What is the show all about?

Here is a plan I made for the Show at the beginning of 2005 and presented to Ron Paul Baum, Gallery Owner of Windows Art Gallery.  The end result is pretty close to what I had in mind and will give some idea of what I was trying to achieve (additional relationships that crept in over the moths of development are in brackets):

The inspiration came from the Gallery itself which has two rooms.

The larger one has a large Skylight, lots of windows and the smaller one only has one window. I would like to use and intensify the difference between the light and the dark through installation. My paintings can also be split between the lighter and darker side of my work. (This idea grew into differences between life and death, and internal and external as I did further analysis of the paintings chosen for the show)  I plan to build a 6ft tree sculpture out of wire and material for the small darker room, covering the floor with dried leaves, turning the lights down. You can only enter the small room from the large one and I would like it to feel like:
Going from an open field into a dark forest
Retreating back into the womb to explore yourself
Go from looking outside to looking inside 

Want to encourage people to look inside themselves, may include mirrors in this room but not sure if mirrors would capture the depth.
Provide an opportunity for visitors to explore relationship to their past and how it influences there feelings and actions now

Want the tree to also have a small crevice so that a person can travel inside the trunk  (ie get even deeper)

Would like the dark room to make people feel a little bit spooked at first, looking at yourself can be frightening and some of the images I put
in that room will contain some darker and more personal issues I have dealt with, but then the longer they spend in the room the more magical and comfortable it will appear and it will be almost a retreat from the socializing and exposure of themselves and others in the other room. (at the opening only one person at a time was allowed to go into the room, which intensified the feeling)

Hope to achieve this with lights, dark, earth smells, a curtain concealing the room, found objects hanging from branches (this idea was extended to capture the energy of each visitor who was asked to leave behind a personal trinket or message hanging on the tree - see 'the clootie tree').

The large open room is more of a problem and I have not fixed on a certain model to achieve what I am after, which would- I think, try and be the
opposite of the small room, what ever that is? A lot of the work I have and plan to do for this room is brightly colored and explores issues of
life, life beyond, evolution and the landscape (transformation covers all). The only idea I have so far for this room is to install a circle of long real grass under the skylight, symbolizing life and external growth, and opposite to dead leaves.  Then lay on it and cut the grass under my silhouette shorter, symbolizing looking up/out and the mark we make on the environment (idea taken from Andy Goldsworthy rain shadows)

 

Want it to appear light and open and inviting at first, due to the color but become more uncomfortable if people take the time to look further
outside them selves, at the environment, them selves in the environment, others and even how other people view them (extended this uncomfortable feeling by putting a life size head shot of myself peering down through the skylight, this was not obvious at firs

Want to encourage them to explore their own relationship to environment, others and possible impact on both.

Would like to include some wind chimes and a breeze in this room to symbolize time moving (made a 8ft tall hanging DNA spiral which twirled).

On conclusion I think I succeeded in achieving my Goal and that was to help people 'feel' Art, very interested in energy and its power to change peoples feelings, and when one of my friends said it was the first time she had ever 'Experienced Art' then I knew I had got there.  Now I have done this show I know that I will never be happy with your traditional hanging, and will follow those before me that have carved a road around the normal route.