twenty two

This is an envelope from a letter that was mailed to. I think there is so much to be said for letter writing over emailing or texting. Letters show real care and time and attention that nothing else really parallels. I like this because I know where it was before it was with me but I don't know anything about the process. I can picture the sender placing it in the mailbox and from there nothing-until I pulled it out of my mail slot here. You can envision the change of hands and all of the places that this little envelope traveled. 

twenty one

This is a grocery list from some time over spring break when I went to the grocery store to buy ingredients to make my mother soup because she was sick. I think it is interesting to look at an old grocery least because, at least for me, I remember everything about that day when I wrote those things out on the paper. And grocery lists are so mundane and useless after you go shopping, but it is so cool to look at something and know everything else that preceded it. 

twenty

A few weeks ago my friend picked a flower for me and left it in an envelope hanging on my door. I saw it and thought it was cool but sort of just forgot about it until I noticed that it was turning into a pressed flower, which I didn't think could just happen, but I guess that makes sense. I left it there a little longer to see what else would happen. I like how the color is still vibrant even though it is dead. Usually, when you imagine something that is dead you think of pale or no color, or maybe black, grey, or white. 

nineteen

I found this by the crescent townhouses and I think it is so cool. It's a friendship bracelet in St Mary's colors. Friendship bracelets using this string braiding strategy called Chinese staircase are a staple among college kids and more specifically my friends. It's fun to sit around making them and trading them and wearing them on your wrist or ankle until they get stretched out and fall off. After a while, they start to become a part of you and you stop noticing them. This bracelet probably fell off of someone's wrist while they were walking because the place where it had been tied was weak because they had had it on for so long. It is probably creepy but I am going to start wearing it.

eighteen

I found this by Goodpastor. What really drew me to it was the pigment on the creases; I found that to be especially interesting. Also, the paper is almost soft. It seems like someone carried this in their pocket for months, so long that the dye from the jeans colored the creases. And I wonder why someone would do that. Maybe they forgot it or maybe it was something that brought them good luck. 

seventeen

I found this green square in front of my dorm and I'm not sure what it is. It feels almost waxy, which is strange and possibly gross. I like that it has an even rhythm of vertical (or horizontal depending on your perspective) grooves. It isn't art but it is interesting.

sixteen

I found these on my desk at school. They are menthol patches that I wear almost every day. I started saving them for no particular reason; I guess just to see how many I could amass in a short period of time. I noticed them because they look kind of interesting, almost like the beginnings of something else when they are put together like that-and they smell very strongly. I think sometimes that this is how the process of art making begins. You notice something that you'd never noticed before or you see something differently than you'd seen it before and your mind works over it until you've got some sort of concept. These menthol patches remind me of Steven Holl architecture because of the smell. Not that Steven Holl works with menthol, but because he sometimes gives his buildings an atmospheric feel by coating the walls in beeswax or something like that. The idea of making something that controls the viewers experience so thoroughly that even their sense of smell is engaged is really interesting to me.

fifteen

I saw this gum wrapper on the path and I couldn't resist picking it up. I don't know why it looks like that but it looks like something that is decidedly not a piece of paper with the sole purpose of containing gum within a package. The colors of the wrapper are so vibrant and I'm sure it looks better than the gum tastes. So I wonder whose idea it was to design the wrapper to look like that, who gets paid to have ideas like that, and if the person who sat on a computer creating this design dreamed of doing that sort of thing when they were young. 

fourteen

I chose this piece of plaster to go along with the shells because when I saw them sitting near each other on my desk I mistook the plaster for a shell. Plaster is an interesting medium to me because it is so tactile and also kind of annoying. If plaster is a material through which art is made, does it connote art itself in the same way that dried paint on a palette references painting? Or, because plaster is a more widely used material, does it have no meaning on its own? 

thirteen

I found these shells at Church Point. I was drawn to these shells because they look really cool. Two of them even have holes that would make them perfect for putting on a necklace. I think it's interesting that things like these occur naturally in the world because they look almost too cool to have been created by anything other than a machine. I think that shells and art have something in common but I'm not sure what that is. 

twelve

I found this picture at home one weekend.

My dad is seventy years old now. This is a picture of him when he was in his early forties. As long as I've known him, he hasn't ever looked young like this to me.

I don't think this picture is art. I think my older sister snapped the shot to finish off a roll of camera on her film; I think my dad was there and I think his pants coincidentally match the drapes and the light coming in through the window lights him up like that by mistake. But I love this picture. So even if it isn't art, it is still valuable.

eleven

I am kind of obsessed with drift wood. My friends and I went camping once and we all found pieces of driftwood and wrote poems out on them as displayed them at an art show at a community college by my house. I found this one at Point Lookout State Park and was drawn to its shape, the curve, and the way it feel more tactile than others that I'd seen.

