Art Rolls On

More Castleton Shots

2012-02-07T04:43:00.000-08:00

2nd Tuesday (well, Cheryl Betz, Alex Bottinelli, Maggie Neale, and Kathy Stark and I; Ann is in Patagonia, and Liz had a medical appointment) made our presentation about The How's and Why's of Forming an Art Group on Thursday, February 5. I was disappointed that no students (whom we had imagined were our target group) came. But there were other folks more our age (hmmm, it's really too bad that there can't be more age-mixing, but I guess not...) who were interested, and it will be good if we are instrumental in helping start a new group in the southern part of the state.

Maggie Neale was right on the case, and put up a posting on her blog the day after the event, with lots of good photos and text about the day's activities.

Here's a photograph of one side of the gallery that Bill Ramage, the gallery's curator, took.

And here are a few I took of my pieces that I liked best. This Parade:

And a detail of The Wall, with nail people going out for dinner. It's my birthday, and I'm going out for dinner tonight too!:

Weathering It Out at SPA

2012-01-29T07:35:00.000-08:00

The Weathering it Out exhibit at SPA is very well done, with lots of interesting work. I had a great time putting up my piece, Pandora's Box (or Nature Spills Her Guts), featuring a huge number of buttons that had been through two floods in the basement at SPA, where they were stored. Several floods ago when I retrieved some boxes of these buttons, I noticed that the sludge that covered everything in the basement had settled inside the boxes, acting as a kind of thick ink that created "prints" of the buttons on the interior surfaces of the boxes (as you can see in the shots above and below, taken by Jack Rowell).

Here are some more great installation shots Jack took. Thanks to him for permission to include them in this blog!
Another fun thing that happened at the opening reception on Friday, January 27: Kevin Norbert Collins, of Inside Out Upholstery and Design, came by the studio and bought a small sculpture called Relax. We had a lot of fun attaching it to the shoulder of his jacket, and he decided that he should name it "Chip", as it was a chip on his shoulder!

Castleton Shots

2012-01-29T07:20:00.000-08:00

2nd Tuesday will be giving artist talks and presenting a panel discussion at the Christine Price Gallery at Castleton State College this Thursday, February 2. We'll be meeting in the gallery for pizza; then each artist will give a brief talk about her work (except for Ann Young, who is in Patagonia, and Elizabeth Nelson, who has another commitment), followed by a panel discussion called "The How's and Why's of Creating an Art Group."

Thanks to Bill Ramage for sending me these shots of parts of 2nd Tuesday's exhibit at the Christine Price Gallery at Castleton State College. All my work in this show is three-dimensional constructions with wood and mixed media.

Elizabeth Nelson's paintings interspersed with some of my oracles.

Ann Young's paintings of New York City subway platforms and a coffee shop in the city, with my piece entitled Village.

Paintings by Cheryl Betz: A. Aflatunense II and I, and more of my Oracles.

Setting up at Castleton

2012-01-18T14:46:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, January 17 I borrowed a huge (and very cool) van from Big Heavy World in Burlington to transport a van-full of sculpture to the Christine Price Gallery at Castleton State College. My friend and colleague Ann Young helped me pack the work into the van, which involved bringing it up from basement storage at Flynndog in their big freight elevator, rustling out one of the seats that was frozen into the van’s floor (enthusastic mopping by a previous borrower had pooled water in the attachment points of the seats, and they were frozen in place), and packing it full of my sculpture and Ann’s paintings. It was impossible to get the camera back far enough in the cab to really get a sense of how packed every inch was. There are still two rows of seats behind what you see here, with art on and under them:

It was pretty nasty weather, with freezing rain (seems like freezing water was a theme here...), and we were late for our delivery due to the seat-melting activity. But Bill Ramage and Castleton student Victoria helped us unload and get the work into the gallery, where the other five artists in the exhibit had already arranged their work.

The exhibit, called 2nd Tuesday (after the name of our Art Group) will be up from January 23-February 17, and we'll be talking about our work and doing a panel talk on "The Hows and Whys of Creating an Art Group" on February 2 at 12:30 in the gallery. 2nd Tuesday members are Cheryl Betz, Alex Bottinelli, Maggie Neale, Elizabeth Nelson, Kathy Stark, Ann Young and me. I hope to put up an installation shot that the gallery is planning to send. Here's a fuzzy view of the installation in progress:

Thanks so much to Ann Young for her help, and to Big Heavy World and James Lockridge for letting us borrow their excellent vehicle!

All Aboard Again

2012-01-14T15:41:00.000-08:00

Much of the work from the All Aboard exhibit at Flynndog in late 2010 will be going to Castleton State College for an exhibit called 2nd Tuesday, with artwork by the seven members of my Art Group: Cheryl Betz, Alex Bottinelli, Maggie Neale, Elizabeth Nelson, Kathy Stark, Janet Van Fleet (me), and Ann Young. The exhibit will be up from January 23 - February 17 at the Christine Price Gallery in the Fine Arts Center at Castleton. We'll each be giving a brief talk about our work on Thursday, February 2, at 12:30, followed by a panel discussion about the Hows and Whys of forming an art group.

Here's a Slideshare presentation I made about the All Aboard work. I hope you'll come out and see some of the work in its new spot in Castleton.

All Aboard

View more presentations from Janet Van Fleet

Wilma Lovely, Cabot Artist, is dead

2012-01-13T11:54:00.000-08:00

It is with great sadness that I announce that my friend and fellow artist, Wilma Lovely, died on Tuesday morning. This photograph shows her seated between two of her artworks produced on large pieces of slate, created using recycled glass, jewelry, electrical wire, and other materials. Her "corner", where she created her work, is behind her.

Wilma had been in declining health for several years, but continued to make new work until fairly recently (along with the crocheted afghans and knitted hats she made for friends and people in need). Wilma's work will live on after her. You may see some of it at her website.

Here is her obituary from the Times-Argus.

CABOT - Wilma Lodascia Lovely, 87, died Jan. 10, 2012, at her residence.

She was born July 8, 1924, in Calais, the daughter of the late Claude R. and Corrine (Gallison) George. She graduated from Junior Order of United American Mechanics School in Tiffin, Ohio.

On Nov. 7, 1943, she married Lloyd Lyle Lovely in Barre. They made their home in Cabot for many years.

After the death of her sister, June, she helped to raise the four Sullenberger children.

She was a member of the United Church of Cabot, Cabot Ambulance Service and Twin Town Homemakers in Cabot. She enjoyed making recycled art, knitting and gardening.

