Empty Thoughts

2021

Wood, found hinge

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I made this artist’s book in a week while attending summer classes at Ox-Bow School of Art. I was wrestling with the idea that I didn’t know how to play, or how to detach art from the pressures I associated with it. My head was full of self-criticism.

I had a sort of idea for what I wanted to make, but I was stumped about what I should put in it. My thoughts kept cycling and I dismissed tons of ideas before I finally caved to my teacher’s suggestion and simply started working. By the time I finished, I realized what it really needed was the emptiness I had been craving in my own head: freedom from self-criticism – an allowance that the book could be empty and that would be okay.