ah! forgot to post this from lunch today! enjoy!



My Words & Works

I am interested in the way we interact with the experiences and objects of our everyday lives. Our seemingly trivial interactions in our daily routine are often overlooked and forgotten, but play a critical role in how we feel about ourselves and the effect we have on our social and physical environment. I encourage the audience to be a part of each piece either through physical, emotional, or implied interplay to foster an awareness and appreciation for the mundane of our everyday.

Each piece has a description & then the images below it. The below sequence is from 11/22.

The Pink Room is based on the emotions from an experience. I wanted to give each participant a similar emotional experience by creating a small environment. The room is approx. 8' x 8' x 8'. There are a little over 1,000 hand sewn & loved squares on the wall. The floor is leather & fabric with balloons. Friends are invited to sit and feel part of, to touch, to play.

In the "Offerings" piece, participants were able to do one or both of the following:
*Add chips to another person's "thankful pot" if they were also thankful for the same thing, or
*create their own "thankful pot" choosing one of the many vessels & using a label maker.

This was fun both for those involved and for me to see people so involved. I deem it a great success. These are some images from 11/22. There were just under 50 created.

The below postcards encourage participants to think about who they are thankful for, and then to tell them! The postcards are already postmarked. At the open studio, there was a "mailbox" to drop into. I also have plans to go gorilla style outside of a Post Office or by a public mailbox (but it is really cold right now).

Top images are front & back (collage style).
Bottom images - a participant & a shot of some of the postcards filled out by participants 11/22.

The steamy window piece was inspired by riding the SEPTA bus on a rainy night.

This piece is discussed further in this blog: "Part V - Steamy"

Footprints series con't

As I've discussed the Footprints series in length in a previous blog, I will only touch on the newest addition. Below is a walking labyrinth. The blue lines are a guide.

The 4 shots below are from previous installations for the series. If you would to read further on these images, they are all discussed in these previous blogs: "Part III" (concept), "Window is up" (window on broad - Rosenwald-Wolf gallery), & "Other foot prints."

The Everyday Routines

What does our everyday routine consist of? It is easy to stop paying attention to the mundane. How often we go through our lives missing chances to take control of our routine.
If everyday I make a sandwich, I also get to everyday choose for my sandwich to be important.
If everyday I wear black, I also get to everyday choose which pieces I wear. I can choose to be myself within my "uniform."
Everyday I make tea. I choose to savor each cup, to pay attention to this moment.

The sandwiches are 14" x14" mounted on foamcore. These are actual lunches.
The "uniform" is one week from my closet.
The tea is months of daily tea stains from the tea I drink during work.

Studio Opening!

Part V - Steamy

And another very closely related piece to the footprints & especially water drawings...

Steam drawings – closely related to the water drawings. This is more involved in terms of set-up/construction. It is almost contrived in its set-up/materials. A window from my parents’ house is steamed and folks are invited to draw in the steam with their fingers – remember when it rained on the school bus and the windows got all steamy and you drew on them? This piece is about playing and about the marks we leave behind. Again the drawings are non-permanent & difficult to document. Again, they are wiped away by the steam or by the artist themselves. The difference in these pieces is that the ghost trails of each participant are left on the window (the oil from your hands leaves marks that do not entirely disappear after the window is steamed). This piece has presented a bit of a challenge to me b/c of materials…so, the window is surrounded by flashing – intending to keep the steam in, the steam hose which has holes drilled into it is laid across the bottom and around the right side – steam rises. The steam hose gets HOT, so there is a wooden a shelf with caution tape on it attached to the bottom of the window. Even though somewhat contrived, it worked well enough for me to be satisfied with her debut performance. I was part of a cabaret-style show (music, art, performance) and have a few pictures from this show.

Part IV - Water Drawings...

So, to continue the conversation, related to the ideas of the Window on Broad & the Footprint Series, I will remind you I was pondering what marks do I leave behind that are singular to me. Also, and always in pushing the boundries of what makes "art" itself.

Water drawings – just what they sound like. This is a series of drawings that exist for a brief period of time. Literally, I draw with water on the wall and then I wipe it down. Only some are recorded, and frankly they are very difficult to photograph, so many are not recorded. I am interested in pursuing this in a participatory manner. Set up a can of paintbrushes and a container of water & invite folks to draw on the wall & then wipe it down. There is something about wiping away a piece that you just created that has no record anywhere and no one but those present will be part of that is appealing to me.

Other footprints...

across the carpet...

water marks that disappear...I really like this one b/c their is no evidence that you were ever there except for this photo. I purposefully took this photo so that you could not tell where it was that "there" is.