Survivors include two sons, David Lovely, of Cabot, and Ronald Lovely, of Plainfield; four daughters, Rose Talbert, of Cabot, Claire Lines, of Corning, N.Y., Marcy Martin, of Cabot, and Lisa Guy, of Williamstown; one brother, Frank George, of White River Junction; 22 grandchildren; 26 great-grandchildren; and many nieces and nephews.

She was predeceased by her husband in 2004; a son, Steven Lovely; and three siblings, Claude R. George Jr., David George and June Sullenberger.

Visiting hours will be held Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Lovely home, 233 Elm St. in Cabot.

Funeral services will be held Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012, at 2 p.m. at the United Church of Cabot. Burial will be at a later date in the family lot in the Durant Cemetery in lower Cabot.

In lieu of flowers, contributions in her memory may be made to the Central Vermont Special Olympics, c/o Marcy Martin, P.O. Box 45, Cabot, VT 05647, or to the Cabot Ambulance Service, P.O. Box 32, Cabot, VT 05647.

Northern Vermont Funeral Service in Hardwick is in charge of arrangements.

And More Dots

2012-01-12T14:40:00.000-08:00

How COULD I have failed to mention the current expedition of Damien Hirst, with Dot paintings at Gagosian galleries all over the world??? My son just reminded me. Here's a photo of the man himself in front of some of his (mostly minion-made) dots, from this article:

There's also a New York Times article to have a look at. And here's Banksy's take on the whole extravaganza:

I can't help it; I still think dots are delightful, effervescent, happy-making and charming. Not terribly deep, but very wonderful.

Dots

2012-01-12T10:29:00.001-08:00

I once wrote, "there's almost nothing that can't be improved by the addition of polka dots," and I still think so. So does Gerard Manley Hopkins:

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscapes plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise Him.

Or Her...

A friend at the Ecotarium just sent me a link to an article about a new exhibit in Queensland, Australia by Yayoi Kusama, one of my favorite dotty artists. Here are before and after photos of the exhibit that invited children and others to add dots to a completely white space. Go to the article in the Daily Mail Online to see the work as it unfolded.

Print Project

2012-01-07T05:00:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to the opening for the 30/30 Anniversary Print Project at the Amy Tarrant Gallery in Burlington. It was absolutely packed with people, so packed that it was hard to make your way from one side of the room to the other! (I guess that’s what happens when you have 32 artists exhibiting in one room.) Here’s the blog with images by each of the artists, and here’s how my print turned out. As I look at this piece, I wonder what is the effect (or importance) of the gridlines created by wire in most pieces in this series of disks and buttons. There’s definitely a difference when the disks are tethered (or connected), versus floating. Your thoughts?

Collectors

2012-01-07T04:39:00.000-08:00

A couple who bought the wall piece I talked about in this post sent a photograph of the piece installed in their home. They chose to mount it in a horizontal orientation, a good choice for this wall.

They also sent a very cool image showing the dramatic effect of the afternoon sun on the piece:

Along with some other purchases he made, another collector asked me to make a 12 x 12" Priest painting to add to his collection. I’m quite pleased with the chunky, chewiness of The Priest of Licorice, a re-working of a 2001 piece.

And, plucked from a group of new Button Garments I made in December, a bridal couple moved into their new home in Burlington.

More Work on the Wall

2012-01-07T04:26:00.000-08:00

A big chunk of the Alphabet disk installation was purchased, so, as planned, I’ve moved into a group of wall/disk pieces using numbers. They call to mind, though in a decidedly different flavor, John Anderson’s amazing murals at the Burlington airport, which also use letters and symbols.

Another thematic area I’ve explored is four Seasons, which I showed at SPA in the Holiday show. Here are Winter and Fall:

I'll be showing this work from this series I call Discography at the Contemporary Dance and Fitness Studio in Montpelier from February 7 through March 19, 2012.

Movement Reborn

2011-12-03T18:26:00.000-08:00

I made a piece called Movement several years ago that was part of my Rolling Boil series, but when I sent it to an exhibit in Baltimore, it was smashed in transit by UPS. It arrived at the gallery in a nice clean looking box (not the box I'd packed it in), but when the box was opened, the sculpture was in pieces. (I later took the small people that had been broken off and mounted them individually and sent them off to Maison Kasini in Montreal). Here's what it looked like before the Movement was (so to speak) co-opted.

Today I mounted four of the ABC people I made in Maine on the same base, and the Movement was renewed and got back to marching. The people are mounted on rods that allow their legs and arms to move, and when you pull the vehicle, they appear to be walking.

Here's a video of Movement in action:

Alphabet Delights

2011-11-27T13:08:00.000-08:00

The Alphabet installation is up on the wall in my studio now, with a profusion of letterforms. It's very colorful, and would be great for libraries (public, private, or institutional); workplaces that deal with the printed word (publications such as newspapers and magazines); printers; and colleges, universities, and other schools. When I had Music of the Spheres up on this same wall a few years ago (before it went off to NRG Systems in Hinesburg), Georgia Landau used to come to the studio and sit and look at it because she said it made her relaxed and happy. This one, I think, does the same thing!

It bipps joyfully across the wall, singing about the amazingness of the written word. It was a busy day at the studio on Saturday when I finished the piece and put it up on the wall. Among those who stopped by was Janet Nielsen, formerly the head librarian at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier. She said what a miracle reading is, how amazing that our species does this complex, beautiful thing.

Another visitor was Gabrielle Dietzel, who told me about two neat places that focus on type and letterforms, the Alphabet Museum (Buchstaben Museum) in Berlin, Germany and Letterpress Things in Chicopee, MA. Both are worth checking out.

Latest

2011-11-25T09:19:00.000-08:00

I’ve done lots of fun art things in the last little while. In the middle of October I was part of a jury to select work for VSA’s upcoming Engage exhibit. I love looking at art, especially art by self-taught artists. And in that vein, I am delighted to be doing workshops every other week for G.R.A.C.E. at nursing homes in St. Johnsbury and Greensboro since June.

I’ve also been picked up by two new galleries – the Gander Gal le ry in Manchester Center and Stowe Craft Gallery (where I delivered the last of my wall pieces from the exhibit in Nagoya this week).

The opening for the Members Show at Studio Place Arts on November 19 was great. SPA has sold four of my sculptures already!

I’ve also got two pieces made with wine tops (one, Black Angel, shown here) in the ARA show at the T.W. Wood Gallery through December 18. I’ll be gallery sitting there from 12-4 PM on Saturday, December 10, so feel free to come by and visit.

