personal inspiration

These are all pictures of Magdalena Abakanowicz's work. She is the brilliant mastermind behind the piece that was in The Hishorn Museum called Four On a Bench. Awesome piece! Anyways, I found these pictures and I just wanted to share them. Personally, I feel very inspired by Magdalena Abakanowicz's work just because of the use of materials and the magnitude at which she works and her ideas about what art's pupose is. She says that"art needs somebody to listen to its message, somebody to desire it, somebody to drink it, to use it like wine - otherwise it makes no sense." After talking with Valeska and doing some research on my own, I found out that Abakanowicz deals with mostly perishable materials. (Her figure sculptures are done with burlap and resin) I think that that is the part that really gets me about her work just because it puts an entirely new motivation behind her artwork. She is not looking for her artwork to be in museums for years and years. (Though some of her installations that are steel will be.) That idea is so striking because most of the time I feel like my work is so precious because of the time I have put into it and the energy it took to make it happen. It is not like I am saying I shouldn't do that, I am just saying I shouldn't take myself so seriously. After seeing her piece in the Strange Bodies exhibit, my drive is different. In the first TARC slide show, Heather talked about how her experience became her piece. That has stuck with me. And I was reminded of her presentation as I researched Abakanowicz. I am going to experiment, create, and enjoy the process of my work. I think that the work I create will have a much bigger impact on my growth as an artist and hopefully the people who see it once I stop trying so hard to create something so awesome and great that people have never seen before. I am becoming more focused on the process and how that contributes to my growth as an artist. That forces me to trust the people who will see my work more. Each person's perspective changes the piece and makes it richer. I am just going to see what happens:)