October 28, 2020

 

With this installation piece, I have begun a framework for my art practice that de-emphasizes material acquisition. Specifically, I aim to avoid extensive participation in capitalistic financial structures while also engaging the possibilities inherent in a call to “reduce and reuse” as applied to artistic production. This practice also intends to investigate biases in our consumer culture and the specific effect it has on marginalized groups. My intention is to make art that takes refuse as a both a central material and a central tenet. To achieve these aims, I will produce all artworks within the following paradigms:

 

1. I only use materials I have accumulated or acquired at no additional purchase costs  (i.e. “old” or partially used objects offered up via family, friends, colleagues, Craigslist, and other such digital modes of passing objects from person to person).

 

1. I give myself a $1,500 USD yearly budget for expendables: things like drill bits, sand paper, glue, nails for nail guns, etc. This budget does not include tools, though every effort will be made to both limit the need for additional tools beyond what I currently possess and to stay well under that allotted budget in general. 

 

1. I will also set up parameters for potential commissions: no more than 10% of any materials used to create commissioned pieces may have a market value or qualify as a new material that is purchased expressly for the piece (i.e. specifically requested items, etc.)

 

This is the framework by which I will produce art during my time in the OTIS MFA program, with a possibility to re-evaluate use of this structure at the completion of my master’s work. 

 

 

AliCat