"[The real] no longer has to be rational, since it is no longer measured against some ideal or negative instance."  -Jean Baudrillard, Simulations
 
This quote reminded me of the paintings of one of my favorite artists, Wayne White. He creates his unique images using paintings found at garage sales and goodwill, adding interesting, colorful, and often nonsensical words to them. I've always liked this concept, and for a long time I've had the idea of doing something similar but in real life with three dimensional letters, which can be moved around and left just about anywhere for people to experience and respond to them. For the first project of this term, I decided to do a small experiment with this idea, creating a single word out of painted, cardboard letters. I chose the word 'bees' partly because it was short and simple to create as an experiment, but also because it doesn't make much logical sense. Similar to Baudrillard's statement about reality, I believe that art does not have to be rational to be meaningful, and that the irrationality can often contribute to the meaning. 'Bees' is irrational in this context for several reasons, namely because of the winter weather and indoor setting. I find it interesting to consider Baudrillard's point in relation to the idea of
the presence of real bees versus simply the word 'bees', and the meaning behind making a word into a tangible object. I'm not sure what conclusion I should draw from these questions and comparisons, but I still like thinking about it. Hopefully as I continue working on the project this term I can develop my ideas further.