Can Curiosity Survive was the concluding exhibition of my three-month residency at the University of Arkansas Fort Smith. My process was aimed at the art and design students at the school, and so the wall text addressed them directly:

Dear Young Artists and Designers:

I’m sorry to say this, but curiosity is in trouble. It seems that, these days, every thing stands for something else rather than being about the thing itself. A picture of a tree is no longer about the tree. It merely replaces the word “tree” as a symbol of one thing or another (strength?  growth?  nature?) rather than enrapturing us with the way a tree actually is. See it. Name it. Forget it. Move on.  

Flip through Instagram and you will find yourself reciting, “sunset,” “ocean,” “cat,” “baby” and so on. Few surprises, because we name everything we see out of habit. For me curiosity insists that I stop naming what I am seeing. That sounds easy, but it is not. Try it.  

Can we ever look at a thing as if we have never seen it before? Before language? Can we enjoy what we cannot name? Can we make something without it having to be “about” something? It takes so much work to make something that simply is about itself, and we have so little time. But you are artists and you are young!

I love round things and things that spin on an axis. So do you. So does the camera. I like cardboard boxes. So do cats. And a camera, like a cat, is curious because it doesn’t know what it is looking at (or jumping into). And until now, neither did the computer. (I wish we could keep it that way, but that’s a story for another time.)  

I collect things that I know nothing about, often from thrift stores and recycling centers. And I love mixing my finds with other things I know nothing about. And then watching it all tumble over and fall down. (Sorry about the noise, Katie!)

For the past three months I have taken photographs of these things and made marks on paper. Sometimes both at the same time on the same surface. Both are types of recording, and both reveal traces of what once was but isn’t now. Objects once confronted each other like this, and my body once moved along this certain path. That’s really all there is. But what a world we can build out of such simple things!  

You are not cats or round spinning things. You are humans. And because of that, you can enjoy looking and thinking, making without knowing, studying and leaving traces. What in the world delights you? Find that thing. Be alert. Take notes. Help curiosity survive.

‍