It is both an honor and privilege to be selected to speak at the 2018 Yuma Art Symposium. My topic will be Thinking Through Making which has become the collective mantra at East Carolina University School of Art and Design where I work.
My thesis for this presentation starts with the obvious; the creation of any "thing" requires an impetus or problem. But, once a problem is solved, there is no reason to continue making; right? So, for those of us that continue making, there must be some motivation behind our idiosyncratic iterations.
Sometimes we know exactly what the problem is and why we create.
And we spend time and money to study our problem; and we learn about the history of our problem; and we meet people that have successfully confronted our problem;
And they help us to control our fear and be confident of our skills; and they teach us to visualize our problem;
So that when we have finally mastered our problem...
we are ready to face "THE REAL WORLD".
But, as most of us know, life has different plans for us.
And frequently, the problems we encounter are far worse than we had ever imagined.
And occasionally the objects that we have made force us to acknowledge that maybe the real problem has been right in front us, and we have not seen it.
So, with my presentation, I will explore how my creative process and personal problem solving have led me to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, the things that we create are remaking us as we are making them.