language

Language—both spoken and written—has, is, and always will be susceptible to spin, manipulation, obfuscation, and misinterpretation. This paper explores how communication's inherent vulnerability has long formed the core of my conceptual inquiry. As a visual artist, I am a tireless experimenter—with both ideas and materials. The foundation of my interdisciplinary practice is my artist's books, which have been referred to as "patchwork quilts of the subconscious." Projects related to my book practice include performance videos along with text-based drawings, paintings, and sculpture that may be characterized as both personal and social critiques. As the inherent nature of humans remains impulsive and fallible, these works may illuminate our unconscious reluctance to convert rational awareness into a more positive and sustainable life practice. My final thesis project will demonstrate emboldened approaches to these facets of my practice. I will present up to thirty new artist's book entries, a dozen new hand-sculpted UNBOUND book prints (up to 7 x 10 feet), five new text-based works on paper and canvas, and one new wall sculpture fabricated in mirrored stainless steel.

For my thesis project, I use the word/object as a canvas to imprint my analysis of the cultural rifts generated when we position ourselves in an unrelated cultural context, using handwriting to address a more personal take on the way we communicate via the written word. The text presented is an original poem written in both Spanish and English that will reflect on my personal experience as a Colombian now living in the United States. The thread that joins a word and its meaning is susceptible to alterations when subjected to translation into a different language. I posit the notion that even when we do not understand each other's language, we all have a story to tell and have more things in common than we realize.

This thesis suggests a template for the artist-in-community as described by African American novelist Toni Morrison; presents an approach to space/place in light of both white Canadian theorist Marshall McLuhan's assertions about the effects of media on human experience and African American social theorist Patricia Hill Collin's description of safe-spaces as used by Black women in the United States; places my work in conversation with the work of established contemporary artists whose claimed identities, similar to my own, place them at the margins of American society to, as Latino artist Félix González Torres said, "(open) up the terms of the argument, and (re-address) the issue of quality and who dictates and defines 'quality'"; and posits that, given their missions, relationships with their communities, and my personal experiences with them, libraries and library-like spaces are metaphors and appropriate places for my work to enter into the community-based conversations that drive my practice.