Summer in Michigan. My first. The next post will focus more on recent and upcoming projects, but for a moment, a few images as ode to this place and season. A special thank you to Caleb for the roof over my head and a magnificent air hockey table.
These are two recent sites of landscape intervention, using salvaged materials from the D and bringing them back to life in a different context.
the field of reeds
It began with these two chairs, my thoughts about the creation of intimate spaces with the simplest of tools, and a walk in the woods. It continued with the discovery of this field of reeds, dissected by a series of narrow pathways winding through. I stomped down a new pathway, flattened out a 5×5′ “room” and dug the chairs into their new home.
fight | flow
These latching window screens were converted into a canvas for weaving text + image. I built the supporting structure so that the piece would blend in with the landscape, but not quite. The text emerges as one draws closer, and I will continue returning to these doors to add more layers of text and texture over the next few months.
As viewers/participants happen upon these sites, as they sit in or pass through the spaces, their action becomes part of the object’s history as well as their own. I am interested in the intimacy of these exchanges, whether the person is alone or not, whether it gives one pause for a moment or longer…
a downpour of
tiny fists pumping
A memorial is an object which serves as a focus for memory of something. I am thinking about what we memorialize and why, the temporality of (some of) these objects, the catharsis of the process for the creator, and how we often create memorials in our daily lives without a second thought.
With these ideas in mind, I have been creating some new images. Some reveal an interaction with existing structures, and others serve as documentation of my own interventions.
I watched the film La Jetée today. It’s a 28-minute b&w science fiction film from 1962 by Chris Marker – constructed almost entirely from still photos. ALMOST. With the exception of one shot, which is only about 3 or 4 seconds long, part of a breathtaking sequence. When the film begins, the concept seems simple enough – but it builds beautifully, bringing into question ideas of still vs. motion pictures, how can they intermingle and where do they collide?
The DVD also had a special feature about David Bowie’s music video for “Jump They Say,” inspired by La Jetée. Checking out the video online, the youtube vortex led me to a video of Bowie performing the song “Wake Up” live with Arcade Fire a few years ago. I think of the song as an anthem of our time, one that makes you want to yell out with flushed cheeks. Someone commented beneath the video link, “If you don’t cry watching this, you are dead inside.” (I posted the video on my blogroll if you want to judge for yourself… the quality isn’t great, but you’ll get the idea.)
I’m thinking about this layering process, the building which inevitably occurs as we reference history while simultaneously pushing forward to break new ground. Layers of film, of music, of imagery, of words floating upon one another. It is like lying on the bottom of a swimming pool. We look up at the refracted light filtering down and feel the weight of the water — but also discover the freedom of weightlessness and our own buoyancy as we are called back to the surface to take another breath…
With my lightnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am goin’
With my lightnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am go-goin’-Arcade Fire, “Wake Up”
I’m going through the large stack of overdue library books in my studio — half-heartedly making a pile to return. I can’t seem to part with most of them, as they’ve become good friends of mine this year. Right now I’m revisiting a book of old FSA photographs by Marion Post Wolcott. I originally picked this up when researching juke joints for a set I was building — “juke joints” were informal establishments featuring music, dancing, gambling, and drinking, primarily operated in the South during the 1930’s and 40’s. I believe there are still some out there, in fact…
Wolcott began working as a staff photographer for the Farm Security Administration in the late 30’s. She was hired at a time when Dorothea Lange was being dropped from the staff — and is not mentioned as often when this project is referenced in the history of the medium. But she was a firecracker, an independent woman with a beautiful eye.
Marion Post Wolcott
Below are a couple of excerpts taken from her correspondence with FSA director Roy Stryker. These are powerful to me — as they speak to how far we ladies have come in terms of our freedom to roam, engage and create. And to what a badass Wolcott really was.
