Monthly Statement:
July 2006

Introduction
The installation is what it is and I don't wish to explain it. It has an effect that I find very satisfying, and that is well enough left alone. On the other hand I was asked to write a brief essay as part of the application to be included in the Accumulation Project, and found myself enjoying very much an effort to express a constellation of thoughts regarding the effects of these taxonomies, and to a degree taxonomies in general.

There is no center to the relating set of concepts these thoughts revolve around. The thoughts are not intended as an analysis of the installation- for me they are an entertainment which is separate from the work itself.
1) Taxonomy, a definition.
A taxonomy is a collection of items which share a chosen characteristic. In this case the collection consist of yellow things.

(This is not about yellow.)

2.01 Pure Ideas
I have collected things that are to me things that can be considered yellow. Each of these yellow things also possesses non yellow qualities.

It occurred to me while writing the essay that gathering a number of yellow things and juxtaposing their unique ways of being yellow maybe makes manifest or somehow stimulates a mental awareness of the pure idea of yellow.

2.02 Found Objects
Potential found objects are common as an aspect of ubiquitous loam, mulch, fodder- they are crap until recognized as treasure. They are free for the taking, already possess their own person, arrive with their own history, which will be at least abstractly visibly manifest in the condition of the object.

In themselves they are not the creation of the artist and are included to be vied with and to vie with each other.

2.03 Abstract and Articulated (Leonardo's advice)
Leonardo Da Vinci recommends to a painter lacking subject matter that he find an old, blank, decaying plaster wall, and look at that. "there you will find any number of compositions" This will inevitably be a surface with a fully subtle articulation. You will have stains, cracks, losses, abrasions, etc that are an endlessly subtle abstract picture, endlessly open for the projection of one's own contents, memories, ideas, dreams.

In my taxonomy there is the same open-endedness and the same articulated abstractness, of course juxtaposed dissonantly with the concrete facts of each object.

At the beach you can find whole, identifiable shells. You can find fragments of broken shells that may still possess enough of the characteristics of the shell of which they are to be identifiable. You can find smaller fragments which are not identifiable, and then there is the sand, which is made up of pulverized shells, along with other materials- an (metaphorically) undifferentiated material.

The taxonomy has few whole items- mostly fragments of one class or another, but contains this range where many fragments are clearly meme-like- they are recognizable as broken letters in a former language.

There is the idea of undifferentiatedness in relation to its opposite- contexts in which fully articulated worlds exist.

2.04 Limits of Distinction & Subjectivity
Leaving aside, as my project intentionally does, a scientific definition of what is and is not yellow, you are left with the subjective process of deciding where yellow ends and blue begins, and at the other end of the collection, where yellow ends and red begins- the halfway points at the centers of green and orange where these secondary colors tip from being more yellow to being more red, from more yellow to more blue.

There is a limit to how many differently colored yellows can be identified- how many colors we can perceive in general. The process is then one of testing this limit, and trying to set the items out in a clear relation, any one item being a bit redder than the one to its left, a bit bluer than the one to its right, a bit more saturated than the one below, a bit paler than the one above. And of course reasonable people might disagree- or lighting conditions affect how the relationships work.

This subjective tenuousness was intentionally included.

2.05 Fractal Image
The collection functions as a world image, within which each object functions reflexively as a world image.

The collection becomes varied, subtle, and articulated until it is an image of the world. Each object, as the attention moves from one to another, in its own identity, recontextuallizes the collection around it, and forms an aperture through which, in its own history, it becomes a reflexive image of the world.

2.06 Finding
To a child or a childlike adult, shells are a treasure that can wash up by chance on a beach somewhere and rest waiting for them personally to discover. There is the pleasure of coming upon an endless variety of (yellow) objects, especially as some seem so much more forcefully unique than others- an effect of me projecting my contents on them.

2.07 Us (Humans)
The project is about nature only in the most over-arching way, where nature is defined to include human beings, their activities and effects (and exclude nothing). Perhaps also in that most of the objects are discovered outdoors and have been exposed to the environment- sun, wind, rain, etc. over time.

Color is a powerful element of the visual world, not limited to the human animal in this respect. However, in that we idealize, and in that advertising and packaging make use of this need of ours to idealize, the taxonomy becomes a very human image. It isn't just a pure idea of yellow that exists in the world- it's a pure idea of yellow produced through these profoundly human processes of manufacturing, advertising, packaging, consuming.

2.08 Color is What is Rejected, not a quality possessed
Objects absorb some of the light that falls on them and reflect some. The wavelengths reflected (rejected) determine their color.2.09 Parameters

There was only one rule regarding the choice of objects for the collection, but as I considered the collection I realized that there were some parameters operating in my choice making that had an effect on how well I felt the collection makes its point. I generally include only one example of a give object- I feel that this emphasizes that each should be regarded as unique, and emphasizes the variations on a theme effect. I generally include objects within a pretty narrow size range- again this would emphasize the variations on a theme aspect. I generally don't include objects that are obviously organic in nature where the color might be too fugitive. I excluded some attractive items like car deodorant cards, as a strong smell would bother me and distract from the point.

I asked myself the question, could I create a set of rules and guidelines that would result in collections I would find just as satisfying? This is a personal process, after all, even though I have accepted objects from friends and children and have hired assistants to help collect and install the collection. But I suspect that the answer here would be yes, and that the personal satisfactions of discovering, collecting, and looking at the taxonomies is secondary to the objective effect they have. I get a similar thrill standing in font of display cases of various types of beetles at the Museum of Natural History, for example.

Process: I will collect yellow things which will be mostly litter and other refuse of our urban environment, on walks. I will collect them as I go about the normal business of my life.