Only One Week Left for Long Thoughts

The exhibit of Long Thoughts at NVU in Johnson is wonderful. It's a beautiful space, and a good melding of two important bodies of my work. The last day is Friday, October 11, so hustle on over if you want to see it. If you can't, here are some images that will have to do.

The top image shows Digesting the Planet, installed at 24 feet wide. I'm hoping one of the Johnson students will make a video of it, which would be very cool.

The last two images show some of the eleven Long Haul pieces that are hanging in the gallery. Unlike the installation of these pieces at the AVA Gallery in Lebanon, NH, where they were installed at different heights and angles with respect to each other, these pieces are all parallel here, though at different heights. Thanks to Phil Robertson for this installation!

 

 

New Poster for Long Thoughts

The work I'll be showing at the Julian Scott Memorial Gallery will be long sculptures from Vanishment and Long Haul. Here's another poster with details about the exhibit that shows the Long Haul work. Thanks to Phil Robertson and Johnson students for creating two posters!

Installed and Ready for the Reception

The work is installed, under the excellent direction and hand of Julia Pavone! I am quite pleased with it, and look forward to a great reception and a good run in the space. Scroll down to see the invitation card for this exhibit and the upcoming exhibit at the Julian Scott Memorial Gallery.

I'm so pleased to have installed five of the pieces I made with chest X-Rays and the blinking lights illuminating the interior of their chests! You can see a short video of what that looks like.

Exhibit at North Common Arts

Come on over to my exhibit, Hanging Around, at North Common Arts in Chelsea, Vermont, from September 20 - November 9, 2019. The opening reception is on Friday the 27th from 6-8 PM.

This is going to be a really fun exhibit, with lots and lots of great figures made from wood, metal, bone, and found materials hanging around on the walls!

Exhibit at Johnson

The Long Thoughts exhibit will have work from my recent show at the Supreme Court (the long installation Digesting the Planet) as well as the long wooden boxes I showed at AVA last year.

Orah Moore Piece

Here's Sami -- Orah snapped it through its protective cello0phane bag. 'll try to get another shot without the bag next time I'm in my studio.

You can see why I fell in love with him -- a beautiful image of a beautiful man, and wonderful extended drawing! This piece was just one of many fabulous photographs in an exhibit that just finished at Studio Place Arts, Everyday, Someone – 365 Days in Black & White, A visual diary of black and white iPhone X photographs.

Button Fish

I traded a Button Fish with Orah Moore. She had bid against someone else for a Button Fish that was in the SPA silent auction last year and dropped out, so she was still wishing for a fish!  In return, I got a wonderful photograph-with-drawing of Sami from her, which I will photograph and put up soon. Here's the fish installed...

Figures for New Exhibit

I've been working on adapting some old figures and making new ones. There are about 25 figures of various sizes that will hang on the wall at North Common Arts in Chelsea, Vermont from September 18-November 7, with an opening reception on September 27. Here are some of them on the wall in my studio, where I am still working on pieces.

Here are some close-ups of individual figures:

Additionally, I will be showing five of the X-ray pieces I made several years ago, with flickering lights illuminating their chests. You can see a previous post about them here, with a short video of the light in the chest.

Review in SEVEN DAYS

Pamela Polston wrote a very perceptive and much-appreciated review of Vanishment for SEVEN DAYS this week. You can read it here.

Also, I'm putting it out there that I'm giving an Artist Talk at Studio Place Arts next Saturday, May 11, from 1:30-2:30. I'm planning to explore the question of what factors (both internal -- to the artist, and external -- in influences, social changes, and available resources) influence my ideas, materials, and completed work. There will be lots of time for questions and comments from the audience, and I'd love to see you there.

Photos and Reviews for Vanishment

Mary Gow's review of Vanishment was in the Arts Section this weekend, and so was Yvonne Daley's review of 70+: Gero-Transcendence.


Terry Allen took some great photos at the reception on April 4, some of which are below. Thank you, Terry!

Here's the only photo that's been taken so far of the final piece, 8 The End, 36 x 54", in which all hell has broken loose...

and a photo of a part of the crowd just before I spoke:

And, another look at me and my grandson (always a fave with me!), plus two good friends in the background:

And if receptions appeal to you, there are two more coming up for Vanishment: Friday, May 3 (during Art Walk) and Thursday, June 6 (during Art Fest). I bought more wine, so I'm ready...

Reception for Vanishment

Last night was the April 4 reception for Vanishment at the Supreme Court. It was great, with lots of people (Jason, the guard at the court building, clocked it with his clicker at 132, I think). People were looking, talking, and drinking wine -- all the things that are supposed to happen! A reception is no time to have a conversation in any depth, but it was wonderful to at least greet so many friends and supporters. Thank you all!

Mary Admasian took some photos (and so did Jack Rowell, below Mary's). Terry Allen was busy with her camera too, so I'm sure we'll see some of hers soon too!

 Here's David Schutz, State Curator Extraordinaire.

 And this gives a sense of the l-e-n-g-t-h of Digesting the Planet.

Jack Rowell took the next two photos:

Phil Godenschwager looking at the part of the endless wall...

I'm about to go up and give a very impromptu talk, hugging my grandson, with Mary Admasian and Peter Lind behind me (who did SO much to help this exhibit).

The show is up through June 28, open during state business hours. You've got plenty of time to see it.

