Developments in white

I went to my cave yesterday to play around with some of the elements that I have been making since I have been here and would like to include in my installation. 

I played around with the clay figures

They seemed to fit in the space rather naturally although I wasn't really excited about them in terms of being the foundation for what was going to happen in the space.

I moved the white figures around and put the big one of the floor.  The ground is very dirty and I felt sad leaving him there so as I was leaving I hung him up next to the main altar-like arch

Something really made sense to me having him there, so I hung up another one on the right side.  They reminded me of a strange figure I had seen in the monastery/ hospital near Ortahisar.

I was really struck by the appearance/ disappearance quality of this figure.  Its something that often comes naturally to me in my own work and probably why I chose a fabric to work with that is the same color as the surrounding environment. 

So, I put on my costume to see what that would look like

and things really started to make sense to me.  I went home and started thinking about how I could orchestrate these pieces together and then I realized that thinking about it wasn't helping me, so I had a really nice dinner, relaxed and went to sleep.  I half-woke up a number of times during the night and kept having images and ideas about the figures in the space and then when I woke in the morning I knew how to include video in the installation.  The installation became cohesive and clear to me.

This has been a great process for me (and more complex than my simple summary of it).  Not only in terms of making the art, but in terms of becoming clearer about how I make art and trusting that.  In school I learned to analyze, conceptualize and basically use my brain to direct my art and defend it.  I went to school a while ago, but still these ideas have stayed with me, probably because it is a way of working that is common in the art world today, which is fine although it doesn't work for me. 

 This has been a long term conflict for me although it seems to have finally found a resolution.  I guess I had to come all the way to Turkey to come back home.