Fluttering

It was a little over a year ago that I began a project as Artist in Residence with A Handmade Assembly.  If you remember, it was about the interconnectedness of my online and "real" life - were they two nets or one?  Which one was more real?  Where were the connections and overlaps?  And why was it so difficult to keep track of everything?

I kept the resulting installation up on my studio wall for a year.  As visitors came and went, they inevitably commented on it and studied it.  Perhaps they were looking for themselves.  Each time, I felt quite exposed, not entirely pleased to be revealing the entirety of my world to this one person within it.  It was funny and uncomfortable at the same time.  

Today, I decided it was time to take it down, knowing that it would be permanently destroyed in the process.  I didn't expect that I would relive many of those encounters that I documented with bits of paper, pins and string.  But there it was - even emails and text messages - all rolling back to me in full technicolor.  Call it "How I Spent October 2013" as expressed in symbol, yarn and thought. 

The piece was so delicate and ephemeral.  It literally fluttered to ground.  It was almost more beautiful in its disassembly than in its creation.  The totality of those bits of paper and string could fit in a small box or jar.  The memories, however, feel larger and more solid than all of Long Island City.