review review

I'm pretty clumsy with my materials sometimes. I don't alway see them the way I think other's see them. Or there might be some obvious connection that I just don't automatically see. In spite of my facility in manipulating them I have made some definate blunders before in choosing them.
Anyway, I'm having a hard time stepping outside myself to view something from the position of a clean slate. I know all these things about each project and i can't seem to picture what the gallery will feel like without seeing all kinds of extraneous shit in my imagination. Like not picturing the story as I look at a tiny wooden sculpture. The show will actually be pretty sparse. I'm really excited about that part. But Pat and Harrell are right, there really need to be some consistent elements.

My natural tendency with most things I do is to be willing to change. I feel like I learn more that way. So in each of these projects there have been very few rules I have been unwilling to break. I think "what would it be like if we didn't do it that way?" The funny part is that I acted defiantly along with someone (my collaborator) but the person we were defying was originally me. At this stage in the project this is feeling like it was a lack of discipline on my part. I'm sure someone told me this would happen somewhere along the way. Stepping outside myself to imagine that a viewer might be really confused and unsettled by each and every rule I decide to break is really hard. I was the one who got to set the rules in the first place. Maybe it shouldn't be so hard to stick to them. Is that the sign of a mature artist? One who can make smart rules and be disciplined enough to stick to them? I do appreciate a conceptual riggor in a lot of artists. But I also feel like i'm waiting for those artists to break their own mold at some point.

Maybe its a question of scale. Be rigorous and disciplined on a small project based scale and maleable on a grander, i'm an adventurous artist discovering crazy new connections kind of scale.
So, at this point, do I just go with my excited puppy approach, or do I turn the mature route and alter some of the choices made along the way.

clock is ticking.

Either way the projects are awesome as experiences for those involved. I am confident that will translate for the viewer somehow.

"An object can not compete with an experience."
-Hamish Fulton