A new activity for me (but not something I'm putting on the regular schedule): printmaking! I was asked to make two prints for the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts/Burlington City Arts 30/30 Print Project and fundraiser, and I worked for two sessions with the wonderful Jennifer Koch (shown below) to print some big plexi buttons I had made for another project.

And finally, I did a workshop with visual arts students in the Academy of Visual and Performing arts at Essex High School on November 17. Students made work related to my Rolling Boil pieces, and they were very cool.

From January 23 to February 17 my art group, 2nd Tuesday, will be having an exhibit at Castleton State College, . I’ll be showing a lot of the big 3-D work I had at Flynndog last year, in case you missed that show.

Disks and Letterforms

2011-10-30T13:02:00.001-07:00

I’ve always loved the alphabet, and have often included text with my paintings, like this one from four or five years ago.

When I set up my Museum Cases at the Wood Art Gallery in 2006, I included what I called a “waterline” (that went all the way around the room, about four feet off the floor) of random text culled from spam emails. These spam emails (now, they're from the ancient history of spamming...) used to contain text copied from novels, poems, and other “legitimate” texts, in an effort to get their advertising pitches (mostly for penis-enhancing drugs and devices) through the filters.

What fascinated me was that even though the words (I just chose nouns and adjectives) were truly random and completely out of any kind of sequence, people couldn’t help making meaning of them, reading them like a poem.

The same is true of the small black and white figures I created in Maine in October. The letters on their chests are random, but people think they see their names and words in them, as though the letters were just scrambled from intact (and discoverable) words.

This is the sketch for a wall installation with letterforms that I made in Maine

and here are some of the disks I painted with both spray enamels and oils. When they’re dry (gee, it takes a long time for them to dry; I had to bring many of them back to the studio covered with wax paper!), I’ll be working on a large piece, and deciding whether it should be in the loose configuration of the sketch, or in a more formal arrangement with a steel frame.

Artmaking in Maine

2011-10-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

I’m just back from a week of artmaking near Rockport, Maine. My art group, 2nd Tuesday, rented a house situated on Penobscot Bay for the month of October and we all went when we were able. The rent was very reasonable, and the house came with everything – linens, kitchen equipment, and heat. But no TV or internet connection. Perfect. Alex Bottinelli, who had a sabbatical from her work, spent the entire month, and some others were able to spend up to 19 days in one or more trips. I had a quick trip early in the month with my husband that was more of a vacation, and then went back from October 23-28 to actually do some work.

People set up studio space in various parts of the house, but mostly in the big, heated garage, that had windows and was a really great studio space. The house is associated with a place that rents small summer cabins right on the water. It used to be a destination, with a dance hall and dining hall in the early 1900's, and it still has old stonework and a lingering sense of history.

During my first visit in the early part of the month, I discovered the dump, filled with wonderful things that only Janet could love, including old rusted sheetmetal firepits, a pile of lath from latticework, and some dead colored lightbulbs that were strangely appealing. It came in a rush to me that I would split the lath to make arms and legs for small people, some black and some white, with random letters in the opposite color. I made a test piece in the studio when I was back in Vermont, and hit the ground running when I got to Maine.

Unfortunately, the thing with the basins just didn’t work. Not enough figures to really fill it up? I don't know, but they just looked like a pile of messy sticks. I wound up taking the tubs (and the lightbulbs) back to the dump.

So I tried some other things with them – combining them with old rusty slats from a rusted venetian blind, and...
then I just started to play. I took them down to the water and sat them on the rocks.

But BEST of all, and the piece de resistance, was this Homage to Magdalena Abakanowicz!

I also did a lot of work with letterforms, did a prototype wall piece, and painted many disks that I will be integrating into a large wall installation. I'll write about that in another post.

At Shore Galleries in Provincetown

2011-08-07T04:37:00.001-07:00

Muffin Ray, proprietor of Shore Galleries in Provincetown, Massachusetts, is showing my work this summer, with two focused exhibits of my work. The opening reception for the first showing, a two-person exhibit with Steve Toomey, was July 29. I showed all that remains of the wall installation I took to Nagoya, Japan in 2010, as well as two button encasements and some button dresses.

Here's a look at me installing on one wall, and some images of the show.

There will be four of my Museum Cases along with work by Mark Heitzman during August, reception on August 19.

Photos by Shore Galleries

The New, Cleaner Studio

2010-12-07T07:00:00.000-08:00

So many things are changing in and around my studio. The City of Barre has torn down the building next door. I used to look out my windows at the roof of that building, but now there's a big open lot. Just two years ago the roof was resurfaced, and today they were filling in the huge hole that was once the foundation and basement. What a strange use of resources. SPA may make a sculpture garden there while the city figures out what to do with the site (and gets the money to do it).

So here's the main area of the studio. You can see Preaching the Gospel (subject of a post below) at the right. Plus I have re-worked the big wall piece called Dots that uses disks in a steel frame, adding more layers.

Here's a detail shot of it. I've made the additional disks and buttons applied to the surface stand out with metal spacers, trying to get more depth. Georgia Landau thinks the disks (such as the one in the second row down on the right) with painted concentric circles are distracting and not mellow or restful like the feeling of the rest of the piece. I kind of agree with her, so I may remove them, but I'll have to drill and paint up more monochromatic disks, and I'm not wanting to do that right now. You can compare this to a similar piece I made several years ago (sold).

Another task I've been meaning to do is to mount one of my big polychrome fish sculptures. You can see it below, on top of the room divider. It swivels; maybe I'll make a quickie video of that. The fish is one of the pieces I have on sale in the studio during the month of December, 2010. I'm going to make a post in the next few days about the sale with the new, shockingly low prices.

On the other side of the room: I took lots of 3-D pieces off the display shelves to add them to the All Aboard piece at Flynndog, and decided to use the space temporarily to put up my Priests paintings so I can think about them and where I should go next with this work.

The workbench was sort of clean and tidy at some point in the past few weeks, but as soon as I start working on something it becomes a disaster area again.

Likewise at the front of the studio. There's always tea mess on the counter.

The Disarmed

2010-12-07T05:00:00.000-08:00

I forgot that I was working on this post back in June, when I was showing my Disarmed installation at Flynndog. All the pieces in the installation lacked arms, and were suspended from the ceiling. The shadows were pretty cool. You may notice that some of those pieces got repurposed for the All Aboard exhibit (particularly the largest one, which got arms, used for leading a fish...).

I did some nosing around on the internet looking for other artwork that used the "disarmed" idea, and found this fabulous one called Disarmy Men, by Blake Fall-Conroy. He bought bags of plastic soldiers, removed the weapons, resealed the packaging, and replaced them on the shelves. Soldiers without guns!

