You might notice this website looks different then it did throughout most of this year. It is different. As part of the process of Full Documentation of Year One and my the final practical element of my first year project I undertook a complete website re-design.
Why I would do such as thing? Wouldn’t it be simpler to just do a blog post, link to the relevant pages and move on into Year Two? Yes, it would have been simpler to just do a blog post. However simple is not a part of who I am, nor is simple a part of what Epilepsy is or how it impacts the lives of those effected by the disorder.
As I mentioned in the lead off to my presentation at Winter Residency 2015, the primary self portrait in the practical element of this project, a series of self portraits, has been my blog/website. A complete website re-design at this point might appear to be just a complication of something straightforward, the intent lay more with a renewed expression of the complexity of the subject matter upon which my project is centered rather than a complication of a simple assignment. The purpose of the re-designed website is to emphasize it as a self portrait of my project, Self Portrait of a Female with Epilepsy.
Therefore, no matter how you got to the page you are currently reading this text on I suggest you click on this link to open the website home page and take a moment to fully explore the various pathways through the site on your own before reading this blog post any further.
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Moving on, you might have thought it would have been helpful to have a few instructions, a map, to help make your exploration of the website a bit less cumbersome. Often we are thrown into a situation and we just have to find our way on our own, or at least get a sense of where we might be before even a map can help us navigate the space we are in. It is through the journey that we learn who and where we are. The thing about map making is we can only make ‘accurate’ maps with knowledge gained from the experiencing the place we are mapping.
Here are some navigation instructions which may or may not shed light on this website.
1. There is more than one path to a given page.
2. All paths leading to any given page have their own unique sights along the way.
3. Some paths are more direct than others.
4. If you find yourself lost in the website, you can always go home, or just close the
browser and start again.
Or you could follow the links to visit each cover or main navigation page of this website.
Research, Self Portraits & Writings
To go deeper into the work and the website click on the following links.
M501/M502 Studio Process Photos
M501 Proposal Year One The Project
Research, Self Portraits & Writings
M501/M502 Studio Process Photos
M501 Self Portrait Series Galleries
M502 Self Portrait Series Galleries
M501 Proposal Year One The Project
Before beginning this full documentation blog post I again reviewed my project proposal. The sections of the proposal I have found to be most valuable in guiding me through this journey have been 04, 05, 06, 08, 09, and 10. Despite some changes and unforeseen developments, I have pretty much followed the course I set out to explore in August 2014. This is due to the element of openness in exploration I placed within the framework of the project proposal. What I learned throughout the course of this year is that despite the openness to exploration I found within the project, the initial response to the proposal I was garnering from outside myself tended to be one directed to the framework, others viewing the project as a more closed structure, which really was not my intent. This did change somewhat over the course of the year and post Winter Residency. Therefore one of the elements I would like to carry forward in my studio practice and my research is how structure can be used as a vehicle for enabling chance occurrence without necessitating a disintegration to chaos.
Taking a closer look at section 04 of my project proposal, concerning the practical element or proposed work, a quick read of this paragraph and viewing the various galleries on this website I believe I accomplished all I set out to do: series of self portraits, non-traditional approaches which explored all material and technical elements listed, made the journal pages and incorporated them into other works, presented the work, and created separate image galleries on the website.
The final sentence in section 04 has resonated with me the most this year:
Through the self portraits and journaling I seek to open up my approach to what painting can be by exploring the possibilities of adding elements from other media in order to create different layers of meaning in a more physical, tactile manner.
Among the Year One galleries the one I recommend spending the most time exploring to gain insight into the development of my studio practice this year is M501/M502 Studio Process Photos. The website re-design led to two important changes in this gallery.
First the images no longer are easily viewed in their entirety on the average computer screen, however when viewing on a tablet, phone or other mobile device they fit the screen. In choosing the template I was aware of this difference. It was possible for me to resize each image so that it would fit the computer screen, but with the exception of the Journal-Pages gallery images, I chose not to do this. Sometimes, in certain situations, it is difficult to view the complete picture. This is the case in Index with the tiny mirrors disrupting the viewer’s focus. Sometimes when we want to see the complete picture we have to exerted a bit more effort, and even then we still might not be able to see what is directly in front of us.
Second, in the previous website design the images in this gallery often had explanatory text directly accompanying the image. In this template that text is no longer visible, but still accessible by myself on via the configuration site. I decided to use this as an opportunity to approach the text differently. What I chose to do is take those blurbs accompanying the images and use them as the basis for a new text which is found in the sidebar of the gallery page. Instead of the text integrated with the images, it runs parallel to the images. Because text and image do not align, the viewer must work harder to make the connection which enables comprehension.
The other gallery where I played with the configuration of text and image is in M501 Journal-Pages gallery. Here I wrote the titles, previously viewed beneath the image, as a flowing, free form poem in the left side of the gallery page. Again, the information about each image is present on the webpage, the order of the information is consistent, but text and image do not line up.
Along with the series of self portraits anticipated as part of the resulting practical element I mentioned at various places in my proposal the possibility of a book documenting the results. While I have not created a book, I have created the website. The website is the primary self portrait in the series as well as the project documentation in a format beyond a blog post. It contains all the elements and information that would have been in a book…but it isn’t a book, it’s a website. I never felt comfortable with the idea of making a book in the traditional sense, anymore than I felt comfortable with making video or film, or taking many of the performative approaches to presenting my work which I have taken this year. Yet a key part of my practice I have explored these areas this year by challenging definitions through the exploration of their fluidity. This is something I will no doubt continue to do.
In addition to the required blog postings, critique group and advisor meeting responses, M503 Research Paper, and the M504 Synthesis Paper, I have written a number of essays as part of my own process of deliberation. In section 05 of my proposal I suggested the possibility of these writings forming along with the self portrait images the basis of a book. Again, they did not, but they do serve as a basis for this website, and as written self portraits. I recommend reading the text which is Part A of my M504 Synthesis Paper as it will provide the best insight to this year’s work and the paths which lay ahead of me in Year Two. The writing I have done this year, required and out of my own need has leant a lot to the development of my studio practice and become a more integrated part of it. I am positive this will continue.
There is more than one path one can follow to arrive at the same point. The avenues I have explored conceptually and materially this year opened my studio practice to areas of consideration and approach that had over the years become cut off. This clearing of path ways will enable me to move forward in Year Two refocusing on questions of self portraiture and identity from a painterly perspective minus the Baroque framework of Epilepsy. I am looking forward to a more focused engagement with painting, knowing that these re-opened pathways are at any moment still accessible to me.
All of the pages documenting Self Portrait of a Female with Epilepsy and everything that fed the project is here on this website, this self portrait.