pound it

after a few critiques and a meeting with a professor i think that what i need most of all is just to create. i need to make stuff, whatever stuff comes to mind. i think this will help me in a variety of ways. the problem that i face is that i'm often driven by a "vision" of what i want a piece to look like before i begin. this gives me direction as i work. but i feel a little bit like i'll be creating in a vacuum without this sort of foreknowledge of what my piece will look like.

i think collaging was good for me for that reason. it's hard to conceptualize what it will look like, but it gradually takes shape as you continue to piece it together.

i don't think i'm going to give up chairs completely. and i've started really focusing on patterns as a way to describe "the stuff between." i think they do bring a form to ordinances, sacred connections, connections that are so significant that they tie into our personal salvation.

today at the university forum the president of the united states catholic cardinals spoke, francis cardinal george. before he spoke a faculty member lead the congregation in a prayer--catholic style. before praying she explained why they feel it is important to pray together and how it ties into their theology about salvation. she said something to the effect that, "although we believe we are all loved and known individually, we believe that we will be saved as a community." i liked that idea of connection, of one affecting another in an indirect yet direct way. though i don't know my ancestors directly or personally, their salvation affects mine.

there is something interconnected with saving ordinances. i thought much about this as i was sealed to my husband and pondered how i am now sealed to him and his family, as well as my family. i visualized a complicated web of connections that bound all of us together. it's as if everyone will be bound and together, humanity will be saved through the connections that we have to eachother.

so i'm going to make. i'm going to spend one month (until the end of march) just creating whatever comes to mind (while i think about my ideas and ponder on the universe). i'm excited to do this and see what will come of it.

maybe nothing.

and if so, i'll pick up at the end of march and keep making until i make a break through. but i'm going to back off of my ideas, try to not contrive my work, but let it come out of more organic processes. i've been pounding my head too hard.

it needs a rest.