Tessa Larson

      Recently, I've been thinking about anxiety and confusion – the feeling of "be[ing] left d-a-n-g-l-i-n-g" – as school activities pick up pace and I'm still adjusting to being around so many people and leaving my house (or in this case, my dorm room) again (McLuhan 63). After over a year of stillness in isolation, the change in pace is a lot to process. I don't know that I fully agree when McLuhan credits being"profoundly involve[d] ... with one another" to electric circuitry alone. Physical proximity and interactions with other people has an involvement on its own that online classes (electric circuitry only) did not have to the same degree.      This video is a reflection of that: reflecting on my attempts to remain calm and take time for stillness amidst a change in environment, with information (and emails) seeming to "pour upon [me], instantaneously and continuously" (McLuhan 63). I admire the spiders outside my window who, 6 floors up

    Regrettably, I missed the artist talk (due to a busy day and a slip of the brain... alas being a faulty human can be so frustrating). However, I did do a bunch of online research reading articles and watching videos about Valaria Tatera (links below), as well as visiting the installation, so my reflection will be on that:      The best resource I found was Valaria Tatera's website , which I highly recommend checking out. In it, she says, "[m]y approach to sculpture is process orientated, incorporating the tradition of production into an object," and idea that is reflected in the 'process' section of her portfolio. A series of photos lay bare the different stages of the process, just as the 'finished' works, through repetition of individual elements, visually reveals the length of the proce ss. She seems to play with time and temporality, with the ribbons of "Justice MMIGW" providing a visual tactility that pulls one into the immediate present

     I struggle to introduce myself in general, much less specifically as an artist, so in this first post I shall pick out a few ideas and themes that I have enjoyed experimenting with in my art and hope to continue developing in the future. I hope this might shed some light onto me as an artist and as a person:      As an artist, I tend towards spontaneity, making loose plans for projects and seeing where they go. Frequently, mistakes or faults lead to an end result that is significantly different than what I’d planned, being incorporated into whatever project I’m working on along the way and generating new ideas. I like art where the artist’s process of creating is present. Or perhaps I just like chaos…    early 2021 self portrait      This drawing, done last (academic) year, is an example of accidents being woven into the final concept. The badly-printed reference photo I used and slowly tilting lines were both wholly embraced in the process and made my blurred self-portrait so mu