, or something of the sort. "Periodic Table of the Elements" is a straightforward representation of everything that she cared about; a reminder of the important things in life that she has, all in kind of organized form, where she can view and look at it without everything rambling through her head. The piece is not too elaborately designed, or displayed in any special way - it is a human, down to earth, organization and reminder of the "elements" of herself - the point in which she needed to step back and view the important things in life in a certain, organized fashion.