New to Me: Photographs and Paper

OK, I realize it's time for me to try to move in a different direction. As much as I love working with old wood and disks, I don't want to be a One Trick Pony (as my mother used to say). So, I've decided to open my heart to paper, and the first thing that walked in was photographs. I've loved old cartes de visite and cabinet cards, with their images of long dead people. They are albumen photographic prints, mounted on cardboard backs. It's remarkable how many of these beautiful, brown-tinted cards are still around.

I've also collected some photographic prints of other eras, and have been particularly interested in arranging them in numerical sequences, and also looking carefully at the emotional content of the photographs. One, in particular, shows a family grouping with a mother who is obviously enraged, surrounded by her fearful family.

Here's the tabletop where I'm working. As you can see, I'm still using found materials in conjunction with the photographs, and it feels very appropriate to be using old bits and pieces with old images.

Right now I'm just playing with possibilities, and I haven't started affixing the stuff to the photos yet. I need to decide whether to attach them with fine wire, piercing the cardboard, or whether I should use an adhesive. There's something so transgressive about it either way -- which is both exciting and uncomfortable...

Today I ordered floating frames in which I can mount them, so I am committed to seeing this body of work through to some kind of new place.

True to Type

This is the most recent box, and the pièce de résistance in the series of boxes I've been working on. The type box was given to me by Pat Murphy and it's been sitting around the studio waiting for something wonderful to happen to it.

Here it is, without its glass covering, which I removed so that I could photograph it. Dana Walrath came into the studio and said, "Oh, you're riffing on taxonomy," which is of course exactly what it's about -- how things are the same shape, but different materials -- or different materials but similar shapes (like wire, hair and thread). How should you categorize them? It all depends on what characteristic you focus on!

In the lower row, to the left of the spool of thread, I was finally able to use my gallstones in a piece (something I've been wanting to do since I got them out in 2010). They really do look exactly like any other stone (such as the river stones to their left).

The buttons are separated by the materials of which they are made (l-r): leather, metal, bone, wood, shell, glass, and plastic. There are papers made of different materials (including a 100 rupee note signed by the late Marc Awodey), lots of different fibers. I love this piece!

Next up, I'm trying to open my heart to paper. I have bought some old photographs and cartes de visite, popular during the 19th century and am manipulating them in various ways.

John Davis, 1936-1999

Wow, every so often I run across an artist who just delights and humbles me, and John Davis is such an artist.

He was an Australian artist who used found materials and bituminous paint (tar) over stick armatures covered with calico and glue.  He was an environmental artist with a huge output. Here's a video about a posthumous exhibit of his work.

The Parade is Finished -- Long Live the Parade!

We took the parade down yesterday morning. My pieces said goodbye to Riki's pieces and they went their separate ways -- a bit sad after they'd been dancing, cavorting, and conversing together for so many weeks. Here are a few photos I took that morning.

A note: I've put up some images on Wooloo.

Here's the central row of the parade. Lots of people liked the bugs and the shadows that were cast in surprising places.

If you got down on your hands and knees, it would look like this.

This was a favorite pairing that I created one day when I visit the exhibit with some friends (I got to move stuff around because I was the artist!). I suddenly saw that each of the figures was making a similar, arms-spreading gesture. 

And finally this one, which I have begun to think of as the Dog Park, with one dog sniffing the other's butt. It was amazing that without planning it, these pieces fit so well together, and each of us had made pieces in a variety of sizes that found partners in the process.

Reception(s)

The Parade reception on Thursday, January 23 was wonderful -- lots of fun, great visitors, good conversation. Here's an image taken by Robert Ostermeyer as Joan Watson was introducing us:

I just read in New Scientist, one of my favorite publications, that between 30 and 50 percent of our planet's land surface is used in one way or another by humans. Plus "the UK's fishing fleet works 17 times harder than it did in the 1880s to net the same amount of fish." The glaciers retreat. Grasslands disappear. Our art is whispering in the wilderness...

If you're looking for another reception to enjoy, Sofia Shatkivska has been making passionate charcoal drawings of the events unfolding in her native land, Ukraine. She's installed them at the Aldrich Public Library, Barre, in their Milne Room, where they will be on display in a hastily organized exhibit she's calling Standing For Human Dignity through February 14. There will be a reception tomorrow night (Tuesday, January 28, from 4:30 - 7:00). She will be adding more pieces as she finishes them, and will probably have another event as it gets closer to the conclusion of the exhibit.

And the opening reception for the new shows at SPA, including Chaos in the main gallery, is on Saturday, February 8 from 4-6 PM.

More Boxes

I'm back into boxes (so to speak). Here are two that have rolled out since I last posted about my boxes. I've made another small-ish one (14 x 6 x 4") that uses some of the gum nuts I brought back from Australia -- and declared at customs and got permission to bring them in! They are the heads of the small figures in the box.

And the most recent box is a BIG one -- the shell of a bureau I bought to scavenge the drawers for boxes.  But then the large empty space remaining was very appealing, and I removed the drawer slides, did some more staining on the inside, and used a collection of wonderful old hammers given to me by Carolyn Enz Hack. And made some nail people larger than any I've made before.

The top, studded with nails, is particularly appealing to me, as I've always loved African minkisi figures.

 

Playing With Chaos

The new show at Studio Place Arts (SPA) in Barre is Chaos: Pandemonium, Disorder & Turbulence in Art.

Today a small group of artists met to create a collaborative installation suspended from the ceiling of the gallery. Jody Brown, Chris Diego, Meg Hammond, Mark Lora, Ben Matchstick, Delia Robinson, Lars Hasselblad Torres, and I worked all day. Things were hung, switched, and re-jiggered.

We had a break for lunch and interesting conversation, and then we went back into the fray.

The final installation was really satisfying. Next week Jody Brown, Sue Higby and I will be hanging all the other 2- and 3-dimensional work that we selected for the show, which runs from January 21 – February 22, 2014.