After the holidays, while prepping for a New Year & decade, it is not uncommon to reflect on the past, and create for the future. This gallery installation is a somber glimpse into the con ceptual world of the ‘stuff’ we are made of, of the ‘piles’ of demands and expectations we place on ourselves as we navigate through the world of our own hopes and dreams; and, the illusions of importance and purpose.Over the course of the last few months, I put a call-out to many folks to collect & an onymously drop-off their used holiday wrapping paper, as well as to write on a separate piece of paper, New Year’s Resolutions and their own To-Do lists. During this time, I started a major ‘cleansi ng’ of the paper work of my own life…. greeting cards, old faded articles to read, rejection notices , old love letters, old bills, out-dated prospectus’, etc….
Sometimes loss and rejection propel us toward something greater; sometimes sheer determination and grace gets us to move along forward to find beauty and meaning.
In this exhibit, each ‘packet’ contains the essence of completion & renewal, the re- gifting of possibilities, the promise of direction & instruction in the somewhat garish foreign language of imagination and hope.
These ’cairns’ are the souvenirs of collective memory and desire, the markers of resolve. The ceremonious act of shredding and wrapping and placing, at first like a cremation, a spreading of ashes, becomes as a preparation for a holiday Secret Santa ‘grab-bag’.K. Pannepacker
January, 2011
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