Rolling On at Studio Place Arts

 

Studio Place Arts (SPA) has four great new shows in their galleries at 201 North Main Street in Barre, Vermont. In the Main Gallery on the first floor (newly painted with one gorgeous white wall), the exhibit is all about wheels, which has been a big part of my work in a variety of ways for the last ten years or so. I have four pieces in the show, the earliest (2007) being Feeding the World, from my series called Rolling Boil.

I made another series of four pieces that featured wheeled chairs in 2017, all of which were built on small chairs, had wheels, and bones. This is the second of those. It uses a modified doll carriage, and contains an antique slide of a naked man in a wheelchair, affixed to the top of a wooden box that acts as a sort of light table. A piece of white paper at the bottom of the box reflects light up through the image.

And finally, two pieces using cars from my current group of large, wall-hung figures, that I wrote about a few posts ago.

SPA is very careful with Covid precautions, so I hope folks will feel comfortable seeing the really wonderful exhibits that are there right now. Here's a flier to show what all the shows involve and information about gallery hours:

A Happy Conjunction of Writing and Visuals

 My friend Irene Zabytko has a new book of short stories coming out with the wonderful title The Days of Miracle and Wonder, and she has very cleverly put out a video "trailer" for the book. I love this idea of doing a mash-up of images, words, and music. Conjunction is not just for planets any more!

E book is available now, with hard copy coming within months. I can't wait to read it.

Ho Ho Ho

 

A friend bought a large standing figure from me over 20 years ago, and it has stood just inside her front door for many years. Every time I go to visit, it makes me happy to see it there.

She just sent me this image of the piece with a temporary adornment. So much fun!

Last Two For Awhile

 Vermont, like the rest of the country, is experiencing a huge spike in Covid-19 cases, so I finished the most recent two pieces I've been working on in the studio, took some photographs of them, packed up my paints and some boards, and am battening down the hatches and working at home for the next weeks (and possibly months). 

The first piece is another car-related piece, which for the moment I'm just calling Cars. The head is a trailer hitch, but it seemed to be more than a little too small up on top there, so it's been joined by a cool tricycle that I bought at Resource in Burlington a number of years ago. I like all the different car-and-other-wheeled-vehicle action in this piece!

 

Next, Cup of Coffee, with a White House Coffee can on top. I decided to use that because I had legs made out of a pile of Chock Full of Nuts cans, and it seemed quite funny and appropriate to have these coffee cans together. But then the nut was voted out of the White House, so I decided to let it go. Besides, the Chock Full cans were too yellow and clunky, and I wanted to bring the green color around the white house into the bottom part of the piece, so it now has more sedate legs.

LIL BUCK explains

 I just found this video of Lil Buck dancing to "Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen". This is what I was thinking of in my piece below. 

My question, "Why?" has to do with Why is it this cruel way? But also, Why DON'T they know?

More People

 

I have been working on some new large figures. Here are two of them. First, Bedtime, another take on the mother-and-child theme, which somehow keeps coming around for me. Maybe because I'm spending a lot more time with my grandchildren, maybe the need for nurturing in our collective life during this pandemic, which is woefully absent in the current administration.

It's built on an old ironing board with a cork head, chair legs, an antique doll bed, and a variety of disks, wheels, and other circular objects.

 

The baby's arms are made of white shell buttons, my favorite connector...

 

The next piece is Coming and Going. I've carved this text on the arms: " SLIPPING ALONG THE THREAD, COUNTING THE HOURS AND DAYS" On the legs: COMING AND GOING AND COMING AND GOING..." This piece is still in progress; I have tried a different head and will live with it for awhile to see if I need something different.

Bird in a New Perch

 

Bird has gone to a new home. It is a joy to me that five of the thirteen large figures in my most recent exhibit have been acquired by collectors. it's great to see my work in a new context -- not my studio or a gallery, but at home with people who want to live with them.