For all questions, comments, and etc. related to my 30 days project at Eyedrum – Visit my blog that is completely dedicated to “30 days”

http://30thirtydays.wordpress.com

See you in the studio!!!

30 days is about opening the doors, welcoming people in, and making a beautifully honest work of art. I want to bridge the gaps that all too often separate the art from the artist, the artist from the people, and ultimately the art from the people.

Where: Eyedrum

When: Thursday, May 27th

More details to come soon.

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.

The space affected me first. Having just come from MOMA where I felt condensed, congested, and rushed the New Museum was a drink of fresh water. I immediately felt calm and energized. The juke-box played someone’s favorite song, and curious minds, interested in more than museum-row status-quo, surrounded me. It was in this space that I rode the elevator to the 3rd floor and stepped into a mirrored world of Urs Fischer’s creation.

“A discussion of the complex relationships we foster with the inanimate objects that populate our lives—the way a particular article of clothing makes us feel, the photograph that haunts us, or that scribbled on napkin we can’t part with.”

I created an installation for HOARD entitled: Exchange. I am inviting people to take one of my drawings that are plastered on the wall at Kavarna. In exchange, I ask them to visit this blog and leave a thought about the installation, their drawing, their experience, or what ever seems relevant.

I hope I am able to give all my drawings away!!!

Digging for favorites

Number 134

Leonard Drew’s 15x 23×7 dimensional conglomeration of wood and mixed media is the color of charred earth. The sculpture feels burnt city turned on its side. It feels like aftermath and nature reclaiming dominance. Number 134 explodes into space, a mixture of twisted roots, two by fours, broken furniture, and vines thriving. One cannot quite tell if the work is about rebirth, death, or simply existing, but it is in this tension that the artist succeeds in engaging his viewer. The installation confuses surface, space, and definition thus pulling me in, asking me to look close, beneath and below. Number 134 could be growing out of the wall for all we know, but is it in retreat or invading?

Leonard Drew’s works capture complexity, tension, and frailty. By doing so he speak to history and the contemporary way of things.

Number 135, wood and mixed media, 180 x 688 x 63 inches

Sikkema Jenkins & Co.
Leonard Drew  January 30th – March 6th

I do not know if I want this sort of existence. NYC was remarkably lonely, but I felt so alive. I do know that I cannot continue to exist in the familiar. NYC affirmed this.

I had to opportunity to travel to New York City this past Week. I stayed in Brooklyn with a wonderful poet, friend, and feminist: Joanna Hoffman. I completely immersed myself in the city and allowed myself freedom to be a sponge. Among my favorite spots were: Chelsea, The New Museum, PS1, and Naidre’s.

In one set, Andrea Gibson made me cry, laugh, simmer, hold my friends close, and want to call my mother.

There is no place for complacency in a roomed shared with Andrea Gibson. She reminds us of how much work there is left to be done.  Her candor and sincerity bring reality into the present moment as she coerces her audience to face the intensity of truth.

When she spoke of home, her words caught me vulnerable. Though her vignettes from growing up in small town Main look nothing like my own memories, she captured the significance of home and I found myself held in the resonance. Confused tears dropping from the corners of my eyes rendered me human.

As an artist, there is nothing more thrilling than an encounter with a beautiful heart, a powerful mind, or an impassioned spirit – Andrea Gibson incapsulates all three of these.