Sun Spots

Cammaroto, Crista

Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation

Sun Spots Public Deposited

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Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/8336h3013

Abstract

My work became the place were I could become bigger than myself and bigger then the experiences that loomed over my head. I could open the faucet and the work would rush out. But like any pressure, when first released it can be scary and confusing. Once I started to physically struggle with my work, the necessity for process became clear. The more strenuous labor involved the better I felt. But, the idea of attacking a piece of work to reach clarity only revealed more confusion. I had to find a way to infuse my work and the viewer with unanswerable questions. Hence, my work came to orient itself around ideas of process: it had to be continuous, moving, and strive to escape the limitations of definite form. My repetitive obsession with wondering eventually interpreted itself into the idea of performance. Pain and reference to the physical body have become redundant in the sensationalized world of performance art. Although I have always enjoyed dramatic narrative, the sensational in my work becomes how much I care to invest rather than how much of my body I slice up for the audience. My work is about pain, but it is even more about recovery and the love of self that eventually leads to simple survival. In my recent performance/installations, I portrayed a spiritual tenacity that could handle my mourning. I wanted to demonstrate something similar to eating a small piece of black tar every day knowing that I will never finish it, need never enjoy it, and have no choice but to eat it.

My emotions were changing as fast as my mediums. Every time I set out to create a piece, I had the added task of learning several new techniques. Film due to its tendency towards a linear progression was a great way to throw in everything due to the narrative simplicity of time. Installation could communicate ideas of confinement and grandiosity.

My work as an artist has always been a very invested passionate response to the shooting stars that blast through my armor from places and reasons unknown. The holes in the armor remain deep and vacant for what seems like an eternity until the unavoidable call to grow finds its way back in. This desire for growth becomes a call to extremes, a call to move from the subterranean up to the sky where all is uncertain except the burning of the bright sun. Obsession with the sun is understood when considering its power to support life. Plants grow towards the sun, babies crawl and become upright, water tries to jump off the earth and forms a tide. The desire to fly towards the sun, defying the limitations of gravity is a desire shared by many living things. But, like a moth to the flame, when pursuit is at any cost the creative aspiration becomes the destructive. The desire to be more than we are, have more than we have, drive faster, and live longer, is the same desire that created the atom bomb. The laws of gravity eventually humble the laws of passion and the landing is inevitable. As sure as the sun rises and sets, there is a return to the body, a pull to the earth, and a reconciliation with mortality.

Creator

Cammaroto, Crista

Date Issued

1997

Additional Information

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Academic Affiliation