Preaching the Gospel, a repaired and repurposed sculpture

2010-12-06T14:17:00.000-08:00

The sculpture in the video below used to be called Sing, Sing, Sing, and was one of my ORACLES series of standing sculptures. (At left is an image of the oracles stored in my studio. You can see this one in the right rear corner.) But several years ago it fell over and the neck (which was about ten inches long) broke, so I took the portrait off the front and used it for another purpose, and put the piece in the repair pile.

This month I drilled the neck hole out and added the left arm (a piece of an old loom that Pria Cambio gave me). There's a device on the back that keeps the arm oriented, but I think it would be better if the pounding and gesturing of the arm was a bit less regular and staccato. Also, I may make a stand to stabilize it, and put some little people in the area where the arm strikes...

Back in the Studio

2010-12-05T07:41:00.000-08:00

Now that all that big three-dimensional work is safely stashed off-site, I have spiffed up the studio and there is actually room to move around and make new work. I have assembled things that have needed repair for some time (perhaps a topic for a future post) and turned to making new work.

One of the object lessons of the recent All Aboard installation is that, at least for now, I need to stop making large 3-D work. It's hard to store, hard to transport, and doesn't easily find buyers. So I want to make something that's smaller, lighter, and possibly more commercially attractive.

Another thing I'm seeing is that after the strongly political nature of the work in All Aboard (looking at gender, war, the oceans, coupling, animals...), I want to do something a bit more lighthearted. I have been feeling so disturbed by the angry, wrong-headedness of the currently political situation that I have turned away for the moment, and am making work that's a little humorous. Zany. Witty.

For the last several years I've been using wine tops in a kind of collage technique, identifying them as homages to the late Roy Levin, who did quite a few pieces with this material. But now I've decided I've been working with wine tops for long enough that I can feel comfortable using them under my own label, so to speak.

So far I've made two series (the individual pieces are each 5.5 x 10"). The first series of six pieces is called Erogenous Zones, and includes (left to right: Brain, Face, Neck, Breasts, Back, and Genitals). The relevant zone is indicated with copper-colored foil. Click on an image to get an enlargement.

The second series is called Aches and Pains, and includes (left to right below) Migraine, Lower Back, Knees, Heel Spurs, Carpal Tunnel, and Rotator Cuff. The pains are blue.

The next series will be on the topic of Beverages: wine, beer, tea, coffee, etc. I'm thinking of making them into cards, or some other kind of multiple. Stay tuned.

All Aboard

2010-12-05T07:04:00.000-08:00

I'm finally posting some pics I took at the end of the Afterward exhibit at Flynndog, which was up during the month of October, 2010. My part was called All Aboard and Emiko's was entitled Cornucopia.

When I got there to take the exhibit down, Emiko had already removed her work, so the only image you get that includes her pieces is in the previous post.

I've posted shots that give a sense of the scope and length of the "train" of sculptures, as well as some detail shots.

Right now the pieces that weren't sold during the exhibition are stored in the basement at Flynndog (Thank you, Bren!). So my studio is now MUCH emptier, and I actually have room to start some new projects.

And here's the statement for the installation:

What happens when a tree is killed, when a piece of metal falls off the bottom of your car, or when you throw out your grandma’s photos and a bunch of broken glass? Sometimes those random bits of matter (from what I call the planetary dumpster) are scooped up by artists and given an afterlife in art. All the materials in Afterward were acquired in this way.

In my installation, All Aboard, there’s also another kind of rescue and re-purposing going on: for this project I have used my own work from the last twelve years as raw materials -- combining them, adding new elements, and making narrative groupings. A very happy outcome of this process is that my studio now has much more room! And now that I have sent my children of wood out into the world to make their way, they will not be coming home to the studio. So make me an offer (each of the “cars” has a chalked number) if you would like to take any or all of them home with you afterward.

I think of this installation as a march, a procession, a circus parade. In the sweep of time, human history has been changed as people moved across the face of the planet in migrations and expulsions, the triumphal processions of conquerors, the yearly trek over the Tokaido Road, and political demonstrations. And along the route, the advancing (or receding) multitudes cast off their broken, spent, or useless stuff – even, sometimes, their wounded – like a grim or comical trail of breadcrumbs back to nowhere.

That’s the big picture. The small picture is that each one of us is marching in the parade of life: we stroll, run and roll through our lives until we get where we are going – which is death. And here is the “art” we leave by the wayside.

The titles I’ve affixed to the “cars” suggest different human states and experiences on this road of life. I have found that many people are grateful to be offered ideas about how to think about this work and find it helps slow them down and enriches their exploration of each piece. If that works for you, great. If not, then just move on down the line.

AFTERWARD at Flynndog

2010-09-28T18:22:00.000-07:00

I've almost finished putting together my installation All Aboard at Flynndog in Burlington, in a two-person show with Emiko Sawaragi Gilbert. Her installation (of manipulated found branches) is called Cornucopia, and the exhibit is titlted Afterward, which refers to the fact that both our work is made from found materials, mostly wood. And of course, it's coming after On the Planet, an exhibit I curated of Japanese and American artists at three sites in Vermont (including Flynndog)

So, I've had to immediately switch gears and get the work out of my studio and move it to Burlington. Here's my husband and the packed van.

Here's a link to details on Vermont Art Zine about the exhibit. There are two openings:

Thursday, September 30, 6-8 PM (Bren and Emiko will be there on Thursday, but not the next night)
Friday, October 1 (Burlington Gallery Walk), which I will be doing solo, 5-7 PM

And here are some preview shots of the show; I may make a few changes before the opening, but it's basically done!

Installing Music of the Spheres at NRG Systems in Hinesburg

2010-06-06T10:59:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, June 2, I finally went over to NRG Systems to install the Music of the Spheres, that they bought way back in August of last year. Here you see Steve Knowlden and Martha Keenan at the end of the hanging process.

The lagtime (from delivery to installation) has to do with our mutual effort to find someone there to create a lighting system that uses moving light to make the shadows on the wall move and dance.

Any of my readers who has seen the film about my Circular Statements work by Gail Marlene Schwartz (with music by Michael Arnowitt) may remember that I've been trying to develop such a lighting system, but so far haven't been able to figure out how to do it. I tried a computerized system with a timer-chaser (which is now being used with Disc Dance at the ECHO Center), but it didn't do what I wanted. So I figured that I was really lucky to have a piece bought by NRG Systems, a place filled with Engineers!!, and now maybe it really could happen.

