“Inventing at its best is wild, playful, even undisciplined. Outside of the familiar. That’s how great art is made.”
-Bruce Metcalf
It’s hard to believe it is the 8th and final week, in many ways it seems like it’s been far longer than that, in other ways it feels like I am just getting my footing here. If you’re reading this, you have likely been checking the blog from time to time so I won’t recount events the group has taken part in. Just know that they were incredibly informative, often overwhelming, but most importantly rare experiences I would never have had the privilege of taking part in be it not for the Windgate ITE residency. Thank you to everyone who has played a role in our time here, I know we are all grateful.
When we first divvied up the dates for the weekly blog entry I think I was still drawing furniture. I was confused, overwhelmed, and completely bewildered by the collections we were seeing, the people we were meeting and what I was doing here.
A lot has changed since those tentative first weeks. Although I still search for more meaning in the work I choose to make I have been learning (at times the hard way) to embrace the playful space that exists in the uncertainty. I would like to thank the other Windgate ITE residents, they dared me to work beyond my place of comfort, largely on my approach to making as a whole. It has been a refreshing experience, and a longed for challenge that commissioned furniture work had not been satisfying. It will continue on long after this residency concludes, it is not something that can be fabricated, but an understanding of ones self and why we choose to make.
I will need time to process all that has happened over the last time warped eight weeks. I know I am still confused, overwhelmed and bewildered by all that has happened, but I think that was the whole point, and that’s what I was doing here. The work created here is secondary to the growth that is fostered here.
3 days left, so much still to do, Yuri puts it better, “still so much fun to do.”
Thank you for following our adventure
Reed Hansuld