Still Water
Dalton Gallery, Decatur, GA
Fall 2009
Mandy Greer
As part of my senior thesis course I was given the opportunity to interview the artist Mandy Greer, help her install her work, give a gallery talk about her work during the opening reception of Sill Water, and write the wall text for her installation. Below is what I had to say.
Installed on Agnes Scott’s front campus, at the corner of East College and McDonough, is Mandy Greer’s most recent installation Mater, Matrix, Mother, and Medium. In addition, the short film exhibited in the gallery gives a glimpse of the collaborative performance that was a part of the original installation in Seattle Washington. Greer is a sculptor and installation artist who lives and works in Seattle.
The original installation was commissioned by Seattle’s 1% for Arts Fund as a way to celebrate and bring awareness to Seattle’s urban creeks and watersheds. To do this Greer has become both the creator of beautiful art and the creator of dynamic community, and in doing so she has captured the entire essence of water. To begin with, if mater is understood as Latin for mother, matrix as Latin for womb, Mater, Matrix, Mother, and Medium becomes a fitting title for Greer’s 200 foot river of fiber.
Water sustains and nurtures us – our mater. Water heals and holds us – our matrix. Water gives life in common to all living things – our mother. Water serves as a meeting place and a means of communicating – our medium. This is what a river naturally does, and similarly is what Greer’s process based, public art installation accomplishes.
Instead of just another piece of public art showing up in the park one day, Greer has swung wide her studio doors and welcomed the community in. Not only has the community been exposed to the process behind making art, they have become a part of that process. Greer has hosted over 30 different crocheting events in Seattle and on Monday she hosted an excellent crocheting event here in the gallery. Greer invites the community, even those with no experience crocheting, to come and partake in the making and the learning. People bring blue fabric from home or use the recycled wool, cotton, silk, and yarn provided by Greer. But most importantly, people bring themselves, their stories, and their voices to pour into to the river.
This process leaves Greer with a saturated pool of raw material from whence she births the river dripping with turquoise, topaz, indigo, and ultramarine. Greer climbs her chosen trees and stretches crochets rings of denim, midnight, cobalt, and cornflower blues through their branches. Mater, Matrix, Mother, and Medium has become an exquisite confluence of fabric, texture, stories, and moments all woven into the trees of Seattle’s urban forests and now into the magnolias of Agnes Scott.
By bringing Mater, Matrix, Mother, and Medium to Agnes Scott, Greer continues to show the real way in which water bridges a literal and physical gap. Even though the gap is a country wide, Seattle has shared their water with us, and the river has become something we hold in common. We have come together over the shared experience of making, and become the womb, the mother, and the medium for a beautiful work of art. This process, community, and installation have become the whole embodiment of water. In a culture that is increasingly dependent upon virtual connections, water binds us in a uniquely physical way. Greer has created a literal and tangible community while simultaneously illustrating the symbiotic relationship we share with water. Greer has created a space where we may be immersed in our relationship with water – a space where we may walk, sit, or lay in the grass and float with the river: our Mater, Matrix, Mother, and Medium.
