Today we celebrate Earth Day - but, everyday is Earth Day


Hello.  As we celebrate Earth Day today I am posting some images of dirt, of water and of mud.  Or more specifically, of works made with dirt and water and mud.

Thank you for visiting and thank you for keeping Gia in our upmost thoughts, in our hearts -  and to keep us working to make her well again.

Water:

Water dripping from the roof of our house.            Snow, in our backyard.

                             

A soaking for The World Wide Water Project.            Detail of Water Fountain, from the installation                                       Landscape for an Institution of Higher Learning.



Below left: Detail of Water Offering from the installation "skin".      
Below right: Detail of Water Table from the installation Tended Primitive Emergence - reflecting the window paintings Atoms.
                                                                                                                             

                  


Dirt:



Detail, mud fish.  Outdoor/garden installation - prototype.  Family History, mud tablets. Zip 37 gallery.



 
Mud Buddha, eroding.  Outdoor /garden installation.        Detail, eroding hand.
  


Imperfect Offering.  Floor installation.                                    Detail, mud fish.



The Mudman:




I first made the Mudman for an installation called Systems Within - a work created especially for the 10 days the installation would be available for visiting.  The crudely created figure (made out of mud pies) had water dripping on him from an irrigation system on the roof of his enclosure - eroding it over the ten day installation.  A visitor could come in each day to find a different figure sitting in the chair.  Over the years I have recreated Mudman 6 -7 times.  Each time he surprises me.  Once installed in a store front in downtown Santa Barbara, CA, he sprouted a beautiful coat of moss.  Another time, in an unheated theater window in downtown Loveland, CO (during renovation) he chipped away instead of eroding due to the constant freezing and thawing.  I collected the bits and still make mud paintings from the pieces (one such painting is barely visible sitting to the right of him, below) in his latest incarnation for the gallery installation PLEASEtouch (for which this blog was first created) at Artworks Center for Contemporary Art in September of 2021.  

A prototype for Mudman, created in a lawn chair on my in-laws back deck.

Left: Creating Mudman for Systems Within, Santa Barbara, CA.  
Right: Systems Within - Rialto Theater.  Loveland, CO.



Creating Mudman for PLEASEtouch.                As he sat in the installation.  Odd angle.




As he sat and dried out in PLEASEtouch.  He did sprout some green grass sprigs after finishing him but I would have had to keep watering him for them to have continued growing,  Instead, I let him dry out and crack and split.  A reel of me breaking him apart with a hammer while deinstalling got almost 1 million hits on Instagram.  I've been told since then that reels featuring destructive gestures get a lot of hits.  

Many people have asked me why the figure never has a head.  After several attempts at creating a head for him I found that it took away from the sense of him being every man.  Gave him a personality.  Individualized him.  I wanted none of that, so create him headless every time.


 














 



















 

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