Art Exhibitions

I was told today at our portfolio presentation "It's Coming!" that the paper I wrote was very moving, so I thought I would post it here. It is very stream of consciousness, but I hope that it moves you. I have pictures as well that will be up on Picasa in the next few days.


This semester has shown me a lot about taking initiative to create the situation I want to live in. In the past I have waited for others to take that initiative, unsure of how I could possibly contribute. I was unsure about what I wanted to study in college and what I wanted to do afterwards. I ended up with a concentration in Environmental Studies, but I had no idea what I wanted to do with it. I was riding along a wave of flowing energy, taking anything that happened to come my way but not stepping out of the flow to make my situation what I wanted. I have often felt that I was just waiting for the next thing, way more excited about the future than the present, but not taking any strong action to create the future or even the present how I wanted it to be.

When I was a student at Berkshire Community College (BCC), I had a professor who told us a story about when he worked at a bar in the Caribbean. He told us that he encountered all sorts of people in his job. However, they all had one thing in common. They were all at this resort trying to escape from their lives, their problems, and their work. However, as he watched these people, he discovered that there was no way for them to escape in this way. Leaving problems behind at home is not an option. We carry them with us no matter where we go. We need to make the change in ourselves to enact change in the world. This spoke to me but I do not think I have embodied it until this semester.

I spent a year and a half in community college and then four years in private college. Before that I went through elementary and high school. I took a semester break between leaving high school and starting BCC but other than that I went straight through my education. After graduating from Bennington College, here I am in yet another undergraduate program. And I have found as the semester has progressed that I am more and more frustrated with sitting around a classroom and talking about how we can change the world when we leave here. We are training to be effective agents for change, but we just sit in class and talk. My time for talk is over. It is time for action. I have taken the opportunity of the research projects to look into my next step and do the rest of the “sitting” that I need to do to hit the ground running when I return to the States.

My portfolio project expresses this need to take action and start changing the world now. Talking about it is no longer enough. We need to be those agents for change that this semester has been training us for. We need to create the world that we want to live in and that we want our children and our children’s children etc. to live in.

Each green piece of my puzzle mobile represents one of the students in the FCS program. Together the pieces represent the world we are in the process of creating by choosing to come to Findhorn for this semester. We have been agents for change before, during and will be after this program ends.

I have also included in my portfolio, other pieces that I have worked on this semester. My basket shows my connection with nature and how I can work with nature to create products out of natural and renewable materials. We collected the willow with knives and clippers and then wove it with our own hands. In a post-oil world, finding renewable materials that we can use sustainably will be essential to our survival. Although I am still a beginner, this module sparked my interest and I already have ideas of plants around my home that I can use to refine my basket weaving skills.

This semester I also made a mobile that helped to inspire my final portfolio project. This mobile is a look at allowing myself to make mistakes and finding the demons that hold me back from exploring further. I hold a lot of judgment of myself. I usually feel that I am not talented enough or have enough knowledge, but I do. I assume that other people know better and sometimes they do, but sometimes I do know enough or even more than enough to be successful in my goals and dreams.

In the process of making the small mobile, I drew pictures on pieces of paper and then crumpled them up. This represented the times I have thought I failed, but maybe still created something beautiful. The overall project is allowing myself to be caught up in the process more than the project. The picture in my mind and my final project rarely match up and I need to realize that it is ok when that happens. My expectations are not all there is. The squiggle creatures on this mobile are the same idea. These are not refined drawings, but they are like clouds that we can gaze at and imagine all the possible shapes they could be. It shows how much I am capable of and all the doors open to me.

The last project I have included in this portfolio is a collection of poems that I have written over the course of the semester. Some I like, some I am not as fond of. But they are raw truth. They are what I feel, what I see and how I have been interpreting the world around me. They are playful and serious. Some are for those that have inspired me to live as fully as possible, some express my hopes and dreams, others are just distant memories, a wisp of where I have come from and where I may be returning.

This semester has been a time of calling myself to action. All of the work I have done creatively and academically has been towards this result. My portfolio is an expression of where I have come from and where I am going. It shows “The Human Challenge of Sustainability” through my eyes. My eyes see a world waiting for people to take action. And as I have sat in class after class talking about the world, the itch has grown in my to start taking action now. I keep thinking of the title of the book I read for my daily practice journal, The Power of Now. We talk and talk about the future, even the future as close as “when I get back to the states…” I am ready to jump into that future, but I also recognize that when I get there, the future will be the present. So I should start taking action here and now. This is the only moment I have and each moment is an entity in itself. I have tried to use my time here to begin the actions that I want to see in the world. Bringing creativity into a more prominent place in my daily life is a huge part of that. Finding creative solutions within existing structures to create change in our world is my current goal. I am an agent for change.

Thank you.