A discussion of history is in order - but not today

 


Good morning to you.  Yesterday I gave an Artist's Talk on the installation at Artworks Center for Contemporary Art (ACCA).  I had some wonderful guests join me and 14 or so more join me via Zoom.  The talk was recorded and will be posted for viewing on Youtube by ACCA soon.

The questions that came up mostly attached themselves, broadly and specifically, to the subject of history. The history of the objects I created, the history of materials I chose, and of course the history of the installations that the artifacts in this installation (except for new work) came from.  

I too have been contemplating this subject, even asking a friend and colleague to write a piece for this blog about history - focusing on the subject of art vs artifact.  I think it's time to post it.

But not today.  Today I am headed outside to put some plants in the ground that were gifted to me by a friend.  They can wait no longer and will suffer if I do not give them a home, other than the temporary one they are now living in - a plastic bag.  

The posting will then most likely be tomorrow or Monday, as it takes me some time for me to write even little bits, although the essay has been written and is ready to post.

But as I decided that even though our lives progress in a linear fashion, (following the patterns of life set down and set up during the creation of our universe), neither the installation 

nor the blog about it will follow a linear progression.  Instead, it will be sparked by things such as the questions put forth yesterday (yes, another linear time point of reference).

I do appreciate your checking in on this blog and will continue to add to it as I can.  In the meantime, here are some wonderful pics from the installation by Robin Snyder - details of works that I will be discussing in more depth in future posts.  There it is again, linear time reference.

A big thanks to all who attended the Artist's Talk yesterday in person and via Zoom.  

Hope you have a wonderful day as we move toward the Fall equinox.


Future Relic - one of the re-worked pieces, titled Future Icon before reworking.  Detail.  Velvet-skinned wood branch, velvet-skinned oyster shells and velvet-skinned base, color stained.  Some wood chips visible in the lower right corner - saved for exhibiting in the installation when the original cross was hacked in half by a friend and fellow artist.

Gown for Venus.  Detail, wedding crown showing pearl egg.  It is sitting on Landscape for an Institution of Higher Learning - artifacts, velvet-skinned logs, sitting on a circle of white sand.

Landscape for an Institution of Higher Learning - artifacts.  Leather-skinned boulder with a leather-skinned rock sitting atop.

All photos by Robin Snyder.  All objects and surfaces available for touching in the installation now open at Artworks Center for Contemporary Art called

until Saturday, October 30th, when the installation will close to visitors.








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
  Good morning and welcome to the first posting of a blog created to accompany my gallery installation PLEASE t ouch .  In the coming days I will be posting information, discussions, photos, video, guest essays by two lovely friends, a 5 question interview of me by another wonderful friend, evolving positions and stances about making art and other very important and life changing thoughts, events, experiences and actions.  Not to be taken too seriously, but sincere in my intent.  Questions that keep the mind and heart activated.  How to write and consider who am I writing to and for will undoubtedly be a part of it all.  Informal, but truly felt, deeply believed (until new information or a good discussion changes my mind), and, as a good friend reminds me, not a good idea to attach to it all.   If you are reading this I am assuming you are interested in  the installation.  I am so happy that you are.   Here is a pic, the first of many.  This one was taken by a very talented phone photo
Read more

My Three Stories About Water

Image
Or, how water found me in the west. There is such a difference between thinking something and feeling something.  What can drive us crazy as human beings, namely our emotional life, is the very thing that allows a visceral response to what we are experiencing. Are you familiar with that vibration that seems to begin in one’s gut, then travels all through one’s body? It precedes a kind of knowing that can only come from our absorbing an experience right into our cells. It functions as an alarm of sorts.  An alert. A physical message saying,  Pay attention. This is important. The first time it happened to me during an experience with water, a friend had just gifted me a copy of Masaru Emoto’s book  The Hidden Messages in Water .  Emoto’s work revealed, through empirical observation, that water reacts to human thought and emotion by playing certain kinds of music to water, then photographing the resulting affects. Emoto observed both beautiful crystalline structures, and sometimes disturb
Read more
Image
pinkStardust :  my search for time and space  continues... Why the name  pinkStardust ? Very shortly after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 the US (in collaboration with the UK) began a frenzy of atomic testing.  That testing was taking place in two major areas in the US (Utah and Nevada) and in the south Pacific.   60 miles south of the Nevada testing site lay Las Vegas.   A map found online As the propaganda machine revved up in earnest, the following message became embedded in our Cold War psyche with the USSR.  Our bombs "good" (the US),  their bombs "bad" (the USSR).  And it worked.  We became fascinated with everything atomic, including atomic testing.  After all, our fascination was necessary if we, the public, would be willing to tolerate the radioactive fallout that came along with nuclear testing.   I would have been fascinated, wouldn't you? And, we needed to be fascinated if we would also continue to believe that we were "safe"
Read more