The objects in my life that are most meaningful are all aids to my own power of creation. They are never arbitrary objects with monetary value or nostalgic potential. Books, pencils, dice, paper, glass, instruments and uncooked pasta. Everything I value is used to construct something greater than what it was. If each has importance for its potential, what is each object’s entropy? It is impossible to know.

One activity that is personally extremely important to my life is classic pen and paper role-playing games. Once a week I gather with three other people where we collectively create an alternate universe. Characters interact and participate in a world that bends and shapes with our actions. It is like enjoying the best aspects of movies, computer games and acting. Two important objects for me are my enablers. The book is a spring of course material; it is where our joint reality is born and developed. It sets the rules, mechanics and settings for everything described. Dice are how the false reality tests itself against and with characters. Nothing in life is a guarantee and they simulate the chance inherent in every complex action. Dice and book combine into one force that allows me to create. I do not just read a book or look at some rolled numbers. I take these base elements in order to construct something greater. They are important because they give rise to my own ability to make something more. When you look at each you are not merely looking at what they are but they help envision.

When I think about pencils I think about drawing, not writing. I find I do most of my writing and word creation seated at a computer. Artwork, doodles, sketches, and random scribbles all still come in pencil form. Pencils never create anything. They are simply tools used by people as a means to and end. Further more, we destroy pencils as we use them. What might look like a catalogue of art is really the death procession of pencil as it dies. Each sharpening inches it closer to doom. This visual essay takes my essential tool, the pencil, and presents the creative process as things are drawn. I took a photograph of the pencil fresh out of a new box and then used it for my art over nearly two weeks. I took some pictures of what I drew to show the remnants of the pencil. In the end the pencil had aged and was know nearly dead. Not as strong a narrative as my gaming essay, this collection of photographs gains meaning through the lense of mortality.

It was difficult choosing the three objects that held the most meaning for me. I found that train of thought hard to grapple with at first. There were so many to choose from and they were important for drastically different reasons. By reversing my thinking to looking for what is most meaningful and then finding objects that captured that, the assignment became exciting for me. The assignment itself became like the objects I was studying because I was able to integrate it into my own personal context. This is my tentative result.

A visual exploration of two objects and the world they aid in creating.

What does a pencil do? Nothing. What do we do with pencils? Destroy pencils in order to create something new.