This was in comments but maybe I was suppose to make it a post?

Environment is a key concept that I have been dealing with in my work this quarter. I am interested in the construct of different spaces. The spaces I am most interested in are intangible; our mental, and relational spaces, the space we find ourselves within the world around us, in context to our specific and individual lives. I really enjoyed the aspect of sound or lack there of, which Rachel found in within my piece. Sound was not something in the forefront of my mind while I created this piece, but it is about a moment. This moment is quiet. It is a space shared between two entities. My work has been a journey of discovering how to visually convey the different aspects of interpersonal relationships, and the spaces between them. As I created this piece, I was reflecting on a moment, which is not specific, but one I am ever seeking to experience, and perhaps have in small ways. It is a moment of connectivity. Of being at the same place at the same time with someone, thinking and feeling similar things, and being aware of the connection that has been established that is not bound by words, but a sense or feeling. It is an intimate, moment bound by unconditional understanding of place and presence. Much like a mother nursing her child. They are connected, each one existing within their own context, mother feeding and child eating, bound together by physical skin, yet deeper by an emotional bond, that often words can not describe. In this moment the mother is completely aware of her child, and the child although not in a developed sense of the word, is completely away of her mother. Words and thoughts are almost unnecessary in this moment; it is bound by the felt like.
With my piece depicting the two crows, I am trying to set a stage for a similar moment, where words are not necessary. As if shared by a life long friend or sibling who knows you more completely than anyone else. The crows are posed slightly facing one another. They are aware of each other’s company, yet they are not the same being. There is nothing else around them because in this moment nothing else really matters. I keep thinking about a moment where I was watching a bird, and it was aware of me watching it. We were both timid. I didn’t want to scare it off, and it seemed to be apprehensive towards my movements. So we both remained still. In this moment we were connected, in action and situation; the bird watching me watch it.
Going back to the idea of sound and space, the context of these two things are muted within my piece. Yet my goal is that they are still present, but within a subliminal context. The relationship is the center, the subject matter. The undefined space and sound around the image makes the relationship between the two beings ever more present within the moment. My hope is that the viewer becomes engaged within this moment. As if they are what the birds are silently observing and listening to. Yet as the birds watch the viewer, the viewer is examining the context within which the birds exist. And perhaps in this moment the viewer will have an experience, in which I have explained. Or perhaps they don’t either way there is something that is being created. It’s a space for thoughts and feelings, a moment in time that I have set up to occur. And perhaps the knowledge of the possibility of that moment’s occurrence is the heart of what the work is to me.

sarah