In 1938, Stryker writes to Marion Post:
“…I’m glad you have learned you can’t depend on the wiles of femininity when you are in the wilds of the South. Colorful bandanas and brightly colored dresses, etc. aren’t part of our photographers’ squipment. The closer you get to what the great back-country recognizes as the normal dress for women, the better you are going to succeed as a photographer. I know this will probably make you mad, but I can tell you another thing — that slacks aren’t part of your attire when you are in the back-country. You are a woman, and ‘a woman can’t never be a man.’
Post replies to Stryker:
“Now Grandfather – you listen to me for a minute, too. All you say is perfectly true, but – I just wish you had been along with me for just part of the day looking for something, particularly with POCKETS. Let us agree that all photographers need pockets – badly – and that female photographers look slightly conspicuous and strange with too many film pack magazines and rolls and synchronizers stuffed in their shirts fronts, and that too many filters and whatnots held between the teeth prevent one from asking many necessary questions. Now – this article of clothing with large pockets must also be cool, washable, not too light or bright a color. Try and find it! You can see you touched on a sore subject. About slacks – you can’t make me mad. I learned you can’t wear them in the stix when I was in Tennessee, etc., a couple of years ago – but Florida, in most sections, is an exception. Especially picking, and if you’d seen the results of the pleasant feast the insects and briars and sticker grasses had on my legs the first day you’d know why. Wore a skirt and heavy stockings and socks, and was still a mess. And I DIDN’T use feminine wiles, and I usually wore an old jacket and sweater, but it was too cold that day. My slacks are dark blue, old, dirty, and not too tight – to be worn with great descrimination, sir.”
I’m sitting here in my red cowgirl boots (yes, they’re still hanging on by a thread) and a skirt — embracing the warmth of spring and the ability to finally show some skin again after a cold winter. But I also have a pair of paint-covered, ripped-up jeans beside me that I’ll soon put on to go out and work, happily. Here’s to the full spectrum and owning all of it.
Check out this recent piece I exhibited in a group show focused on the FUTURE of SEATING:
Tandem Desk
Tandem Desk is an two-seated object of open engagement, encouraging interaction and increased dialogue through the remediation of traditional classroom objects. Viewers are invited to become participants by sitting in one of two chairs situated diagonally across from but in close proximity to another person. Each participant can choose to look down or straight ahead to avoid interaction, or they can activate the tandem arrangement by literally or metaphorically reaching across the desk to engage with another.
FUTURE SEATING: 2010 Chair Show
Forum Gallery, Cranbrook Academy of Art March 2010
This foray into the sculptural realm came about in response to many of the images I’ve been creating this year. My recent work has been an exploration of ideas related to transience, passage, and the potential of human interaction in areas defined as “non-places.” Traveling to places such as public markets, airports, casinos and car shows (welcome to Motor City, baby!) , I document sequences of interaction in an attempt to dissect and reveal what is happening between both intimates and strangers in this public sphere.
It is unnerving to be fascinated by spaces that often cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity. Yet, it is also the very reason I am drawn to them:
“Place and non-place are rather like opposed polarities: the first is never completely erased, the second never totally completed; they are like palimpsests on which the scrambled game of identity and relations is ceaselessly rewritten.” -anthropologist Marc Auge, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity
The creation of the tandem desk came from a desire to explore these ideas on another level. Rather than photographing the flow, I wanted to interact with it – creating “objects and spaces of open engagement.” If installed in a public space, would this encourage you to take pause and engage in a more intimate way?
hello to you, new year. ahem, new DECADE. and with that, i welcome the sweet arrival of my updated website (thank you mr. gene rocha) and this blog.
Where did you come from, baby dear?
Out of the Everywhere and into here.
~George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind
considering how long it can take me to update work on my website, this is a new approach. sharing works in progress, evolving ideas, info about upcoming shows, other events which inspire my work and just might inspire you? from the extraordinary to the mundane, from life to art and the grand mess of it all.
extracting out of the everywhere and mixing the ingredients here. welcome.
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