Focus Deferred

After taking a stress-induced break yesterday, I tried to get started on some work. I talked to Lauren, my sculpture and video art and public art teacher, about my work.

This was the first time I got a straight answer as to what I was doing right. Most of the time, I was told what I was doing wrong and then given the vague push into fixing the problem. Never really told what works.

Apparently, she found it interesting that there were so many self-portraits in what would otherwise be a boring collections of cartoon drawings. Editing those out cut the overall volume of the product to the very bone. More self-portraits, be them drawings or sculptures, means the more visual information for the viewer to get the idea that my personal interests are creating a social barrier because I cannot realistically... well, something like that.

As an added suggestion, if I wanted to keep the installation as I designed it, all I would have to do is play Six Degrees of Separation with the self-portraits. This portrait is linked to that one because of this reason while this one is linked to that one because of that reason and around and around and around.

While it's nice to have my focus back, I couldn't help but get the implication that more time is needed. It is putting me in this gray area of doing the work because I know it needs to get done and wanting to just stop so I don't end up killing my brain cells again like I did the other day. Basically, I'm continuing to produce and adjust the work because I don't know what else to do despite getting my focus back.

I can't help but wonder how my work and other's work would look if the thesis class was a year-long class. Not divided up like Seminar, but a single class with one syllabus that lasted two semesters. These deadlines that are way too close to each other and unrealistically spaced out is really starting to kill both me mentally and how I feel the department is going about educating their students.