Holding Space
My installation, Holding Space, at Ogle Gallery in Portland in March 2009, focused on my interest in time and connection in relationship to space.What do we see when we view an object at a certain time of day? How does it change from one minute to the next? What associations do we make when our attention is drawn to this object? What nuances do we discover when we look at it again and again? During my senior year in high school my friends and I decided to start biking to school rather than taking the bus. We were amazed at how many more things we noticed when we slowed down and really observed what we were passing. We travelled the same path, but the circumstances changed (in this case we slowed down) but other things change on a daily basis: our state of mind, the weather, the light — our sensual experiences are captured, creating a memory of that point in time. And when we pass by again, the shadows change, we walk by at a different angle; we see it from another side. It can appear as a new object each time even though nothing tangible has changed. I am interested in the space that exists between people, between words, between thoughts. I am intrigued by the meditative qualities of repetition, both in the process of making my work and also in viewing it. One small change can make a huge change in the final piece. In the case of this installation, simply changing the formula for stringing the threads between the two rectangular shapes created very different kinds of space.