The Day After

The opening at the Vermont Supreme Court last night was wonderful. I usually don't like openings, but I had a great time and I think other people did too! Part of the reason was that people got to interact with the work a bit, using finger LED lights to cast shadows from the work onto the wall. Unfortunately I forgot the lights in my concern with getting the refreshments packed at home and then set out at the reception, so I had to wait until my husband arrived with them, about a third of the way through the 2-hour opening. I brought a camera, but I was having so much fun that I didn't take any photos.

Today I saw this quote from the artist Robert Morris (who made installations with platforms, ramps, and other constructions that visitors could move around on) which seems to speak to the pleasure people got from having an actual, physical way to interact with the work:

"Personally, I'd rather break my arm by falling off a platform than spend an hour in detached contemplation of a Matisse. We've become blind from so much seeing. Time to press up against things, squeeze around, crawl over - not so much out of a childish naivte to return to the playground, but more to acknowledge that the world begins to exist at the limits of our skin and what goes on at that interface between the physical self and external conditions doesn't detach us like the detached glance."
- Robert Morris in a letter to Tate curator Michael Compton in 1971

DISC COURSE Exhibit at the Vermont Supreme Court

There is an exhibit of my disc-based artwork at Vermont Supreme Court during the months of July and August, 2013. The show is entitled  DISC COURSE.  An opening reception, to which the public is invited, is on Thursday July 11 from 5-7 PM. The Supreme Court is located at 111 State Street in Montpelier, and is open weekdays from 8:00 - 4:30.

The pieces in DISC COURSE are selected from my Circular Statements body of work, begun in 2005, which employs buttons and other circular elements. In addition, all the work in this exhibit uses spray paint, at least in part. Spray paint creates a fabulous, smooth surface that I can either keep as-is or overpaint with oil paints that add additional textures.

Come to the opening reception on Thursday, July 11. Visitors will be offered small colored LED lights to shine on my works and experiment with the effects created by the colored shadows. That plus good things to eat and drink!

In addition to the large 8x6 foot Circular Statements piece, there are two never-before-seen new pieces called All and Everything (I and II) (see above). All and Everything is also the title of the magnum opus of G. I. Gurdjieff, a spiritual teacher and philosopher whose works my mother (who died two years ago) studied for many years. I used all the spray paint left in my studio, and everything I could lay my hands on to create images and designs on the faces of the disks.  Each of these pieces has two very visually busy sides - one with buttons and one without.

One wall in the back is completely covered with loose grids of disks from the Biodiversity work I took to Nagoya, Japan in 2010 and the later work based on letterforms and numbers:

course (kors), noun
1. the path over which something moves or extends; a series of items or events: the course of a body of work from the first in a series to the most recent. 
2. a program of instruction or education: the artist offered a course discussing the pieces in the     exhibition.

discourse (dis' kors), noun
verbal interchange of ideas: viewers are encouraged to engage in speculation and     conversation about the work exhibited.

The work in DISC COURSE is from my Circular Statements body of work, begun in 2005, which employs buttons and other circular elements. In addition, all the work in this exhibit uses spray paint, at least in part. I have provided short texts ("courses") describing each of the pieces.

Art + Soul Celebrating Lake Champlain

I'm participating in the Art + Soul Celebration in Burlington,  with an opening tonight (June 6, 2013) at Dunkiel Saunders from 5:30 to 9:00pm. Dunkiel Saunders is located at 91 College Street, just as the hill starts to go down towards the lake, it's set back from the road. There is a parking garage across the street and parking downtown. I will be there for the opening reception.

The exhibit will also be open for First Friday Art Walk from 5 - 8pm the following evening (Friday, June 7).

My piece shows  lifeforms above the water, on the land, and under the water. Sales will be split 50/50 between the artist and the ECHO center.

Upcoming: I'll be exhibiting selections of my circular pieces at the Supreme Court in July and August, and will let you know details as soon as I get them.

