BLOG WATCHERS: Untitled Umbrella #104

1. Do you work on one project at a time or several? How do you come up with titles?

Do I work on one project at a time or several?  Graduate school almost makes it impossible to work on one thing at a time.  Although I may be working on several things at a time they all relate to one another.  I work under the same body of work pretty consistently.  I call my big concept my umbrella, and everything that I work on fits under the umbrella in some fashion.  Its difficult when I'm in a class where technical skill requires a lot of practice and the work doesn't relate to my umbrella- once the technique is down, I have to kick into high gear to make a series of pieces that relate to the umbrella.  Right now, I'm in an advanced non-silver photography class and I've had experiences with most of the processes but the ones that are new to me require a lot of work and practice to figure out.  So, now that I  have all the processes down, I can invest real time into making work with those processes that relate to my whole body of work.  I really enjoy working in different mediums.  I think I'll be a jack of all trades, master of none - one day.  

gum arabic print that doesn't relate to the umbrella.

Titles on the other hand are a love-hate relationship.  Titles play an important role in helping the viewer understand the intentions of the work.  TItles can also be a way of simply keeping track of the work with a numerical system.  I'm torn on the subject.  Its important to my work that the title key the viewer into something crucial to the work - mostly because most of my work is abstract in nature.  However, I'm finding that very little people seem interested in titles anymore; especially some of the faculty that I work with in my program- so I'm deciding whether or not that will affect the way I title work while I'm here.  I also get annoyed when titles are so poetic that it makes me want to barf a little.  It doesn't have to be poetic, or profound, just informative in my opinion.  I used to have more poetic titles when I was in undergrad but I've taken a step back from that a lot.  Now I just give what I think is enough without giving it away.  I don't think I'm mature enough in my career yet to make hard and fast decisions about titles.  Its something that I think will continue to change for me.  
My titles usually come from journaling about the work in my sketchbook.  Words that commonly come up in when I think about the work normally make an appearance in the titles.  And my working titles are often what I go with in the end- or at least some variation of the working title.  

I was a bit late on my post this week.  Last week was real busy seeing as it was the count down to spring break.  Hopefully, I will be able to make more posts this week since I will be free to work in the studio all the time- uninterrupted.  

At the least, check back in next Thursday.  

NEXT WEEK: When you are contemplating your work, where and how do you sit or stand? How often do you clean your studio, and does that affect your work? DUE: MARCH 14TH