Artist: Norman B. Colp

I like the idea that my thoughts and phrases that I find personally comforting can be shared with other people, I was inspired to do this when I looked back at an artist’s work that I seen when taking the subway in New York, I noticed on the beams above my head that there were occasional signs that read such phrases as “why the pain?” and “get fired”, at the time I thought that they weren’t meant to be there. However, I found that this was a poem by Norman B. Colp, commissioned by the MTA in 1991. The poem runs like a sequence through the subway, it reads “Overslept, So tired. If late, Get fired. Why bother? Why the pain? Just go home. Do it again.”

after I found that this was a poem written in sequence I came to the realisation that no matter what the intent of the poem the viewer can always interpret it differently, on a different day with different feelings the same phrase will mean something different to you. This idea intrigues me because the text will never physically change, and I think that this can relate to my work since my text has a personal meaning to me it can mean something completely different to someone else, I would also like to take inspiration from the idea of using art in a sequence of someones everyday journey.