Guy Kirchoff is now on the case, and I'm hopeful that he'll come up with something wonderful to make my Dreams of Dancing Disks come true!

Stay tuned!

New Wine

2010-05-08T09:28:00.000-07:00

OK, the wine that's been sitting in a carboy in my kitchen for over seven months is finally in bottles. The label isn't as funny or inspired as last year's S'WINE label (see below), but it tastes good and I'm glad to have the brewing operation out of my way for another few months. For the last few years I've stopped trying to remove labels from old bottles (a major pain in the neck, and sometimes just impossible), and just recycled my old (commercial) wine bottles, washed them out, rinsed with boiling water, and put the wine in. My label goes over the commercial label. Kind of a nice hodge-podge.

I'm not planning to get pigs this year. We bought two goats, who will become this year's meat at the end of the summer. (Summer is coming, right?)

DC Photo Opportunity

2010-04-19T11:58:00.000-07:00

So here is a Vermont Arts Council photo with Senator Leahy in front of Susan Abbott's work in the Curator's Choice Tour at the Russell Rotunda in Washington DC. A better photo from Leahy's office will be coming later, I think.

Alter(ed) Ego, Family & Friends at Flynndog in Burlington

2010-04-18T07:17:00.000-07:00

Before I headed out for DC (see below), I put up an installation I called Stepping Into My Mother's Shoes (and genes, and brain, and…) in the new show at Flynndog called Alter(ed) Ego, Family & Friends. The show will be up from April 9 - May 30, and there will be an opening reception during the First Friday Art Walk in Burlington on Friday, May 7, from 6-8 PM. Most of the show was installed on April 7, after all the artists got together to hear and read each other's statements and bios.

My piece used my paintings (and my mother's drawings) from our collaboration called Jungian Journey. Additionally, there was a dress affixed to the wall with buttons, and a pair of my mother's baby shoes. I've printed my statement about the piece underneath the photo below, which was taken by Tina Escaja, one of the artists. It was dark at night, so I'll try to take a brighter photo the next time I'm there during the daytime.

Stepping Into My Mother's Shoes
(and genes, and brain, and…)

There's something about long-time relationships - whether with family, friends, or colleagues - that makes us real, by which I mean that when we share history and experience, it grounds us in time and space. For example, having participated in exhibits here at Flynndog many times in the past makes me know this space, know Bren, and be known by them. We all have many people and places that are part of our circles of intimacy, whom we know and by whom we are known. Our relationship with parents is particularly rich and powerful, as we not only share history and experience, but also the very substance of our bodies and being, both nurture and nature.

This installation contains pieces of a project I did in 1997 called Jungian Journey. When my mother, Sandy McKinney was almost 50, she joined a Jungian women's group near Santa Fe, New Mexico and embarked on a series of "guided active imaginations", then entered into a more intensive analysis with a Jungian therapist. In the course of this exploration she was encouraged to draw the powerful characters that were emerging from her unconscious. She made 14 pencil drawings and many years later wrote about the whole experience in an unpublished manuscript entitled Promethea.

The small drawings always interested me, and when I came to be about 50 myself, I decided to do a series of paintings responding to these drawings. I tried to universalize my mother's characters a bit by giving them more generic titles than her more personal ones. I called them speaking portraits because they state their case in chalk-like utterances directed to the viewer.

Other elements in the installation make reference to my painting series called The Red Dress, in which the red dress represents the body, or the garment of meat in which we are all clothed. This time the dress is blue, the color of my mother's baby slippers, sky, and water. We are not only meat (red), but also mind (blue). And buttons are falling through the whole thing, connecting me to my mother, and you to me.

A week in DC, installing the Art of Action in the Russell Rotunda

2010-04-18T06:53:00.000-07:00

In the April 13, 2010 issue of ROLL CALL, the Capitol Hill Newspaper in DC, this photo appeared. I can't remember (or even imagine, given this photo) what I was doing, but as my son Jonas said, "Apparently there was some crazy lady loose in one of the Senate office buildings with a screwdriver and a shock of wild salt & pepper hair. I think they called in Marlin Perkins to hit her with a tranquilizer dart."

I was there to install an Art of Action exhibit, which was up from April 12 - 16. Here's a more sedate view of the exhibit, at the reception/photo opportunity in the Russell Rotunda, following the coffee hour in Senator Leahy's office.

Disc Dance Still at ECHO in Burlington in the Contraptions Show

2010-04-01T17:39:00.000-07:00

Disks are still making happiness happen at the ECHO center. Have you seen it?

More Button Dresses

2010-04-01T09:20:00.000-07:00

This is the last of the catch-up projects I decided to do after getting back from Japan. (Actually it was the first piece I worked on after getting back, but I hadn't photographed it before yesterday.)

It uses the last of my antique thread stands, and this one is special because it is a double. Over a year ago I made a sketch of a black and white pair for this stand, and so it was just a question of making it happen. Under the conical bottom of the stand is another antique piece of wood from the Lane Shops that I got from Schuyler Gould.

All my button dresses are sold and gone. This is the only one remaining. It's interesting how these appeal to people. Perhaps it's the charm of the miniature.

13th Green Mountain Film Festival Window

2010-04-01T04:46:00.000-07:00

Sunday, March 28 was the last day of the Green Mountain Film Festival. What a great event! I was constantly running into people I hadn't seen for ages and having the pleasure of catching up on their lives. This sense of community (that is almost like extended family) is so important for a healthy public life, and Vermont is still small enough to make it possible. We are really indebted to cultural enterprises like the Savoy, SPA, and Focus on Film that, through the dedication of hard-working and public-spirited visionaries, bring us opportunities to step outside ourselves, get together with others, and connect with the creative life of our species.

It's odd -- several times in the last few weeks I've heard people saying that the 60's generation was self-absorbed and self-indulgent. That is not my experience, as I see the (really quite selfless) efforts of these cultural organizations, most of which are founded, staffed, and supported by my generation.

I did the Rite Aid window for the festival, and took some photos before I removed the work. I went through a few different configurations of the circular elements before I was even slightly satisfied. In the end, I went back to my studio and brought back some of the the new IN THE WEB work from Japan, and felt that brought it together. Nevertheless, it did feel like a bit of a hodge-podge.

I bought the big piece of red fabric last May from the Re-Store in Barre , intending to use it for banners for the CIRCUS show I curated at SPA. It turned out that I only used a bit of it, so it was pressed into service for the window. Maybe hodge-podge is not such a bad thing -- stirring around the pot and re-using, re-purposing, and re-imagining elements already in one's possession.