Installation Day at the Supreme Court

With the invaluable help of David Schutz, Jack Zeilenga, Allyson Evans, and Nel Emlen, Vanishment appeared in all its glory! Sue Higby and Tuyen Nguyen helped me take three of the Digesting the Planet units out of SPA and load it into the state truck this morning. Thank you all.

Digesting the Planet looks great slithering down the back wall, and the piece in the middle spans the gap and holds it all together.

Rivers of Blood is on the opposite wall in the backspace.

The opening reception is this Thursday, April 4 from 4-7 PM.

70+: Gero-Transcendence at Gallery 77 in Rutland

I've spent the last two days installing two installations at Gallery 77 in Rutland (77 Grove Street). This huge exhibit, with about 50 artists, will open on Saturday, April 6 from 2-4 PM, and will run until May 17. I'm very pleased with both installations!

Counting has four shelves (and the walls above), each containing a series of objects 1-10, so that each shelf holds 55 objects.

Here's the signage on the wall:

 The second installation is called Wheeled Chairs. It's installed in a very cool wedge-shaped room with a black wall on one side, and a pre-existing drawing of bones on The other. There's a glass  wall/ window that lets people see into the space. The four small chairs (which I showed previously at The Front in Montpelier), each suspended individually from the ceiling, all have bones incorporated in the piece in some way.  I decided to add four black chairs of various kinds, solidly on the floor, to contrast with the "flying" wheeled chairs.

‘De tripas corazón' in Panama

I've just heard from Tina Escaja, post-production, about her play, De tripas corazón, which was part of the Festival de Teatro Panameño, in Panama City. The play was an immersive theater piece in which writers, visual artists, and actors (and in some ways, the audience!) contributed to the production. I sent down some pieces of "intestines" that appear in Digesting the Planet (below), and it sounds like it was a really fascinating production, as reviewed here.

Vanishment at the Supreme Court

In a few weeks I'll be putting up a large exhibit at the Vermont Supreme Court gallery space. Here's a taste, and some information about the 3 events that will happen over the course of the three months it will be on exhibit (April-July, 2019).

I'm presenting a large 32-foot installation called Digesting the Planet, a series of eight mixed media pieces with wine foils collaged over 20-year-old oil paintings that chronicle a deteriorating relationship between humans and the natural world (represented by animals), and a 3-part piece called Rivers of Blood. 

Boats are Back

Every few years I get a yen to make boats. A recent boat for the Long Haul series was called Baggage (tiled shot), 76" long.

And, probably most out-there-in-the-world, this piece I made for the Telephone project.

I'm working on a new series (about 5 pieces in progress at this time). Here are two finished pieces.

This one needs a different, angled shot, showing the mast, but this is all I've got at the moment. It's about 20" long, with a delightful bird/dinosaur/unicorn figurehead. I have many pieces of found wood and objects in my studio that sometimes have to wait for a long time before I find the right place for them in a sculpture.

I'm working on how to display these new boats. Maybe they'll be suspended from the ceiling, like the Long Haul pieces...

Open Studios at SPA on Saturday, February 2

Come on over to SPA this weekend to visit studios in the building, noon - 1:30 PM. Here's a page about the studios and studio artists.

Time to Speak

I have a piece in Strictly Sedimentary, the current show in the Main Gallery exhibit at Studio Place Arts (SPA), Sticking with my current experiment in re-purposing paintings from the past, I chose this one, which has paintings layered over paintings from a series of three I did on passages from Ecclesiastes. I wanted to make a way to show the intensity of speech without using text, and found that thread, gathered and tangled, seemed to do it.

Rebecca Weber, a member of the Upper Valley Sew-Op in White River Junction (who came to my artist talk at AVA this fall) gave me a bag with lots and lots of thread of different colors, all on wooden spools. Spools are mounted on a wooden rod, unravelled down the surface of the painting to pool on the floor below. Thank you, Rebecca!

Work in Progress for Upcoming Supreme Court Exhibit

The Supreme Court exhibit, which will be on view from April 2 through June 28, 2019, will be called Vanishment. It explores the fraught relationship between humans and the natural world, using, in part, materials that I've repurposed from previous bodies of work.

There will be two main elements in this show: eight pieces built on oil-on-board paintings from 1998 that have now been sealed with shellac (a surface treatment made from the secretions of a female insect from India or Thailand, the lac beetle), then collaged over with figures of people and animals made with wine foils (the wrappers at the top of a wine bottle that seal the cork). The pieces in this series chronicle the dissolution of a "relationship" between humans and the natural world (represented by animals), from beginning to end. All eight of these pieces are now complete.

 
1.  In the Beginning, mixed media on board, 27x36", 1998/2018

 
5 Parting of the Ways, mixed media on board, 25x33", 1998/2018

 The backspace of the gallery will feature a 31-foot installation called Digesting the Planet, built on an 18" high grid of rusted steel, reminiscent of an installation I created in 2010 in Nagoya, Japan in conjunction with COP 10 - the tenth meeting of the UN Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (the United States is not a signatory to this convention). "Intestines" are made with red and brown buttons threaded on wire, interspersed with boxes in which those buttons were originally packed, stored in a basement, and immersed in a flood that left a muddy "shadow" imprint of the buttons on the interior surfaces of the boxes. Small groupings of plastic animals shelter inside these boxes. The medium here is ironic – the animals are made of what threatens them. I'll be preparing the background grids next week, and will then mount the "intestines" and the animals.

It's been really interesting re-purposing my own older work and using wine foils in a new way (in addition to the collages I made for the alphabet book I published.