This is all the material loaded up and ready to ship to brooklyn for the Eternal Return group show at
Nurtureart in Brooklyn. I will be making a suspended woven stir stick structure for this one. The materials should have arrived yesterday and I arrive tomorrow. I have exactly 7 work days on the ground, which should be enough. I am still processing the lessons learned during the installation of "Sticks, Straws, Sleeves, and Lids". It will be nice in this situation to just have to worry about making my work and not deal with any other aspects of the show or the space. I have seen images of the skylight I am to work from and assuming I can get started as soon as I hit the ground it should be a pretty interesting piece. Since I committed many years ago to use this blog as a way to record any sort of significant or not so significant events in my artistic process, I would be remiss if I didn't talk a little bit about the role of uncertainty in my work. Although I am certain that i will be creating a woven tensile structure suspended from the ceiling using my medium of choice, that is all that is certain. As is the case with many of these opportunities I am counting on the kindness of strangers who believe in my work to help make this possible. For many years now I have found myself more comfortable making my best work in a gallery space, rather than the studio space. I find the studio continues to function as a practical place to make things and experiment, but more and more the best work I make happens when I am "out of my element". There is something about the impending deadline of an opening, and the newness of a space when I walk into it, that focuses me like nothing else. I suppose this is more a case of knowing what allows me to make the best work I am capable of making. As I do more of this work, the work is feeding the work more and more, and each time I think I i know something about what makes this work interesting to me, I find a new interest. At first I was tickled by the macgyver like challenges i set for myself; me verse the sticks, a gallery, and a deadline my only tools are my hands, and a knife. Although I only use the knife to open the boxes, it was still pretty cool. Then it became about using the the materials as a way to make drawings in space that i couldn't possible render on paper. Now it is somewhere between both of those experiences(although it seems to be unconciously alternating between closed and open form structures, but i won't really decide whether the eternal return piece will be closed or open until sometime next week). The galleries I work in feel like a second studio(or an extension of the studio), where upon arrival I am immediately sizing up the way I want to make work in the space, the same way I do in the studio, or anywhere i work, including when i do preparator gigs dealing with work that is not mine. In fact the many years off and on that I spend working locked within a gallery as both a preparator and an artist the more I find that the gallery space is an incredible place. I enjoy the focus i have found and continue to think of the gallery as a piece of paper and the materials and processes i introduce into this situation as mere tools for mark making. I say all this because tomorrow morning I will board a plane to new york and be faced once again with the ticking clock and uncertainity that seems to be as ever present as my imagination when making art.
Sticks, Straws, Sleeves and Lids at The University of South Carolina remains on view through February 23, and I will be giving an Artist Talk on Tuesday January 26 from 4-5 followed by a reception in the gallery from 5-7pm, the reception will have tasty refreshments and such. to see a full image gallery of the Sticks Straws Sleeves and Lids installation click here
stacked in front of the piece are the empty boxes of sticks. I am always amused by how little space the boxes of material occupied compared to the piece itself.
This is all the material loaded up and ready to ship to brooklyn for the Eternal Return group show at Nurtureart in Brooklyn. I will be making a suspended woven stir stick structure for this one. The materials should have arrived yesterday and I arrive tomorrow. I have exactly 7 work days on the ground, which should be enough. I am still processing the lessons learned during the installation of "Sticks, Straws, Sleeves, and Lids". It will be nice in this situation to just have to worry about making my work and not deal with any other aspects of the show or the space. I have seen images of the skylight I am to work from and assuming I can get started as soon as I hit the ground it should be a pretty interesting piece. Since I committed many years ago to use this blog as a way to record any sort of significant or not so significant events in my artistic process, I would be remiss if I didn't talk a little bit about the role of uncertainty in my work. Although I am certain that i will be creating a woven tensile structure suspended from the ceiling using my medium of choice, that is all that is certain. As is the case with many of these opportunities I am counting on the kindness of strangers who believe in my work to help make this possible. For many years now I have found myself more comfortable making my best work in a gallery space, rather than the studio space. I find the studio continues to function as a practical place to make things and experiment, but more and more the best work I make happens when I am "out of my element". There is something about the impending deadline of an opening, and the newness of a space when I walk into it, that focuses me like nothing else. I suppose this is more a case of knowing what allows me to make the best work I am capable of making. As I do more of this work, the work is feeding the work more and more, and each time I think I i know something about what makes this work interesting to me, I find a new interest. At first I was tickled by the macgyver like challenges i set for myself; me verse the sticks, a gallery, and a deadline my only tools are my hands, and a knife. Although I only use the knife to open the boxes, it was still pretty cool. Then it became about using the the materials as a way to make drawings in space that i couldn't possible render on paper. Now it is somewhere between both of those experiences(although it seems to be unconciously alternating between closed and open form structures, but i won't really decide whether the eternal return piece will be closed or open until sometime next week). The galleries I work in feel like a second studio(or an extension of the studio), where upon arrival I am immediately sizing up the way I want to make work in the space, the same way I do in the studio, or anywhere i work, including when i do preparator gigs dealing with work that is not mine. In fact the many years off and on that I spend working locked within a gallery as both a preparator and an artist the more I find that the gallery space is an incredible place. I enjoy the focus i have found and continue to think of the gallery as a piece of paper and the materials and processes i introduce into this situation as mere tools for mark making. I say all this because tomorrow morning I will board a plane to new york and be faced once again with the ticking clock and uncertainity that seems to be as ever present as my imagination when making art.
the most important part of the process is always the cleanup.
There will be an artist talk on Tuesday January 26 from 4-5pm in room 214 of the McMaster Building followed by a reception in the gallery from 5-7pm click here for a map with directions
above is the press release and info for Eternal Return.