I'm on a Roll

2010-03-27T07:39:00.001-07:00

This is a piece I've had in the hopper for quite awhile, made with the metal foil (previously lead, but now mostly some other kind of metal) on top of wine bottles -- working on it mostly at home (where I consume wine). I fear the good old Parisian days of wine in the studio (except at receptions, when I am the lone server of wine in the SPA building) are not a part of the Vermont scene, in my experience. I finally brought the figures I'd been working on into the studio last week, along with a load of wine tops that Dorigen Keeney had saved for me, and finished it over the last several days. I still need to figure out how to frame and/or present it. I think it needs to be covered with plexi or glass to keep the pieces in place (though they are affixed with double-sided tape to the 48" high backing board, which is covered with silver metal foil).

It's an homage to the late Roy Levin (who, among other things, made constructions and collages out of wine tops) called Standing on the Shoulders of Giants. I love the idea that we are able to have a broad and expansive view of the world only because the way has been paved for us by those who went before us (such as Roy). Even a tiny person standing on the shoulders of a giant can see farther than the giant him (or her) self. And I like this Perilous Pile of People, dangerously leaning, but not falling!

And that's something to think about, and take heart from, in this time when the problems of the world seem to be getting more intransigent, and political life more rancorous, more nasty, more depressing (well, maybe not as depressing as when George W. Bush was president, but still...). Hope is again hard to come by, but from up here at the top of the pile we can look back and see that not too long ago in this country there was slavery, lynching, and no vote for women. There were giants who helped put those evils behind us, and maybe we smaller people can continue to move the ball forward now.

New Work With Squares, Not Circles!

2010-03-25T17:16:00.000-07:00

When I got back from Japan, my husband asked me what influence I thought the experience would have on my artmaking practice. I really didn't think it was going to have any kind of direct influence; what I took away from my time there was more about social and personal insights, and less about aesthetics.

But recently, when I was visiting Emiko Sawaragi Gilbert at her house in Plainfield, I saw a very compelling work on the wall that she told me was made by her daughter Hannah when she was in grade school. The piece was made with origami paper, and I was enchanted with the material.

Emiko gave me two packs of paper, and I was off. This was the first sign that my trip to Japan might influence my own artwork. Here are the first (and perhaps only) pieces using this origami paper. I call it FIVE EASY PIECES, as there are five pieces, and each work uses only five (whole, uncut) pieces of origami paper. Parts of the paper disappear beneath the mat.

I also got a gift of six glass-clip frames and mats a few months ago from Nick Santoro, that I used to mount these origami pieces. Thank you to all who have gifted me with art materials!

I find this minimal, geometric work very strange coming from my hand, but there it is! I love the delicate transparency of the paper that lets you see the layer beneath and the subtle changes it makes on overlying layers.

Heretics Panel at the Green Mountain Film Festival

2010-03-24T00:24:00.000-07:00

One of the films at the Green Mountain Film Festival in Montpelier this year was The Heretics, a film by Joan Braderman about some of the women in a feminist art collective in New York who put out Heresies magazine, published irregularly from 1997-1993.

Jane Pincus, Lois Eby and I were on a panel afterwards. Jane actually had back issues of the magazine, which are displayed on the floor, and I brought two bags of books about women artists.

Unfortunately there wasn't enough time for a really good discussion, as the next film needed to be screened to keep everything on schedule.

I'm the one without the scarf. Gender is such a central consideration. Another film in the festival that I just saw today was XXY, a drama about a young hermaphrodite in South America whose parents have refused to have her operated on. Her father says he felt when she was born that she was perfect. It becomes clear, seeing this young person who possesses both sexual parts, that we are all human and lucky to enjoy the pleasures life affords us of our minds and bodies. It kind of makes you wonder what the big deal about gender is. It is a mystery, but then so is racism and religious fundamentalism -- all those other ways that cast others as scary or disgusting monsters, somehow so different from us that we cannot empathize with them.

Some Images From ON THE PLANET in Nagoya, Japan

2010-03-23T23:56:00.000-07:00

I had a wonderful trip to Japan, and wrote about it on our Nagoya-Vermont Blog

Here is an overview of my part of the installation and some closeups.

I was pleased to be doing work that was both beautiful and also connected with the issue of Biodiversity. During the course of the exhibition I was on a panel, and as we prepared beforehand, I was asked why the United States was not a party to the International Convention on Biodiversity. I did not know why (but guessed it might have something to do with biotechnology and bioengineering corporations). When I got back, I wrote to our congressional delegation and heard back from Senator Leahy that he, at least, thought we should sign the convention. When I wrote back to ask if he would spearhead such an effort in the senate, I didn't hear back. There is a lot going on in Washington now, and I guess preserving the other species on the planet isn't on the top of the pile.

Disc Dance at ECHO in Burlington

2010-01-13T10:38:00.000-08:00

My Disc Dance piece is at the ECHO center at the waterfront in Burlington, probably through March. More information here.

Tom Messner interveiwed me on December 16 for Chanel 5 news. Here's as look at the Disc Dance Discussion!

Sackcloth and Ashes

2009-09-17T13:13:00.000-07:00

Beth Robinson is taking my Sackcloth and Ashes piece for a show at S.P.A.C.E. in Burlington for an exhibit near Halloween. She thinks it's scary, and it certainly is, for lots of reasons. I just sent her this statement and some images, and thought the rest of you would like to see them too.

Sackcloth and Ashes: A Garment for Our Times

This piece was made in 2004 for a Wearable Art show at SPA, and this is what I wrote about it at the time:

As far as we know, humans have always worn clothing. And the kind of clothing people wear has been an indicator of social status, occupation, gender, and even political affiliation.

Sackcloth and ashes was worn in the ancient world as a sign of remorse, repentance, and grief. This sculpture represents us – the Wealthy Western World – doing penance for our consumption of more than our reasonable share of the world’s resources. We are offering the poor 27 cents, the average daily income of a person in the Congo, Ethiopia, and Myanmar in 2003.

But since we are all really one, and there is no essential difference between an American and an Ethiopian, it also represents the person about whose plight we grieve. That person has only 27 cents in his or her bowl at the end of the day.

I often think about money, the state of the world, and our hoarding of material goods. As an artist, I wonder about the consumption of art works -- which are, after all, goods that are bought and sold. I wonder about the value of trading in art. I wonder what art is for. I wonder what will speak to our spirit and bring us to do what is necessary to heal our planet.

