Sam Ekwurtzel artist lecture

The first thing that struck me about Sam's work is how prolific and well-versed he is in so many different media. I respond really well to people who seem to resonate with whatever situation they find themselves in, constantly using their surroundings to feed into their creativity.

I feel that Sam is one of those people, but his work still almost seems assignment-based somehow. A few of the works seemed to fold back in on themselves, suggesting the idea behind the work was more interesting to me than the actual piece. Often times I felt as if I could see the idea, represented differently in my mind. That was an interesting experience for me.

Sam's work felt like calculated interactions with his surroundings.. never really a preconceived subject. At times I felt like this almost scatter-shot approach was detrimental to the work, (something I'm seeing in my own work, and perhaps I'm projecting into my read of his). There were underlying constants running through his work, and even, his fascination and long-term commitment to his boat building, that tied the body together.

A piece that stuck with me was the boat-bullet-up/down piece. Watching the video documentation of the performance action, i felt the aesthetic layers melt away, and held a very clear picture of an x/y axis chart, as the boat floating on the x axis, with two lines projecting from it, one straight up, the other straight down. I found it compelling that watching such a calculated, layered endeavour would generate such a simple image in my mind.

If anything, Sam's lecture was, (although perhaps too dry and long in tooth) encouraging... Sam's work shows the results of seeing each idea though, allowing ideas to blossom and bear fruit, and in it I sensed a freedom to pursue, to explore, to finish-present-learn-move on.