PART ONE:

First of all, I can't lie, I did this all wrong. Well, whatever that means... it's wrong in a really right way. Basically, I did not "go out in public" and make my way in the world. It's midnight in Oakland and I am a small white girl wondering around alone with a blindfold on. So I made my way around my new house I just moved into. I have clutter everywhere, am still unpacking boxes. I also heard of this task by word of mouth just a couple hours ago and didn't even read the directions yet.

Anyway, I chose to make my way around my bedroom. I have this corner of my bedroom where every weird little item I couldn't find or perhaps chose not to find a place for has landed. If you asked me what was there I might have said "a bunch of cheap jewelry and a lot of other crap." I attempted to take pictures all around my bedroom but got stuck in this one corner. The tactile sensations were too overwhelming to let go. I had this plan that I was going to create a sculpture from all this junk then take pictures from all possible angles. I decided to take a couple "before" images, just to show the full process of creation... demolition then construction. So I took a few shots (I had not seen or touched this area yet). Then I felt around and started clearing some stuff off my dresser, one by one.

I decided to keep a small Mexican bead bowl, a mass of change and a bag of colored glass stones. I tore open the bag and poured the stones out. I felt a little piece of paper and moved that out of the way. I took a bunch of pictures like this and then added some other pieces to the sculpture and took more pictures. After a few minutes I felt I had exhausted my options so I took my mask off. I was ashamed to see that I had somehow overlooked a rather large tag on my pretty installation I had made. It was funny how when I couldn't see or feel the paper I was happy with my piece I created and now I was hugely disappointed. All the glass stones coins were so smooth and fun to play with and the bowl was lined with neat little beads. I was intrigued by circular parallels of the coins and stones in and around the beads in the bowl. It was alarming to me to feel a sense of perfection with my hands and then in the same exact scenario I felt failure with my eyes. This ugly tag I should have thrown in the trash now cluttered my beautifully imagined dotted landscape. For my own sense of selfish gratification I moved the tag and took one last picture. I'm not sure I was as much satisfied with this image as I was relieved to know my two realities now matched.

What's interesting to me though is that my two favorite pictures ended up being the "before" shots. Completely untainted and built hastily and without thought over a period of about two weeks. It felt raw and to the point.

PART TWO:

It's the next morning and I am eager to explore the outside world now. I wondered around with my cat Poon near my house. First thing I did was kick her because she is so lazy she never moves out of your way. Anyway I took about 100 pictures and almost all of them came out overexposed. It was really hard doing this by myself. I wished I had someone to tell me what I was pointing at. I came out with a couple decent photos.