The cost of this sculpture, should anyone desire to own it, is $199.57 (cheap, like much of human and animal life is cheap), the average yearly income of a person in Burkina Faso or Rawanda in 2004.

Art Rolls East!

2009-09-16T15:39:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that I haven't been blogging on ART ROLLS ON for quite some time (all summer long, in fact). The reason for this is that I've been busy with so many projects that I haven't had time to blog!

One of the most important things I've been doing is working on an art exhibit that engages the issue of Biodiversity called ON THE PLANET, which will take four Vermont artists (including myself) to Japan this January, and then bring some Japanese artists to Vermont in September, 2010 for exhibits combining Japanese and American artists in Barre at SPA and the Millstone Historic quarries, and at Flynndog during next year's Art Hop. At that time, the project will involve many more Vermont artists.

This is a wonderful project that involves those political and environmental concerns -- and how they connect with the work that we visual artists do -- that I was struggling with when I started ART ROLLS ON.

I am asking you to help support this effort by following and checking in with our blog at http://nagoya-vermont.blogspot.com/ (where we will be posting our work as it progresses) and also hope you will consider making a donation to help us get ourselves and our work to Japan.

I hope you will welcome this opportunity to support both me and a project that is bigger than one individual artist, a project that addresses critically important issues through the visual arts.

Here is some of my work in progress for this exhibit, which uses painted disks in a loose grid, affixed to the wall with push-pins. It will be about 35 feet long, stretching along a long wall in the gallery in Nagoya!

Spring is Amazing and Fabulously Beautiful

2009-05-24T10:05:00.000-07:00

I’ve been getting comments about the lack of action on my blog, which has set me to thinking about what I AM thinking about and what I’ve been doing. Some of what I’ve been doing is Daily Life, focusing on garden and barn.

So I went out this morning and took pictures of the things Outside, especially flowers, and especially flowers that will turn into yummy things to eat, like strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, and apples, and I’m running them along here, as they run through my life, as a constant, wonderful presence.

I’m not a landscape, flower, or still-life painter, but I understand what other artists find compelling about these things that are so alive, awake and essential to our life on this planet – the things that grow, that we eat, that we smell, that are so full of color, complexity, and their own life that continues with or without our intervention.

Much of what I’ve been doing art-and-work-wise has been at the computer. Suddenly I’m working on four different curatorial projects:

• My job with the Art of Action through the Vermont Arts Council. There are 26 different sites for the tour, five of which are in galleries and/or museums, and the remainder in non-traditional downtown locations, where I will need to install work on five standing panels that are being created just for this project – and it will move to a new location every two weeks! The ten artists involved in this project are a wonderful group of people, all interesting and incredibly hard-working.

• The Circus! Show at Studio Place Arts, which I will be installing the week of June 8. The opening reception will be on Friday, June 19, from 5:30-7:30 PM. I hope you’ll come – I think it’s going to be a really fabulous show.

• The On The Planet exhibit in Nagoya, Japan in January, 2010 and in Vermont in September, 2010. I’m working with three other artists (Janet Fredericks, Sophie Hood, and Riki Moss) on an installation for Nagoya, and working with Sue Higby as co-curator to design the Vermont component, which will be installed in three locations – Studio Place Arts in Barre, the Historic Quarries at Millstone Hill, and Flynndog in Burlington. This morning I was up early working on ideas for paper pieces for my own contribution to the Nagoya show. We feel a need to have things that are light and easily shipped, so paper fills the bill. I don’t usually have anything to do with paper (except reading it), so this is a challenge.

• And finally, I worked on proposing a retrospective exhibit at a gallery in a nearby state for a friend. The proposal is in, and I’ll let you know if we get it!

From the top: apple blossoms, strawberry bed with blossoms, dandelions (ubiquitous, irritating; I've made them into wine in the past, but now I just ride it out and wait until they go away), raspberries (I'm terribly proud of my row of raspberries, beautifully pruned and weeded), and my wonderful husband R.D. Eno with his own outdoor project.

Tomorrow I'm going down to Dartmouth to meet with the other people in the Nagoya group, so I'll take some pictures and maybe put up something about that.

S.115

2009-04-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

Since the passage of S.115 and the subsequent dramatic override of the governor's veto, I have been working on this piece, first in my mind, and then in the studio. The wonderful wood, with its prominent female genitalia and its skin bark (like a second, embracing woman), was given to me by Jim Lund, and the pieces strongly suggested a loving couple. During this time I read a posting on Daniel Wetmore's blog about his own wedding to Josephine Romano that said all this so much better than I could, and he has given his permission to reprint it below. You can find it on his blog here.

The Meaning of Marriage, Revised Standard Version

by Daniel Wetmore

It had been a six month train ride and it ended here, in the dark, with the stacked-up chairs, the rented canopy, the portable potties, and a pile of fat black plastic trash bags next to the building. Memorial Hall, North Calais. August 17, 1997.

The guests had all departed. Our extended families were snaking their way back down County Road, caravanning towards the Inn at Montpelier, my father’s car barely missing a moose that had stepped out of the darkness, and my mother so happy she could die. She actually said that, to my startled younger sister, “You know, Judy, I can die now. Danny is finally married.”

Six months earlier, to the day, I had asked Jo to marry me. She said yes and from that moment we were tied to the calendar, to dates, places, people, to decisions that had to be made, where, when, who, how.

It came down to the Old West Church, near Kent’s Corner, my old friend and former seminary classmate Tom as minister, and Memorial Hall for the reception, with the same old friend and former classmate as musician and dance master, leading the motley throng in contras, squares, and circles.

But now the great day was over, darkness had fallen, the lights and extension cords all coiled and boxed. Tom was the only other person there, collecting his things by the picnic table under the one flood light. Jo and I drank in the cool air coming off Number 10 Pond.

“There’s one more thing,” Tom shouted. The train had not quite stopped. The marriage certificate. We still had to sign it. We walked past the garbage bags over to the damp table, the knot returning to my stomach. Another “I do.” The famous “piece of paper from the City Hall” that seals the deal, that makes this real, permanent and binding as permanent can be. I had thought we were done. And then this final detail.

But here’s the thing: there were three lines for three signatures - husband, wife, and officiant. We all had to sign. I stared at the paper and hesitated - not because of the knot, but because of the irony, bitter and painful, that Tom, the man who had helped guide us through this process, led the ceremony, delivered the homily, a respected pastor and preacher and dance master, whose signature was necessary on the certificate, could not himself sign on the spouse line in his own wedding. He whose signature made the certificate legal and binding, and who had signed many such certificates at many happy weddings would not be allowed to sign his own.

