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Chautauqua School of Art [link]
Chautauqua, New York
June-August, 2006
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Works from WEEK 7-8: Tracking and isolating rest.

 
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Studio door/window with commas and period
     
collecting rests, commas and pauses
whole-bar rest in music score
crotchet and quaver rests with notes eliminated
 
'Spaces in between' are also considered 'spaces of rest' to me. Some like to call it negative space, others like to call it interstices... which ever the case, they are also part of the full body and should not be valued less than their 'positive' counterparts. In many cases, I see these spaces/rests as pockets of threshold-- like stillness before a storm, intensity can be built up in these liminal spaces to produce an effect. When utilized well, they can have potential to create something great, something of complete harmony. Rests in music is one example, space in the visual arts is another. It is also something that we encounter all the time in our daily lives, around where we live, and integrated into our body's energy and senses, too. To me, it is a universal language.

On this page are some "rests" that I have sectioned out from books and music scores. After gathering rests and pauses of various vocabulary and speed, I tried to mark out my own pace of looking with these symbols, by taping them along the places where my eyes travel.
This exercise is, of course, a rather limited and inaccurate one, because your eyes tend to find rests in the middle of nowhere... or somewhere far far away. But since I usually strain my eyes in the studio, I have developed a habit of looking through the same studio door with six window frames everytime my eyes feel tired (great lake view!).

Eyes follow... (top left window) COMMA.. (middle right window) COM...MA (black door knob) C..O.M...M..A (bottom right window) ELLIPSIS.. (back to middle right window) PERIOD.