The Sweet Spot (in progress)

This past month I've been enjoying the winter break from teaching and spending each of my days in the studio (bliss!) I've been working on a piece for my new series entitled, "The Sweet Spot."

"The Sweet Spot" is a piece about finding the spots on the train platform where the train doors have the highest probability of stopping. I charted my morning commute for fifty days in the Spring of 2009 and have been busy trying to visually articulate my data.

The finished series will have a series of charts, notes photographs and video. The piece I've been working on this break is perhaps the most daunting, a 100 inch wide reconstruction of the data collected in my field notes.

For me, this piece has been a real tug and pull. Although I work more quickly with Photoshop than I do with my hands, I wanted this piece to be hand drawn. It has been exciting and nerve racking, I've never worked this way before. In Photoshop if you screw up, you can just copy and paste and the problem is solved. When using oil based paint markers, changing your mind can be a lot more difficult and labor intensive.

As with any piece in progress, I've had about a million moments where I was convinced that what I've been making is crap. At the moment, I'm seeing a faint light at the end of the tunnel.

One of the hardest things about holing up in your studio is that there isn't any external feedback. I'm getting to the point where I am ready to show people the work in progress.

This autumn I have been invited to Amsterdam to create an installation piece inside of an abandoned storefront in an underground train station (here is a previous installation shot of the space). I'm thinking about incorporating some of this piece for that exhibition.

So, that's where I've been spending my days. Back to work, more posts to follow.