Altered States

I installed this installation yesterday for my New Genre class, a class that I'm not enrolled in because of scheduling conflicts, but the teacher (who is rad-tacular) is letting me participate none the less. I'm trying to work with water in my artworks at this stage of artistic progression. It is such a universal subject and symbol in addition to my love of water, swimming etc. For this piece, I used a large block of ice (which I froze myself) as my main subject. As time progresses, the ice will naturally melt and change from its solid to its liquid state. Much like all of us, we change with time, maturing mentally, emotionally, physically with day to day efforts. However, there are times in our lives that cause radical change in those areas: puberty, mission, marriage, tragedies, etc. This is represented with the salt. It acts as a catalyst that increases the rate of changing which is already occurring. The state of water is transported on a journey into the tract of the tube, having the ability to twist and turn, much more flexible and "fluid" then the previous, frozen state. The water filled tube with excess length stands still waiting with great potential, having the choice to go where ever it needs to go. My class had a lot of fun playing with the salt and ice. I liked that. I had yet to test anything so everything that occurred was a complete surprise. The coolest thing is the texture formed as the dissolved salt water ran down the sides creating a wood like texture.