Arts + Literature Laboratory presents Learning Curves, an exhibition by Madison artist Jeremy Nuttall, from April 8 to April 29, 2017. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, April 8, 7-9pm (FREE).
About the Exhibition
The nervous feeling I get when I use a tool for the first time is similar to the feelings I get when I have to read out loud. Thoughts begin running through my head, “man I hope I don’t screw this up.” I weigh the potential dangers of losing a finger, destroying the tool, or totally botching the thing I’m working on. The use of tools and the possible outcomes made possible by tools provides me a transcontinental highway for communicating my thoughts and feelings.
How do we communicate with ourselves, our teachers, our friends, the people we work with, the people we meet, or the objects around us? When I recall moments of my childhood, I remember how my mode of communication was interpreted by others. Once, when sitting in a psychologist’s office being asked to draw a series of pictures, and I drew someone giving a “thumbs up”, the psychologist asked, “Is this someone hitchhiking?.” On another occasion, sitting in a room with my teachers and parents during a monthly IEP (Individual Education Plan meeting, a requirement of being in special education), the meeting ended with my team of teachers stating, “It looks like Jeremy can stay in special ED, that’s great”. My response, after sitting silent for the duration of the meeting was, “It is?.”
I have always found it interesting that the way I do or don’t communicate information at certain times to certain people or objects may be considered non‐traditional. My work explores the universal standard forms of communication versus idiosyncratic dynamic forms of communication.