Driftwood is interesting because, by nature, we don't know really where it came from. Or where it's headed. We can hold onto to it temporarily but eventually it will get to be somewhere else. Eventually it will warp and shrink and the words we've written upon it will fade, get soaked into the wood, evaporate. It is symbolic of everything that's worth anything in this world. What I like about art is that sometimes it is more permanent than other things. We look at cave paintings and we study Ka statues and all of that has outlived its creators and will outlive us.

ten

I found these guys in the parking lot behind Caroline. Again, I am not sure what they are supposed to be but they look like abstracted human torsos. When I found the first one, I thought about collecting all of the ones I could find, filling up an entire shoebox and keeping them under my bed for the next few years. But, I didn't find any others for a long time.

Then the other day, I found another one and decided to scan them in for this. I am interested in the way I see them as pieces of a human form, but that is only because I look to make things human. I think all humans do that. I wonder what a dog or a bear or a horse or an alien would see. Also, I really like that the guy on the left has a chest cavity.

nine

I found this keychain at Point Lookout State Park. I saw it, golden, glinting in the winter sun on the side of the road, bent down, and picked it up. It is the exact keychain that my grandfather gave me to put my car keys on when I was fourteen years old and incidentally had no car keys. A week after my grandfather gave this keychain to me, he passed away and I will always think about the last thing that ever passed from his hand to mine. A Trump Taj Mahal casino keychain from Atlantic City, given to him as one of the many gifts to regular patrons who reguarly lose money.

I lost my keys in a movie theater in Washington DC a year ago and with them, this keychain. To find something that could be it and is exactly like it made me feel strangely in touch with the memory of my grandfather. Like maybe I was meant to hang onto this thing. This time, I won't lose it.

eight

I found this in the parking lot behind Caroline Dorm. I find it interesting because of the way it looks somewhat like a feather from an animal, but actually it is manmade material. I am not sure what it is used for but I think it has something to do with the parking lot.

It is really interesting looking, which I why I chose it. I wouldn't consider this object to be art but if it was used or taken in a different context then maybe it could be.

seven

Cigarette butts are probably not art. But they are everywhere. Even on a campus that prides itself on sustainability, efficacy, and worldliness, these little pieces of trash are everywhere. But they're more than trash. It's a living, unintentional work of community art that is added to and subtracted from every day. The presence of these things speaks to our own sense of entitlement as well as laziness and a disregard for our own health. There are cigarette disposal bins on the side of literally every building.  So why do they all end up on the ground? And it's not just here. Cigarette butts have become a fixture of the American landscape. If Thomas Cole was alive today, I'm sure they'd be included in his paintings. 

six

I found this light on the way down to Church Point. I think that the light is not necessarily art by any means. It may be interpreted as beautiful, but alone, it isn't art. To me, art is something that is intended and a sunset is some kind of natural instinct. But, this image drew my attention to things that exist in nature that can easily be sources for art.

Artists often depict the sun. Lightsource is one of the most important considerations in drawing, painting, photography, and other media. However, it can't become art unless someone intends it to be that. Maybe. I am still trying to come to terms with this idea.

five

I found this street sign on the way home from the beach. I found it significant enough to pull over and take this picture because of the Bruce Springsteen song "Thunder Road."

Street signs are a part of everyone's lives. They are something that we rely on, look for, and use even if we don't know where we are going. But, when a place becomes familiar enough, we no longer need to look for the names on the signs. In that way, street signs become unnecessary to many of us.

Street signs are definitely not art, but they can be something more than street signs. I don't know who named this road "Thunder Road" and I know that it probably has nothing to do with the song. However, because of this allusion, it becomes something worth looking at, or at least serves as a reminder that sometimes street signs can be more than just street signs.

four

I found this tree by Church Point. This tree was interesting for a lot of reasons. What first drew me to it was the way in which it seems to allude to Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and her description of a tree outside of the manor that looks as if it is "taking alms from the sun" which is how this appeared to me. Additionally, because of the time of year and the lack of leaves on the tree, it seems to be stretching towards the sun for nourishment.

I also like this tree because of how it is somewhat conventionally ugly. I love things in nature that are ugly. I love that nature makes certain things ugly, or that we perceive things as ugly. I think "ugly" also usually means "interesting." This tree is sort of sad in that way, too. You wouldn't take your wedding pictures under it and you definitely wouldn't want to have a picnic under it. You also wouldn't be particularly drawn to hang out by it because it doesn't function as much more than a scar on the face of a picture of an endless sky like this one. 

three

Shortly after the capture of the ice cream sandwich wrapper, I found this a little ways down the path. At the time I was walking with my brother. He was criticizing me for collecting garbage. Then I saw this.

This object is an envelope with writing on the back and a piece of tape--still sticky--hanging off the top flap. The top section is a series of names and initials. On the bottom, in red: "Discuss... Trip to Grand Canyon" and "is it possible to lead nice happy life w/ so much suffering? do they worry about it? Springsteen says yes. others?"

I was struck by the text. That it was written on the back of an envelope, that it discussed ethical and philosophical issues. And whose names and initials were being checked off up top?

My brother and I kept walking. I'd folded the ice cream sandwich wrapper into the envelope and put it in my pocket. After a few minutes, Jeremy said that he thought it was his envelope and as it turns out it is. Maybe the reason I was drawn to it was the familiar handwriting on the envelope that I hadn't identified, but knew somehow, that it was my brother's. And it means more to me because it's his and I know it's his. 

google earth placemark to come