Artist statement for integration piece

My integration piece is meant to conceptually integrate me into the socially created space of smoking areas. Smoke is one byproduct of smoking. Where does the smoke cloud go? Is it also contained in the smoking area? These are the questions that my piece seeks to answer.

Visually, my piece represents a cloud of smoke. My upper body is the cloud, and my legs and feet are black to disappear into the surrounding. My upper body will be grey and covered with billowing grey tulle. This will mimic the cloud of smoke that I become. The visual aspect is only one part of the piece.

To complete my transformation into a cloud of smoke, I will float around in the smoking area. When I reach a socially constructed boundary of my chosen area, I will explore that boundary and head in the other direction. I will float as a smoke cloud by bobbing gently up and down as well as waving my arms in a smoke-like fashion.

Images of Floor to Ceiling

Integration concept

My metaphorical connection to the site of my integration is a visual inquiry of the concentrated or limited areas of smoking on campus. Over the last decade, smoking has become more and more limited in its geographic scope. People can no longer smoke in bars or other businesses. Most parks are also off limits. On campus, smoking is limited to a handful of areas. Obviously, people can smoke where ever they want. This is just a social construct that limits the smoking to these sites.

I have chosen one smoking area on campus and am going to perform an interpretive dance while dressed as a cloud of smoke to explore and define the limits of the smoking area. I will explore the outer edges of the area in a mime-like fashion. I will demonstrate frustration about my space limitations. I will also beckon people to enter the area.

Floor to Ceiling Sculpture

This sculpture connects the floor to the ceiling conceptually. The floor has been selected as the end of life, and the ceiling is the beginning. This was a difficult choice for our group. We had opinions on both sides and flipped a coin to decide. The floor does make sense as death because our eventual return to the earth by means of burial. There is a coffin in the piece to represent death (along with a broken black crayon, a ruler, and a static, lifeless paintbrush. The layout of the piece can be seen as delivery by stork to burial. 

The theme was also the life of an artist. We chose different art supplies that we might use at different stages of art development. There is also "milestone" bricks that showcase different time periods in out lives. The piece was not an autobiographical sketch of any one person, but a composite of our ideas about the generic life of a fictional artist.

This piece is really busy and hectic. That is because life is hectic. There is a lot of things going on. 

Some of the unresolved questions that remain to be answered in the piece are:

What happens between marriage and death? Is it a career that leaves no time for art? 

Does every life of every artist look like this?

Where is it really originating?

How does it interact with the site?

My role in the creation of this piece was to help come up with the concept cooperatively with my group members. We all had differing ideas that we tried to incorporate. I placed the cables that connect the piece from floor to ceiling, and did most of the ladder work. 

Integration site

Marked with a small red X.

Currently thinking of being a smoke cloud in the smoke area for the integration project...