"But the Visual Is Not Reducible to the Verbal"

Having spent the last couple of weeks trying to figure out how to categorize my work for my Web site, it's still unresolved. I do distinguish between my work on or with paper and "the rest," but what is "the rest"? I can't find the word or words (which reminded me of the quote that titles this post, from ”What ‘Evidence’ Says About Art,” Carter Ratcliff, Art in America, November 2006). Using a reverse chronology also runs into a wall. Some pieces I made years ago present best with more recent work.

My aesthetic and voice are consistent over time and across mediums and formats. So if these categories are more limiting than illuminating, then what? The work does use different "dialects" that could allow for coherent groupings, but again I struggle for words to describe them.

I'm returning to my original idea of a single heading - Work - and see if I can't then use the work to "label" the work.

As someone who's made a living from words for 30 years, this dilemma is actually exhilarating. It's always been my need to make work that exceeds (if not precedes) words, to get at something beyond (if not before) our brains' capacity to reduce it to the verbal.