Word of the Day Series
"Word of the Day"
Group Show - "Five Years Here"
Northfield Arts Guild, Northfield, MN
May 2012
12" x 12" Archival inkjet prints from scanned images
Select prints available for purchase. Contact artist.
Artist Statement
Twenty-seven of us traveled together to Switzerland, Turkey, Egypt, India, Thailand, Hong Kong, mainland China, and South Korea on the St. Olaf Global Semester in 2009. Each day, I picked one word and made some notes. When I got home, I brought 27 of them to life.
Day 1:
“Go… the most important thing is that you GO.”
And we did. I chose one word for each day of the 151 days of travel. Each word became alive as the people, places, and ideas became my reality.
Day 6:
“Speak… Speak from your heart. Speak for those who won’t speak, those who can’t speak. Speak verbally. Speak visually.”
The words, the photos, the paintings, the drawings are mine. The digital compositions express my reflections on my mental processes on the trip, the group with whom I traveled, the vibrant countries I visited, the fluctuation of my moods, and the feelings of newness, beauty, discomfort, excitement, and revelation I experienced.
Day 117:
“Knowledge… Knowledge that colors your motives and determines your character.”
During long-term travel, I learned I must figure out how to attend to the normal parts of life amidst constantly changing physical surroundings and an enormous influx of new ideas, balancing the mundane with the fantastic and new. One moment I was doing laundry in the sink and the next I was in the Taj Mahal. Some days were tan and some were fuchsia.
