Time

For my endurance piece, I was silent for six hours. Since this was for my class I had to document this experience somehow. I wasn't really sure how to document this art piece: since I wasn't speaking recording sound wasn't possible, I'm not very good with video, and pictures wouldn't capture what was going on in my head. So I came up with the idea to document my performance by writing down my thoughts every hour or so. This I believed would allow people to better see into my head and to see what was going on. While I was silent I noticed that it became harder and harder depending on the situations I was placed in. Class wasn't hard, unless I didn't understand something. Lunch was the hardest because I sat with all of my friends and a few of them were purposefully saying mean things to try and get me to talk. I stayed there as long as I could take and finally I had to get up and leave before I started shouting. This helped me to realize my lack of patience and how it was better to walk away from a bad situation. I feel that I've grown from this silence in a way. I've included an excerpt of two of the hours:

10:50 am

Foundations class is almost over for the day. I noticed that at times it was hard to be silent, especially when I didn't understand something or when my professor wanted to talk about my artwork. When I was busy, time seemed to fly by and no one bothered me. English class is next at 11:20.

1:20 pm

Art History is going to start. I'm going to write this down before the lights are turned out.

Through my experience I noticed that my boyfriend, Shane, was trying to be supportive in his own way. I noticed that while I wasn't able to talk, he would forget that he could talk and so he would also resort to miming. It was rather amusing to see that my speech has such an effect on him. After allowing him to try and convey a message to me, I mimed that he was allowed to speak. We both had a good chuckle at that.

After dealing with my friends at lunch, and calming down, I realized that Shane was trying to challenge me. My day way somewhat uneventful and I didn't have much time to interact with people because I was in class all day. So when it was time for lunch, Shane wanted to "help me" with my art project.

This is my last hour of silence.