Today, or yesterday rather, was GMU’s senior art show. A number of my art friends had been tirelessly working (dying) for a whole semester to get through their classes as well as find time to develop, build and launch this senior show. Needless to say I was blown away with what everyone brought to the show. These were people that I knew, if only for a brief semester, and had watched grow as artists and people and to see their culminating works in this gallery setting was simply proud-happy-blown-away-teary-eyed all at once, haha. I recall the last semester’s senior show as being a very bittersweet goodbye for me. I was embarking on a life journey to find my place in the world after school and I didn’t know what or where I would be by the time I saw these friends again. Of course, fast forwarding I am still in the area but I felt like so much had changed. In an indescribable way, walking through what was once my favorite building felt so empty and different. It was the people I was there for. God, how did I digress this much. Ok.
The first piece I saw ended up being my favorite of the night. It was a piece entitled, “thus” by my good friend Sua (www.kimsua.com). She wasn’t by her photos but I stood there for 15 minutes nonetheless. There was something about the images. The frames within the frames. The transition from a blurry glistening ocean to a suddenly vast ocean. The washed up frame next to a frame capturing a rushing wave. There was something in the spaces within the frame. To me the piece resonated with a lot of the things happening in my life, most specifically the second photograph of a picture frame floating in the ocean. It reminded me of how much I’ve learned since leaving school and experiencing life. Being on my own and having to create my own structure. Having to create my own new friends and opportunities. It made me think about how we are living in frames of times, people and places floating in a vast ocean. At one moment a focused picture of a life, the next moment an obscure nothingness. But as I looked at the photograph I began to realize that was the point of it all. To float on and realize that everything is nothing. That we need not worry or hold onto people or places for we are all just floating, limitless, pulsing beings…we are nothing. Now, after reading her artist statement I realized the purpose of the piece was for us to realize the existence of non-existence. A buddhist idea in which one is able to see something out of nothingness. The fact that we all live in the illusion of how things appear. The fact that we are reality and that we are nothing. Needless to say after that I really REALLY wished she was there!
The first friend I ran into was Mr. Taylor Reiman (graphic design/photography) who created an entire book inspired by a post-surgery health cleanse he undertook. The book served as an amusing, yet incredible informative instruction guide on how to “Eat Like a Caveman”. He has been a friend since high school and we always had this uncanny way of running back into each other’s lives in the weirdest of places. He was an old face I could count on for random life talks between classes. I’m so happy that he’s done and accomplishing so much. I hope he takes off and never stops going! But first he really should sleep. 5 days straight is inhuman.
The second friend I saw was my good good friend, fellow photog and soon to be fellow cyclist, Mr. Jerry Jones! I had spent the earlier part of the day helping Jerry look for a new road bike and was much anticipating his piece. It was a uniquely interactive piece in which observers were encouraged to grasp the image cubes and rearrange them to their liking. The photographs were of everyday objects taken in unique points of view immortalizing the beauty and texture of such impermanent things as the raindrops on a leaf or the crystalline lattice of frost forming across a car. Ever the detailed, exacting, artistic gent I know him to be, Jerry did not disappoint with his piece.
To end the night I decided to try to catch Sua again and to my luck she was back at her artwork! She was looking absolutely lovely in front of her artwork I wasn’t sure what to say haha. It was amazing catching up with her and hearing her plans for the future. I got a chance to catch up and tell her about what I’ve been doing and hopefully that we’ll see each other more now that school is finished for her. I didn’t get a chance to talk to her more about her piece but that will be taken care of over coffee soon.
It was a good, yet brief, night. I got to see and catch up with a lot of old faces I had missed. But most importantly, I think. I got to walk away from that old art building with a feeling of closure. I got to walk away for perhaps the last time. The old thoughts, memories and pains of that building felt as if they dissipated into the night with the fading sounds of the gallery. It was, a good night.
Trek On,
Chris
