Preparing for Arkadelphia or this seems to be how it starts

On Tuesday I well be heading off to Arkadelphia Arkansas to embark on the 8th stop of 13 for the “Have Sticks Will Travel World Tour”. Once there I will have ten days to create a new site-specific installation at Ouachita Baptist University and edition and develop some new prints at Henderson State University. I could not be more anxious and excited about this opportunity. As a self professed “artist residency bum” I am ecstatic to have what is essentially an elaborate artist residency in printmaking and installation, compressed into ten days in two different universities. I am really excited as the successful prints pulled at Henderson State will be included in my Solo Exhibition at The 18rabbit gallery in Ft Lauderdale later in March. I am anxious, as is par for the course, because I am really interested in making a sculpture in place this time. Although in my mind the process of weaving sticks in the gallery is akin to making an abstract drawing in space, I am incredibly seduced by the idea of creating a monumental object that is integrated into the gallery space. I am also very fortunate to have the experience of the previous installations feeding the ideas and images of each subsequent installation. Since I abandoned the idea of pre-drawing too much of the piece ahead of time I am simply relying on my own sense of space and movement within the gallery. This is why the related prints really excite me. I see the patterns and materials I apply to the prints as occupying the same space as the installations and materials in the gallery. I have learned that even when I am drawing in my sketchbook or on a piece of paper, my overall sense of blank space to material or image seems to be the same. I think a couple of years ago I was still suffering from a mild brush with horror vacui, or fear of empty spaces. I think this manifested itself in my all over drawings and slightly chaotic installations of my own work. With the recent slew of installations I have seen my interests evolve from not only the physical occupation of space in the gallery as a direct result of my time and labor, but a real interest in compositions within the gallery space. I find myself more and more looking for the gestalt of a piece rather than the particulars of where it bends or moves within space. I am still digesting the lessons I am learning along this journey but am fortunate enough now that I can let the work feed the work in order to keep this body of art moving forward and developing. I find that the galleries i visit continue to feel like second studios and that once i am in the gallery space working i feel as comfortable and at ease as I would working in my own studio completing a project.