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350.org Vermont Exhibit

I’m excited to have the first exhibition of work from my Parade in

UNRAVELING & TURNING: A Climate Change Art Exhibit
Goddard Gallery
54 Main Street Montpelier
May 24 - June 30, 2013

An opening reception will be held Thursday, May 30 from 5 - 7:00 pm.

Artists from across Vermont and beyond share their work relating to climate change in this exhibit presented as part of 350 Vermont's Climate Change Arts Festival.

As the planet has been mired in fire and drought with Arctic ice rapidly shrinking and high temperature records on all continents, it’s time for a creative conversation about the challenges, fears, and opportunities of climate change. The discussion of climate change must be more than a fruitless exchange between scientists, lobbyists, corporations, and politicians. Artists have a critical role to play in shifting the dialogue about climate change to one that is understood on an emotional and spiritual level. Through art, we can identify and strengthen the emotional resilience of each community.

Included in this exhibit are artists Blair Rayfield Borax, Galen Cheney, Kevyn Cundiff, Cami Davis, Joshua DeMello, David Hurwitz, Arthur Hynes, Sally Linder, Riki Moss, Mia Rubow, Anne Sarka, Nancy Taplin, Janet van Fleet, Ruth Wallen, and Shelley Warren. The show includes paintings, sculpture, and installations and has been curated by Peter Nielsen and Alison Goodwin.

Gallery hours are Wednesdays and Thursdays, 12-5pm;  and Fridays and Saturdays 12-7pm.
You can see a few more images at this Facebook link.

Corporate Commission

I created a piece for GNI in Montpelier, based on a chart of their workflow and process.

I was asked to produce a piece that showed the form, but without the text. The piece below has the same basic structure, but with different colors.

For quite a while I've wanted to do a wall installation that affixed directly to the wall, without an underlying grid. This was a great opportunity to start exploring these possibilities.

New Collectors

Such a nice thing happened: a couple at the SPA Bash last Friday loved my work and came back on the weekend to buy two pieces. It's so wonderful when people are in real synch with your aesthetic. The work I make with found objects is not easy for everyone to like, as it uses very funky materials that perhaps some people might think of as Garbage, but for me has a kind of sacredness. I think all my work is essentially about transience and the ephemeral, which is what makes the things scavenged from the Planetary Dumpster and given a rebirth in art so numinous for me.

They bought a piece I call Standing Disarmed (one of the few pieces I made in the Disarmed series that doesn't hang), and even suggested that it "bears a compelling resemblance to Donatello's Magdalene." I have to say that I see and agree, even though I am humbled by the comparison.

Here are images they sent of the pieces in situ in their home.

School Residency

I did an Artist Residency at the Waterford Elementary School the week of March 18. What a great school -- enthusiastic teachers and students, and a wonderful school climate.

Food was the theme I was asked to plan for, so I created a group of experiences that used a diversity of materials and media (here's a look at the display in the hallway that I put up on the last day):

Kindergarteners drew on bananas with toothpicks, writing their names and drawing. Later in the week they made letters using vegetables and then made designs on bread rolls that were consumed at our culminating activity.

First Graders made and painted big paper mache fruit.

Second Graders designed their own seed packets and decorated bread rolls.

Third Graders made veggie creatures and then made scenes and stories with them.

Fourth Graders made collages based on the paintings of Giuseppe Arcimboldo.

Fifth Graders made Additive Monsters by imagining what some chemical additives might look like.

On Friday we had a culminating activity with Stone Soup (partially made with stock from the remains of the two large sacks of vegetables we used to make Veggie ABC's and Veggie Creatures), cooked by the school's Fabulous Food Services person, Wendy Fearon (who also made and cooked the bread dough we used to form rolls). Each class brought blankets, and we all sat on the floor in the gym and had a picnic.

I met with each class three times during the week (we had a snow day on Tuesday, so that scrunched the schedule a bit; I will go back to the school sometime this year to spend the day showing students what I make in the studio and talking about what it's like to be a studio artist), but I always wish there were time to do things more slowly and spend more thinking and talking time with the projects. Nevertheless, we all enjoyed ourselves thoroughly!