Regarding My Meeting With Sue

Exhaustion is starting to set in, especially due to all of the Mo'Print events that happened within the last three days. I feel like I've been run ragged, but all of that running around was entirely worth it, especially the chance to meet with Sue Oehme about my BFA work on Thursday night.

Although Sue had a hard time visualizing what I was trying to put together, since everything is in so many parts right now, she did say that she thought my concept was complicated, but intriguing, and that she thought I was onto something that I could potentially work with for a very long time. One of the first questions she asked me was what role I thought writing played in my process and if I planed on including writing in any way. It was fairly obvious to her that writing was entirely central to the work. I told her I agreed, though I had not thought about incorporating the writing in the installation itself. She suggested the inclusion of a notebook, or some sort of journal explaining some of the visual elements I have chosen to use, since the content is so personal and may not be entirely obvious from the visuals alone. She worried that the pieces by themselves may be a little empty without the explanation, and that an artist statement would probably not be enough to say all that I needed to say.

I admit that I had been worried about this exact thing, although I hadn't been sure of just how I should address it. I am, of course, worried that my work will read simply as "something pretty", and that viewers will find it difficult to glean any meaning from it if they are not exposed to some of the backstory. So I liked Sue's suggestion to include something that explains it, just to have that extra "oomph." Also, I thought it may be helpful to have all of this information in my head a teensy bit more organizes.

But the more I thought about it, the more I began to question the idea of having something written included in the installation, whether viewers read it or not. Because I generally like to make work that is meaningful "despite the reference," explaining anything about this fictional world I have created seems slightly...sacrilegious. At least to me. In the beginning, the relative success of the work hinged upon whether it viewers found meaning without me having to give backstory. So I was just going to make the pieces, write a statement, and see what happened. Now I am questioning that. Because even though I do not necessarily want to explain myself, there is still something appealing about having something of an explanation available should anyone be interested. Although, I may want to actually write something that resembles a novel someday, and there is a desire to keep most of this information close to my chest.

I'm not sure what to do about this. The idea is both appealing and unappealing simultaneously, and I would really appreciate anyone's advice about whether or not I should include a written element.

In other news, I have finally nailed down the imagery for the other two mandala-esque pieces.
The first will look something roughly like this:

...except a lot cleaner, without the arrows and lines and things, and the spirals will be altered a little because, you know, math. Also a layer of circles will line the edge of the three interior circles (essentially where the pink circles and the empty ones are, along the very edge), half printed in a light color and half in a dark color (or silver) and then the spirals will radiate out from that. 

The circles that line the edges will basically be blank, but those in the spiral pattern will all (most likely) be these images (which I call sigils, because that's basically what they are): 

...which will all be printed in different colors (hence the color coding above). It's going to get complicated really quickly, but if I can pull it off it will be worth it. Also I just realized that it might be nice to just print colored circles instead of these sigils? Also also I hate the one on the top right so I'm going to re draw that one. 

Edit: 

the image in the top right is now the following:

The other structure will look something like this: 

I can't decide if I should include images in the empty spaces. If I do they should probably be very simple, but there could be something gorgeous about having black space. 

Okay so questions I have for anyone willing to answer: 

1.) should I include some sort of notebook or written element with my installation? 

2.) should the circles in the first structure I have shown here be the sigil patterns, or should they just be colored? 

3.) should I try to fill in the empty spaces in the second structure with simple images?