Idea Post #5: Spring Semester

Idea Post #5: Spring Semester

March 3rd, 2011

Control

Quotes:

"Congrol is never achieved when sought after directly.  it is the surprising outcome of letting go."

-James Arthur Ray 

"A man with a surplus can control circumstances, but a man without a surplus is controlled by them, and often has no opportunity to exercise judgement"

- Harvey S. Firestone

Annotated Bibliography:  Langer, Ellen and Robert Abelson. The Psychology of Control. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1983. 

This book deals with the psychology of mental and physical control of situations. The book begins with general issues of what control is and how to hold onto it and then shows how it defers from relinquishing control. I think this book is a good reference for the medical and scientific issues with control and lack of control. 

Relation: The issue I have been dealing with over the past week is how to give up control.  I worked hard on my images and now am faced with the challenge of giving up control and allowing children without a sense of placement or design to obtain control over my prints.  I really want to explore this feeling of letting go of control and letting someone else have it, but it also really scares me to let go.  I think this is an important step in my art making process... giving someone else the option to participate in the creation of my work.  Last semester, I struggled with finding a way to get someone else to participate in my project- viewer participation- and I think I have finally found the way to get the most important members of the project- the children- to participate. I am excited, but nervous, about this next step.