Connecting Logic represents a convergence of ideas for a place designed for the actual convergence of people, on the campus of Everett Community College.

 

The college has a diverse and active student body. Historically, it's the oldest community college in Washington. It is important to acknowledge that its original body of knowledge, the library, was lost to fire and was rebuilt with a greater emphasis on computers.

 

Creation from fire is synonymous with ceramics. Pottery is tangible, a 4000 year history of human life on the planet. Pottery is absolutely familiar. For instance, we can match words describing human anatomy to the potter's names for the parts of a jar (one speaks of the "lip", the "neck", the "shoulder", the "belly", the "foot"). At the same time it's astoundingly mysterious (think of large storage jars displayed on many historical sites as evidence of ancient daily life brought to light through excavation). Pottery is elemental.

 

Thinking about the lost books in the library fire, all that lost text, brought me to "rescue lost words". I chose simple, valuable, small words of connection and positive assertion that seemingly have no meaning on their own. Their meaning is found in context. Many actually form the basis of the symbolic logic that underlies our computer systems. The words are printed in fonts from turn-of-the-century metal typefaces found in the surviving college yearbooks. I have juxtaposed these words, labeled in a scientific, curatorial style, and paired one to each Greek storage jar, to create private moments in a public courtyard space, words that you could figuratively take along in your pocket to muse upon for the day. "If". "Because". "Yet". Directly after the piece was installed, twelve faculty members were inspired to choose one of the words and write a poem from it.