"One at a Time"

by Lore Alexander

Materials used: watercolor on watercolor paper attached to PLA 3D-printed stands and mounted on acrylic-painted plywood

about this project

“One at a Time” is a transposition of the word-based Feelings Wheel (created by Gloria Willcox and expanded upon by David Molanphy) into abstract expression by a mostly self-taught artist: me.

My goal was to notice when I was experiencing an intense feeling, then take a moment to identify the feeling and paint the experience using watercolor. To complete the 130 feelings on the wheel, I also had to inhabit memories, listen to music, and follow threads of emotions stored in the body for the purpose of the project.

This process explored the power emotions have over us, acknowledging the intimate relationship between our inner world, our physical bodies, and our life experiences. I used this practice to examine how honoring and making art with feelings can lessen their power over the nervous system and untangle the mess of stories that might keep an individual stuck in past narratives.

The watercolor paintings were affixed to 3D-printed stands that give the piece its parabolic shape and mounted on a wheel that viewers can rotate for a different perspective.

The center piece is an abstract landscape of the artist's greater inner world on a random Tuesday that remains still while the wheel spins around it.

The names of each feeling are viewable via UV flashlight that sits beneath the wheel—because sometimes you have to view things in a different light to get the full picture.