outbox: just a few

postcards to put in the mail this week.

package to ponder

Aimee sent this fruitful package to me. More images and background about it can be found here. These are fragments from a body of work that is included in a current solo exhibition of hers. Be sure to check out Aimee’s busy exhibition schedule for this fall and make it out to see her work in person if you happen to be in New York or Florida.

I haven’t decided what I will do will all of these pieces just yet, but have a few ideas coming together.

Migrate & Dally

Migration opened last Friday. Here are a few shots  haphazardly taken during the reception. (I’m still mourning the loss of my DSLR, and making due with this point and shoot camera.)

We stopped by the Dally in the Alley on Saturday, which is always a fun end of summer event. This was Felix’ first Dally. He loved the music!

Dally History
What began as an inner city art fair in 1977 evolved into a performing arts festival when it was moved to its present alley and renamed in 1982 to “DALLY IN THE ALLEY”, the title of a medieval drinking song. Great musical talent, good beer and a remarkable string of fabulous September weather has indelibly marked the alley at Second and Forest in Detroit ’s Cass Corridor as the site of the best music festival in the Midwest .(more history on the Alley)

(poster designed by Mark Arminski.)

Pinchpots for Hungarian Birds

I received a fine little package this week from artist Brandon Boan. He’s just returned from a month of teaching in Hungary. The following, entitled Pinch Pots for Hungarian Birds, was made during his work on a series of thermal drawings which will be showing soon; I’ll be sure to update with details as I get them.

Migration

I’m pleased to have some of my work included in the upcoming group exhibition, Migration.

Opening Reception: Sept. 11, 6 – 9 PM.

Migration will be on exhibit from 9/11 to 10/17.
Work Detroit is open Tue – Sat, 11am – 4pm.

There will be a migratory performance entitled ‘No Fixed Address’ on 10/02, from 8 – 10pm

***

Migration manifests in many ways: changes to a neighborhood’s demographics, personal identity, contested borders, or movement in a lifetime or a week. These changes bring about conflicts (and resolutions) of space, economies, labor and industry, and race and ethnicity, to name a few. This exhibition brings together a wide range of creative work inspired by these issues.

Artist List:
Susan Aaron-Taylor
Gabriella Boros
Jacklyn Brickman
Terrence Campagna
Christopher Cannon
Daniel Farnum
Dave Fischer
Sadko Hadzihasanovic
Richard Haley
Andy Mattern
Robert Mirek
Erik Olson
David Edward Parker
Lisa Poszywak
Kelly Salchow MacArthur
Patrick Wise
Matthew Zivich

Curated by:
Michael Borowski
Urmila Venkatesh

Special thanks to Stephen Schudlich and the Work: Detroit staff.

Click here for the Facebook event page/invitation.

Weeding

Unwilling to put chemicals on our lawn and not really liking the grass monoculture that so many people have for lawns, ours is full of “weeds.” We’re o.k. with this, while I am sure it drives our neighbors crazy. Utopiography makes some great points about what she’s coined “Aesthetic Selection“. Personally, I think of grass as  the human forced invasive specie.

I find it interesting that so many of the plants that our culture classifies as weeds are actually useful. Red Clover and Dandelion leaves are a tasty and nutritional addition to salads and the flower petals can be eaten, too. Plantain can be used to ease the pain/ itch of bee stings and mosquito bites. All of this is fairly recent news to me and I wonder why these “weeds” have such a bad rap while pristine grass is so desirable.

I did a search to see what artists were making about “weeds”.

“Lightweeds is a project by Simon Heijdens and exhibited at the MoMA – part of the Design and the Elastic Mind exhibition.” (nextnature)

“Dutch designer Arwin Caljouw, with his project called Interior weeds, thinks over nature and the way that weeds emerge and grow in the streets. Interior weeds shows the power of plants in our environment:” (Design Lab)

From Letters to Words

I think I have the luckiest mailbox.

My dear friend Jude writes the most wonderful letters. I’m giddy every time I get one! Jude Stuecker is a fiber artist whom I met at Penland in North Carolina where we were both Studio Assistants during an 8 week Spring Concentration. She made a beautiful quilt for Felix that lives on the red recliner. Jude is currently in the middle of her busy summer show and festival season.

Also this week I received post cards from ever talented writer and poet Claudia Manz. Claudia changed my perspective on poetry completely. I met her during a month long fellowship/ residency at Jentel in Wyoming. Prior to that I just didn’t “get” most poems, didn’t really know how to think about them and in turn took the unfortunate stance that I just didn’t really like poetry.  After hearing Claudia share some of her favorite works as well as watch her work and listen to her read, I found a whole new appreciation and enjoyment for poetry altogether.

Claudia sent two poems from Portland.

en-grass-ed

In doing some research, I’ve come across some interesting ways of working with grass and had to share.

I hadn’t heard of artist Tomas Saraceno until doing this search, but have become completely smitten by his work. Here are his Floating balloons of grass from the “Lighter than Air” exhibition at Walker Art Center.

This next image also of Saraceno’s doesn’t involve grass but is just too gorgeous not to share:

Keep off the grass! was an undulating suspended landscape that was installed in the Southern California Institute of Architecture’s school gallery for 8 weeks.

Artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey grew grass on vertical surfaces including a cathedral and mausoleum.

as well as portraiture.

I also came across some grass lamps.

All images in this post belong to their respective owner/ artist.

place to place

Two beautiful arrivals this weekend from prolific Aimee Lee.

I enjoy the tactility and subtleties of the paper and am intrigued by how the blanket-ness of the material in the first image looks rough and yet so soft. The black and white lends itself well to these images yielding a lush chiaroscuro.

and the details.

Thank you Aimee!

LOVE mail art project & ATCs

Information about the Love mail art project was sent to me by Aimee (see mail from her here and here). I have been working on a piece of artmail to send to Romania as well as a few artist correspondents.

Simultaneously, I’ve been working on some Artist Trading Cards for an event/ exhibition at Richmond Art Gallery in British Colombia, Canada.

supplies:

::polyethelyne

::packing tape

::electrical tape

::box cutter

::sharpie

::love

Pile of postcards:

All they need now are stamps and a mail box!

ATCs or Artist Trading Cards are another fun way to get other artists tiny works. The gallery requests that the works be sent in a Trading Card sleeve/ 9 card sheet. I still need to pick one of these up, but my cards are ready otherwise.

All of them together:

and a few close ups:

Like my other recent work, these are made using reclaimed polyethylene. I got a slew of it from someone on freecycle back in Delaware. It had a lot of wonderful marks left from plant roots and mud from it’s previous use. The piece I used for this set of works though, had also been used while I was cleaning one of my screens after printing. The red marks are the screen filler that was washed out of the screen and dried onto the polyethylene. I love how many lives things can have and to think sending them out to others gives them yet another life is really quite exciting.