8:09am. All Nighter. Coffee is my motor.

I had given Judith a 4x5 inch print of this Venn diagram I had drawn and photographed for What I Didn't Understand I'll Show You Here. The diagram read as "individual happiness" in the left circle and "collective well-being" in the right circle. In the middle was heavy, dense black markings filling the median of the two circles. Being one of my favorite photographs I've ever made along with my affinity for lists, tables, and graphs her comments about this photograph only enhanced my already positive feelings towards the diagram.

When I handed her this print that day in the darkroom she commented on how her life was rolling up and down a bit. The next day she said that she put the photograph in her and her husband's bedroom where he noticed it, "This is exactly what we need.", he says to her. I imagine him saying it to himself out loud, slightly his head raised as he now understood the moderation and balance I believe in. It's quite possibly he is a visual learner and that was all he needed to understand. She elaborated no further than to repeat what he said in that room. But for a photograph I took to evoke emotion as that image did was a very, very new feeling for me. And, for me, as a student you often feel like you are only working for yourself with no reciprocation in terms of real, sincere acknowledgment. It places a new value on not only that specific image but also my motivation to pursue art as something I can do for others as much as I can do it for myself.



p.s. I have to present my belly button lint installation/sculpture in 3D today. I am going to record the critique.