Generosity

As artist our production space is often one of the most important assets we have as an artist and the second is the material we use to produce our work. Both are always in short supply. We often work jobs that never quite fulfill us to earn the capital necessary to purchase materials necessary to continue our creative investigation. Being strapped for cash, space, and material we must turn to our community for support.
Here at SUNY New Paltz, in the Fine Arts Building we are a teaming organism of creative production. Despite us all breathing the same air behind close doors, our community lacks communication. It lacks the flexibility to pass between the doors freely, engage with each other for the dissemination of ideas, skills, and helping hands.
For my project I will be facilitating an artist community material swap. This material swap will be held in a common community space no longer held behind close doors. It will provide a place to gather engaging with others. The materials will be coming from the artist themselves, donating material that is cluttering up their space, unwanted, unused, or scraps. This will then free up the valuable production space for each individual. Those who donate material are then able to select the from the accumulation of objects, materials, and supplies brought to the community space thusly reducing the financial cost of their own practice.
The accumulated objects will be arranged into a dense collection that will become a landscape of potential creativity. The project will be ongoing for 10 days. Each day the space and the collection will be documented noting what has been left behind and what has been removed. These photos will be the map of artist interaction with the materials, the community, and the transaction of goods outside of the capitalist system.