Naming It

Pricing and naming my art is difficult. Like making decisions about things like lighting and hanging appliances. I may be obsessive in the work and like to consider an environment for feel but that is about as detailed as it gets. Just not a detail person.

This upsets the more precise around me. It is not intentional or an act of passive cruelty. It is just that I don't give a rat's ass. I trust that people who are curators have a visual sense and a design plan and that they are pretty good at this. I need to be involved in the overall decision but micro-managing seems a little ridiculous.

I want an element of surprise when the show is set up. I like that someone else is involved in the environmental aspect of the work.

So naming is one of those things that is difficult. Either names are too formal or fall into the Newfy Irish melodramatic tendency. Sometimes there is a story to be told in names. They contribute to the narrative of the work or series or body of work.

Eva Hesse had her work titled by numbers as have others. That works but conflicts with the old math innumeracy. Give it a number and it will be forgotten in seconds.

So I am sitting here this afternoon with a ball of dried gut that is part of an installation. Name? Ball of gut?

It is going to be a long afternoon!