pinkStardust: My search for time and space

  Today marks the passing of many months since I last posted on this blog. I have been engaged elsewhere.  I have been considering the experiences I had with PLEASE touch , processing them and collecting images for posting and commenting, and will be posting more about  soon. I have also decided to expand this blog to now encompass all that I (we) make, as PLEASE touch,  as a  title, easily enfolds both the concepts of all the work as well as the goal for the work - for you to touch it and have it touch you, physically, energetically... And if I haven't discussed yet why I am moving into saying "we make" instead of "I make", I promise I will soon.  Hint.  It is about the connection between muse, material and me. To continue to catch you up, I quickly created a pop up gallery in the second studio I rented (temporarily) at ACCA (Artworks Center for Contemporary Art) after completing work to be included in  PLEASE touch, the gallery installation, and...

Hello.  Thank you for joining me. With this posting I am moving from a discussion about objects (and images, surfacing, sound and space) holding energy that engages with those who visit  PLEASE touch , to a discussion about artifacts - because I call pieces removed from their original place of origin, from the original installation they were a part of, artifacts.   PLEASE touch  is full of them. Some artifacts residing in  PLEASE touch  are as they were in their original installation. Oahu , Honshu and Kyushu , Battle Banners , Water Offering , and  Temple Bells , for instance, are all artifacts from the installation  skin.   They have not been reworked.  Now a part of  PLEASE touch, they  differ in that they are a part of this space and time, different, only in placement and exhibition choices.  Oahu , Honshu and Kyushu  now lay beside each other,  Battle Banners bound with red fabric, hov...

Good morning.  After a bit of a delay in posting, I am back to continue our discussion of art and energy - inserting it into a discussion about objects, materials, and surfaces included in  PLEASE touch.  Had an interesting conversation with a visitor who brought her 3 year old in with her to explore  PLEASE touch .  She said her son, Jack, had a marvelous time touching until he came to an artifact from the installation skin - Water Offering .  He reached out to touch the pedestal skinned in burned monkey fur (more on why I skinned the pedestal in monkey fur later), physically recoiled, looked up at her and said "Scary".  She said he would not tolerate going near Water Offering again.   Do objects hold energy?  Does the concept of entanglement inform our perceptions - on a conscious level? A subconscious level?  Are we aware of it?  Can we be aware of it? Jack was. Where we are in our own awareness certainly informs it.  How ...

  Jennie Kiessling is an artist, an educator and a good friend who lives, works and teaches here in Colorado.  While I was making work and creating the working pattern for installing  PLEASE touch  Jennie and I discussed the possibility of creating a catalogue for the installation.  The catalogue evolved into this blog.  Below is a piece that Jennie wrote for the catalogue / now blog. I offer it as the introduction to our discussion about energy.  Our discussion meaning between you and me, as you can leave comments on this blog that contribute to the dialogue if you like.  I would like you to. Thank you, Jennie,  for opening our discussion about Art as energy / energy as Art. That Objects Have Energy Saint Barbara was brought from home to home in Española, NM. Households affiliated with the local church took turns caring for the Saint through the year. Ritual statues from many places around the world are blessed with spices, wine or blood or ...

PLEASE touch When considering how to use words to express about work, how to talk about it and write about it, I find that the word entanglement is extremely helpful in communicating how I experience it all - and, make sense of it all. I could use the word connected, but it doesn't quite fit.  It's too rigid, too static.  Not fluid enough. I could use the word layered, which gets closer, but again, doesn't quite grasp the experience of the complete process of making.  It has a sense of stacking to it, one thing upon another.   I have been looking for a term that is more expanding than stacking.  That respirates.  That unfolds and enfolds, as the physicist Dr. David Bohm describes it - in terms of our universe, not art, but it fits because all that exists on a macro level to a micro level is entangled.  All things inform and assist in describing / identifying other things.  All life is involved with other life (involvement being the best sister wor...

Hello and welcome.   Just as when one explores the installation PLEASE touch  one does not follow a path framed by linear progression, subjects explored on this blog will be free flowing and informed only by inspiration.  In other words I will follow what comes up and share it with you.   For instance, in my last post I mentioned how it may be time to address history - a subject that is attached in more than one way to  PLEASE touch. However, I recently discovered something in the installation that I found fascinating, and so, once again, I am postponing the discussion of history for a bit.  I will be getting to it as it is important to include it, but today the blog is about mud.  Or more specifically about the Mudman . Mudman has been with me since I began making art, in a more informed, serious way.  He began his life as a part of my mini-installation called Systems Within,  in the Honors Show exhibition at the University of Californ...

  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...