Final Finals Week

Well the final week of my master's program is here and its time to wrap everything up. Ive got a few projects and assignments to finish up and submit but for the most part the major things were due last week. I turned in my revised complete thesis paper to the College of Graduate Studies last week. The whole experience is ending in a way I never thought it would, online...socially distant...no idea of the future. Im not really sad about missing graduation as I hadn't planned on walking but I thought I would have time to take in the last few days at Georgia Southern. Instead I have been at home for 8 weeks now, communicating my end of the masters program through emails and a few phone calls. I guess college really is you, your laptop, and your water bottle against the world. That is one of my favorite memes on the internet because it was true before the pandemic and even more so now.

I did do one final painting that was experimental. For my final piece I wanted to start exploring different forms of boundaries. The covid outbreak really brought to attention the way we are contained rather to our home, our land, and our county. All of this has shown how boundaries are prevalent in our lives. Moving out of my studio forced me to work smaller which I thought at first would be easier but it presented me with different challenges. The threadwork in my painting was easier due to the reach but the black and blue line work was actually more difficult on a smaller scale. The painting is a 14x14 canvas, the overall outline is actually the county line boundaries, I then put my plot of land in the middle of the county. I am not considering scale with this painting, focusing more on working with multiple boundaries. As for the color palette I wanted to keep things bright and vibrant, I think in part to my current mood. I didn’t want gloomy colors or anything subdued. As I said the threadwork was easier so I wanted to go pretty heavy with the threadwork and really fill in the blue plot of land with a variety of textures of thread. I think the back of the canvas is interesting as my plot of land it full of thread on the back as well as the front.