The creation of The Lentil Counter highlights my thought processes as I grappled with questions of how to combine my passion for historical research with my love of studio practice. A “bean counter” is an expression used to describe someone so concerned about numbers or details that they lose sight of the greater picture. While still in the bean family, lentils get their name from their lens shape (their Latin name is ‘lens culinaris’). This allusion to optical lenses lends itself to dialogue about seeing anew. By combining the bean counter mentality with that of multiple lenses or perspectives, I seek to share my struggle to more fully integrate my multifaceted interests in the arts. The installation is a workspace where lentils are being counted, manipulated, and ordered. The twenty clear boxes on the shelf contain varying amounts of lentils which represent the size, in cubic yards, of twenty different sculptures. Connections are being made between art history and studio practices, databases and creative freedom.
