This is an experiment.

 

I want to make art people connect with. Art that touches something human and common within us. Maybe it makes life a little easier by bringing a smile, transporting you to the world of imagination & possibility, or maybe it just says you are not alone.

 

I am giving away almost all of my life's work. Though I am not asking for money, I am asking for something in return. I want to know why you want it. 

 

 

How does this work?

 

Browse this site. If something resonatess with you, then tell me about what spoke to you and the original art work will be yours. Think about what in your life connected you to the work or what you see within the work. Go to the contact page and send me those words, identify the work (please send the title and description), and it will be yours. The real question is how did this speak to you and did it speak loudly enough that you would want this work in your home?

 

See the fine print section below for more details.

 

 

Why am I doing this?

 

A few ideas came together for me recently: When I said I had many old canvases I did not know what to do with a friend recommended I give them away. Also I heard a program on This American Life about William Burroughs which had me contemplating how much the artist versus the audience creates the meaning of art. The communal art experiment Attaching Lines was started by MyInsides at Tea NJ. And finally I attended a retrospective of Charles Kessler's work at The Village West Gallery.

 

In contemplating these things I decided that the meaning and value of art exists in both what the artist and the audience bring to the work. Some literary theory says the reader creates the story as it is read and certainly when the Dadaists started the cut-up technique they (possibly unintentionally) highlighted that the artist can cead all of the role of adding meaning to the viewer. The artist may be right in saying they intended no particular meaning, but the audience can be equally right in contending that they have found great meaning all the same. So the artist needs the audience for the full meaning to be known, but in the studio the artist can try to predict how an audience might react. Dialogue with the audience helps the artist better anticipate the audience's reaction.

 

For any artist there is always the choice of what skill to improve. For instance you can concentrate on rendering, design, or color. While I certainly have much to learn in many areas, what I want to do with this project is concentrate on meaning and inspiration.

 

 

Why include early work?

 

There's something interesting in not putting your best foot forward. Also, I have always loved retrospectives because they allow you to see the development of an artist.

 

 

There is one catch:

 

I want to display the connections that people had with the work (or works) they chose. Whether or not I display your name is optional, but I want to display the connection. If this experiment works I plan to use your words to create something new -- a new statement on the artist and audience and how blurry that distinction can be.

 

 

The fine print:

 

This website is full of pictures of my works. In the description that goes with the work, I offer some details about the work and whether it is available not available, or in a private collection. For anything that is listed as available contact me with the following:

 

1. Your name

2. How I should contact you (email, txt msg, phone number)

3. Whether you can pick up the work (in the NYC area) or whether it should be shipped

4. Your connection to the work and/or the meaning you find in it (at least a sentence)

5. How you would like your words attributed to you. Either tell me how you would like your name presented or choose something like “anonymous” if you do not want your name displayed.

6. Include this statement: "I understand that the content of this email (excluding contact information) may be used in a future work by William Rood. Credit for my words will be presented with the attribution I have specified. This content may be exhibited in a public place. This use of the content is contingent on my receiving the work of art I have requested."

 

Should you not be able to pick up the work, we may have to discuss the cost of shipping. I would like this experiment to be a simple barter of your words exchanged for my art, however I may need to make an exception for the cost of shipping. I have set aside some money to pay for the initial costs, but depending on how many people ask for shipping or how expensive it is to send a particular work I may ask if you can help with that.

 

If you choose to pick up the work, you have one year to do so and if that does not happen then I retain the right to offer the work to someone else. I have heard that galleries sometimes sell work that is never picked up, which leaves that work in limbo and I would like to avoid that.

 

 

Some notes about the work itself:

 

I took art classes in middle school and high school and had some great teachers. I also took lessons from a private instructor who was a major influence on my life (both personally and as an artist). Anything created before 1997 is possibly from a class assignment.

 

In the past few years I have been publicly showing my work, but for the longest time I thought of my visual art as only for me. I did not worry about plagiarizing because I did not expect anyone to see it. I still believe that the best way to really understand someone else’s work is to copy it because you are forced to consider every aspect of how it could have been created, but I also fully acknowledge the original artist deserves the credit. I created the covers section (within "modern work") for this type of work that was either heavily inspired by another work or was a direct copy. Obviously whatever work I copied spoke to me, so I have included it in this experiment as I am curious to know if and how it speaks to others. I unfortunately did not make note of when I copied things, but I am relatively sure that I remember all of these cases. Many of the covers are from Utne magazine illustrations or music magazines — in particular RayGun. 

 

Most of my portraits are from photographs of musicians or models in music magazines from the 1990’s. Obviously the photographer deserves credit, but unfortunatly I did not keep records.