The Role of the Self in Process...

In my current work, I am exploring nurturing processes that humans use, and how I can explore these processes with objects that relate to familial memory.

There are specific processes each individual can relate to nurturing. Each person nurtures others in different ways, and was in turn, nurtured through unique processes throughout his/her life. With this said, I have begun a deep self investigation into which specific nurturing processes I have experienced in my life, and use everyday.

I found George Herbert Mead's essay "The Self, the I, and the Me" quite interesting in allowing me to think about the role the Self and the body play in society- with relation to specific processes. On page 162 Mead states "How can an individual get outside himself (experientially) in such a way as to become an object to himself?" This statement made me think about the role identity plays in relation to specific objects and processes. Maybe not the point, but regardless, this is where my mind went....How can I begin to think about myself as an object performing these processes? And how would this thinking change the course of my artmaking process? This arises a whole new way of thinking about not only my relation to objects, processes, and memories, but my relation of myself to my body, and identity. While this essay goes more into talking about social theory of oneself and identity as he/she relates to others...I think that what I got from this one specific sentence could change the way that I approach thinking about my artmaking process.

People tend to read things through a self-centered viewpoint, bringing in their own associations and thoughts that each individual is currently working through. For me, because I am so self-involved currently in my art and in dissecting why I am choosing to utilize specific processes and objects, I could not help but find my own meaning in Mead's words. Whether or not I decided to utilize the entire point of his essay is mute, all I needed was one sentence to allow me to push my thinking elsewhere and further.

So I am excited to own this book, I am excited that all of these great minds are gathered into one source--available for perusing at my leisure. I think this is a very helpful text to have--not only for my career as an artist, but for my development as an intellectual and, simply put, a human.