So after two years of blood, sweat, and tears I'm graduating with a Master of Fine Arts! It will be a Master in Digital Art with a focus on photography and video. I can't believe I'm almost there and that I'm almost done with graduate school.
I chose a really hard subject for my thesis show, and more than a few times wasn't sure if I was going to be able to finish the body of work because of its difficulty. The thesis of my show is about time; how the past affects the present in the form of memory and especially grieving. I used my own personal experience of just recently having lost my mom and our family home to pay for medical bills. It made sense to me, at the beginning of my program in grad school, to deal with this topic as that was what I was dealing with at the time. Little did I realize that perhaps some things can be too traumatic to make a body of work from or to deal with at that particular time. I realized this halfway through my grad program when it became too clear that all the work I was making was pretty unsuccessful.
I wanted to abandon the whole idea of making a body of work that deals with the loss of my mom because it was too painful, and because I was still trying to process it and accept it. But my graduate committee urged me to push on. I did and I ended up making a body of work that I am happy with. But, whew!-it sure wasn't easy getting there. I believe this body of work is the most challenging one I've ever made. And now that it's done and over with, I'm beginning to realize that pushing through and forcing myself to make this work has helped me process the loss anyways.
So if you want to see it, it will be up at the Dorothy Uber Bryan Gallery at the Fine Arts Center at Bowling Green State University.
The opening is this Friday April 22nd 7pm-9pm and will be up until May 3rd. If you can't make it to the opening, the gallery is open Tues through Sat 11-4 and Thurs 6-9. Also Sunday 1-4 but closed on Easter.
