SoMA BLUE was an art exhibition, and an experience. What follows is a summary of what the show consisted of: the physical space, the presentation, the artwork, the gift shop, and the celebration. All of these aspects and twenty-five volunteers, three paid assistants, my family a tremendous amount of support from my committee members: Richard Harned (head), Kenneth Rinaldo, and David Covey, and former committee members, Ruth King and Michael Rogers, all the resources of Ohio State University, and a lifetime of aesthetic contemplation came together to produce something that went beyond anything I had any hope of expecting.
This thesis will address SoMA BLUE in the order of its appearance to the public. The first section is devoted to my ‘visual artist’s statement’, given on the Sullivant Hall Theatre stage. What had originally been intended to be a multimedia presentation transformed quickly into a performance piece, which ultimately was more in the spirit of the show. In the second section, I address the gallery space, the installation of the work and the work itself, discussing the physical presence of each piece, its position and the ideas from which each piece or series of pieces were conceived. The third section will address the ‘Gift Shop’ (which formed a segue between the gallery space and the festive party/celebration/reward), and the celebration itself. I will also address aspects of my work in this (new to me) theatrical/installation context, and I will be recapitulating the scaling levels of interconnectedness which were both seen and unseen, but which formed the most important part of the work as far as I was concerned.