Is the Work About Making/Constructing or Material?

The answer is neither.... The work is about time.

Uncovering the answer to this question surprised me. Six months ago, I would have said that my sand paintings were about the material. When this question came up during the residency, I couldn't articulate why I thought material was so important to me. I love working with sand as a medium. However, as I considered the actual themes behind my work and the ideas I want to address, I realized that sand itself really wasn't that crucial. I believe that sand has been an excellent tool for communicating what I want to say but it isn't the only one available to me. 

As I continue to move forward with the sand work, I do so with the awareness that the crux of my creative exploration includes the ideas of ephemera, time, and change. I want to replicate/document fleeting moments in time and create temporal experiences. Methods that I use to construct work and material are important, but the act of making and the process of unmaking through entropy are pivotal. The ruins of the sand paintings I've been working on, in my mind, are of equal importance to the original creations. They become a metaphor for processing childhood memories and feelings of nostalgia and loss. After creating idealized landscapes, deconstructing them serves as a springboard for a new landscape; one that is a combines idealized patterns with more realistic forms.