Dear Future You

This work was created in an experimental course I took at the University of North Carolina while completing my undergraduate degree. Taught by Lee Walton, this class was designed to teach students what it took to run an art business, with the only rule being to make things that we gave away for free. The “business” was titled “FrontBird,” and we, as students, were responsible for product production, social media and marketing, and event planning. This class was most successful in teaching students what it is like to work in a creative field, which involves teamwork, group decision making, and providing individual efforts that come together to make everything work out as a whole.

This project was made for the last “landing,” or event we held in the class. I wrote 25 letters, containing an array of messages from recipes, knock knock jokes, and inspirational words of wisdom, and decorated the fronts with some drawings. The letters each had a date they should be opened on them, some as far as 30 years away from the time of creation. My hopes was that somehow, by luck, chance, or coincidence (whatever you want to call it) the positive words I had enclosed was something you needed to hear at the time of opening. 

Addition of 25.

Paper, watercolor, ink ; each card is 6” x 6”

Public Park Reviews

 I had the great opportunity to participate in the New York Arts Practicum during the summer of 2017. This two month internship/residency set in New York City allowed me to go way out of my comfort zone and make work that was based on the conditions of being an artist in the city. Being in the city for two month changed my mind set and raised my curiosity on public spaces. Being from the south, public spaces are not utilized to their full extent like they are in large urban cities. The mind set is, “why go to a public park when I can go to my backyard?” In NYC, I experienced public spaces being used exactly the way they are intended. This made me analyze public parks, which I previously already had an interested in. I created a list of ways to review public parks that I encountered, in a way that is more journalistic. With each review, I also drew a picture of where I was sitting. This project is something I want to continue and document in different locations across the country.

These reviews include a general description of my time there, grass vs. gray ratio, pigeon to people ratio, size, hours open, address, public programming, noise level, trash levels, dog friendly, senior friendly, accessibility, and a rating for the playgrounds. 

PDF documents, watercolor, graphite; drawings are 5”x 7”

Digital Photos, various sizes, 18 in total

Projection

I had the great opportunity to participate in the New York Arts Practicum during the summer of 2017. This two month internship/residency set in New York City allowed me to go way out of my comfort zone and make work that was based on the conditions of being an artist in the city.

After processing my relation to being in NYC versus home through text based sketches, I was given a suggestion to source my text from somewhere more meaningful. From a more public source that would then, in turn, give the words more depth and reliability. Song lyrics was the first thing to come to mind.I had been curious about the way I listen to music compared to others. I found that I like songs over the beat rather than the words. I then created an edited list of lyrics from listening to my personal music library on shuffle. Having this pile of words meant I then needed a way to display them. I stumbled across these free sign editors, that used some online software to edit the text of various photographed signs (some more realistic looking than others). The combination of location and text then became my biggest interest. Without knowing previously where the words and/or pictures came from, they present this idea of public sentiment. They reflect not only my own music taste and what I may prefer, but also reflects back what the general population listens to, as well. It poses this question of “Do you really know what you are listening to? Do you know what they are saying?”