Thank you to every reader who came by, read about contradictory abstract nouns, looked at my art, and read my poems. I appreciate the time you gave my work, and the nice comments and fun interactions. To finish out the month long project, I printed out the rest of the images, and put all of the months images in my three-dimensional graph I created yesterday.

Contradictory Abstract Nouns

I really enjoyed how the A to Z Challenge inspired me to look at pairs of abstract nouns that I wouldn’t usually look at together, and wouldn’t usually see as contradictory. It helped me delve deeper into my idea that every abstract noun can be either positive or negative depending on personal perceptual bias.

Creating a three-dimensional graph of all of the abstract nouns that I looked at this month made me think that the Big Five Abstractions may not be: Truth, Beauty, Wisdom, Love, and Happiness, but others that represent each of my four quadrants and the center.

My graph also showed me that I have a positive bias overall, and the fight response to fear includes abstract nouns of equally inner and outer control, where the flight response is mostly inner control.

To explore the definitions of abstract nouns, I collected many texts on philosophy and psychology. I was excited to start exploring the works of William S. Sadler, M.D., the Discourses of stoic philosopher Epictetus, and the texts on human behavior by Adler. Along with the philosophy texts of Kant and Hegel, I have a lot of interesting reading ahead of me.

The Images

In creating this month’s images, I tried new techniques and combined some old ones in new ways. The most successful new techniques this month were controlled blur (using stickers to cover certain bulbs on the string lights), the “blinds” filter (strips of paper on o-rings on a piece of wire, so that they move due to gravity), Morse Code designs (adding the dots and lines of Morse Code to put words in the images), glue vispo (the different thicknesses of glue making the Morse Code look like language), and xylography filters with my wood puzzle piece designs.

I’m very excited that the sun came out before the month was over and I got to play with my floating studio again after the long winter. I created a second cage for my reflection balls, and like the results. I’m really looking forward to all the new possibilities.

Though my three-dimensional graph using my images isn’t a beautiful work of art in itself, the way mages cluster due to my constraints provides interesting insights through my color choices, shapes, textures, and compositions within each quadrant. I have a lot to look at and think about.

The Poems

Though I was feeling somewhat uninspired at the beginning of the month, my little brush with death about mid-month (toppling off the couch and hitting my head on the bookshelf while trying to take emotional furniture photographs) seemed to be just the fuel this poet needed. The prompt to write joke-form poems, was fitting for the possibly tragic hilarity of my situation.

I enjoyed stumbling upon The Nonce Scavenger Hunt while reading other poets, and trying some new forms. As usual, I enjoyed how the different prompts worked with my A to Z challenge topic to push me to write on the topic in ways I wouldn’t have otherwise.

So What’s Next?

I’m looking forward to getting back to my Tuesday and Thursday posting schedule, and returning more of my focus to my novel. I tried to continue my Reading Novels Like a Novelist (RNLN) posts during April, but I only got one posted, so I have some catching up to do.

I plan to spend time reviewing all of the work I’ve done in the last year on abstract nouns, and reflect on where my study is taking me. Though I find great joy in daily creative innovation, I worry that constant creation without refining my focus won’t produce the final images and poems I’m hoping will express and communicate to the viewer/reader the dialectic of every abstract noun.

As I review what I’ve done so far and think about next steps, I want to look at every abstract noun (in English) and put it on my three-dimensional graph, and choose my new Big Five Abstractions from my four quadrants and the center. Then, by looking at the graph, I want to explore my biases and where they come from, and what might change them to their opposite, to see the entire continuum.