Home

To end the semester is to end with an artwork that in some ways sums up my semester and my last four years of college. I started the semester with a work that involved using redwood, taken from my co-op house, and creating a model of that same house. But that is not the subject of this reflection, instead I want to focus on the end of that wood and bring it make to its home, the co-op.

For the work I went on to plant 22 scraps of wood that were left over from the semester. I planted these as trees throughout the front yard and around the outside of the house. I wanted to give new life to these scraps of wood that were once trees. The planted scraps of wood also resembled grave markers, and with the inscription of Cos 2010, it made it seem as though Cos was buried at each site. In fact something was buried at each site, the past: experiences, memories and people from the house were put to rest around the house. Its the letting go of things that is the hardest, letting go of the semester, my wood, my co-op and the people that made these past four years so special.

This piece which I entitle, Home, takes the title from a song by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, in which they sing about home being not a place but the people in that place. In the final presentation I made that point clear by brining in polaroid pictures of the people which have made my stay at Castro Co-op so special. Polaroid pictures, I believe, are much more personal photographs, they are instant pictures which could not be edited by todays photographic technologies. I was really proud of the final presentation, which juxtaposed a photo of one of my planted scraps with a polaroid of a friend. This typology created a story between the piece of wood and the person, asking the viewers to search for the differences between the setting and the way each of my friends presented themselves within the polaroids. Home is a poetic piece of bringing it all home at the same time letting go of home.

Formally the final presentation lacked a certain continuity, since some of the photos were vertical while a couple were taken horizontally. In order for the typology to actually work, it would have been more successful if all the photographs were taken in the same orientation. Other than that, the fact that the photos were printed in a drug store and show that they are cheap reproducible prints also add to the fact that its meant to be a personal piece and not a “high art” work. Its poetry as art.