Like so many other people drawn, called to ministry, Tom was, is, gay, an orientation which he had wrestled with most of the years I had known him. He had had to wrestle with it, of course, because it wasn’t “normal,” not accepted by society, because it makes straight people uncomfortable, forcing them to wrestle with things they would rather not think about. But Tom’s wrestling was over, he had found some peace in self-acceptance, had come out, even though it likely meant he would be booted from the Methodist pulpit. For the time being he could continue to minister, to preach, to marry and bury, as long as he was single. He could be gay, but not do gay, as if there was a difference.

He had told once about the double bind that gay people have found themselves in, that same-sex relationships have had no legal standing and thus were seen as immoral, and that they are seen as immoral and thus not given legal recognition. A vicious, tight circle that has stifled and crucified countless human beings, fellow citizens, co-travellers on life’s journey.

Above the pulpit, where Tom spoke at our wedding, arching across the wall above his head, were large plain black letters spelling out a warning from the Book of Proverbs: “REMOVE NOT THE ANCIENT LANDMARK WHICH THY FATHERS HAVE SET.” The beating rigid heart of conservatism, its essence, yet absurd and laughable. We humans seem to love the idea of eternal verities, of things that don’t change, that must not change. Yet change is everywhere. The divine right of kings has crumbled before the rise of democracy –the “natural order” that places women below men, regards them as weaker, not fully human, has been discredited — fundamental and ancient assumptions about “race” are now discarded– how many of these landmarks have been exposed as walls meant only to keep certain people out, allow certain others in? How many have now been happily pulverized, reduced to gravel and stone dust, put to better use fertilizing our fields?

My father used to tell me that while he sympathized with interracial couples who wanted to marry and raise a family he felt it was not a good idea — since the children would suffer, be ostracized, and not know who they were, White or Black. Forty years later, a blink in the eye of history, the United States has a biracial president. Are we not the better for it?

Some landmarks need to move, including some really old ones. Some definitions need to change. Any linguist will tell you that the meaning of a word rests ultimately not in dusty dictionaries or obscure Indo-European roots, but on the tongue and in the heart and mind of the living speaker and the living listener. Meanings change. Words change, grow, and shrink, because we change. The scary and wonderful truth of language is that it is continually discovered, rediscovered and recreated. It is our birthright and our duty. We are the authors and arbiters of meaning, as were our ancestors, and we are not bound — unless we choose to be.

We all signed the certificate. The evening ended. Our married life began. Tom eventually met someone and got booted from the pulpit. Such a loss to the Methodists. And so unnecessary. It has been a long and generally painful train ride through Western civilization for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, people who have added so much to our shared humanity. Changing a few lines on a marriage certificate, expanding the definition of a word, an important word, may not usher in a new world of peace and harmony, but it can be done and I believe we will all be the better for it.

Priests presented at Parker Pie, a pizza place

2009-04-04T18:50:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Liz Nelson for picking up the Priests, hanging them at Parker Pie, and taking these photos.

Priest-o-Rama

2009-03-31T11:25:00.000-07:00

Fellow Travelers of another kind, these Priests are secular clerics, our comrades.

Liz Nelson came this afternoon and took all the Priests that are finished to exhibit at The Parker Pie Co. in West Glover, Vermont. She said she'd try to take some photos of the work when it's up, so I'll post images if I get them.

Fellow Travelers

2009-03-29T10:57:00.000-07:00

As I’ve walked the Art Road (so to speak) I’ve discovered the occasional person whom I think of as a Fellow Traveler. This was a term used by Joseph McCarthy and his ilk to denote people who were Communist sympathizers, but not actual “card-carrying” Communists. Only instead of Communists, I’m meaning Artists. Whatever that is. Hmmm, and what would the card look like, anyway? And who keeps the minutes and makes the agenda?

I’m not sure what makes you a member of the Artist Party. I’ve often resisted calling myself an artist. It seems a lot like calling yourself a guru. If you appropriate the title (or confer it upon yourself), are you really entitled to it?

Sower, R.L. Croft

Sower is a subtle homage to van Gogh’s paintings of the same title in the form of an 11-foot-long maple seed (winged seed or “helicopter”) built in the manner of an airfoil. It features handles, an access panel and a view port. Sower rests on its own dolly, or on the floor propped by a short pole. It also carries long poles and guy wires for temporary, fair weather outdoor display in an oblique upright stance that abstractly mimics the painting’s striding figure.

Anyway, when I say Fellow Traveler, I mean someone who is “plowing the same field,” who seems drawn to similar materials, motifs, shapes, or icons. It’s not that he or she is a better artist (whatever that means) than other artists you know and love – just that they’re like you, like a clone of some kind, like someone who’s making art that could be your own.

Perpetual notion machine, R.L. Croft
Perpetual notion machine (Sisyphus machine) is an absurdly low-tech comment on the fascination and trust we place in technology. Idealism found in promises of a better future are frustrated by the reality of mankind’s tendency to settle for significantly less. Included in its construction are a whisper/ball tube, a malfunctioning solar powered thermometer and dead switches. Its main feature is a hidden ball track. The viewer can insert a ball bearing into an opening and listen to its clanking progress until it emerges at the bottom, beckoning for perpetual performance of a meaningless task.

Such a person, named Robin Croft, popped into my life recently. The wheeled pieces on his website (under Floorwork) are wonderful, and the piece called Platform, Madrid on the Wallwork page dramatically conveys the bomb-blast in the metro, as well as the injured and killed, represented (amazingly and accurately) by bottles of nail polish!

Platform, Madrid, R.L. Croft

Robin says, “My intention is to create the effect of two conflicting forces, that which touches on the depths of despair, unsteadily balanced against anxious humor and simple joy in work. Idealism found in promises of a better future are frustrated by the reality of mankind’s tendency to settle for significantly less. These sculptures are abandoned visual props left at the end of an absurd solitary performance, susceptible to decay and multiple interpretations. Nothing can be taken for granted. Constant change proves to be the only reliable point of reference. Equilibrium being evanescent, one tries to fuse an array of thought fragments into a drawing of graphite or metal. By doing so, the artist builds a fragile mental world of metaphor that lends meaning to his largely unnoticed visit in society.”

Platform, Madrid (detail), R.L. Croft

Why do artists clump together? Sometimes it’s for more or less venal (or at least self-promotional) reasons: Making contacts with others puts us in the way of opportunities, and gets us out in the world through “friending” people (that irritating expression). Sometimes it’s just a need for the companionship of others who are in the life (of art). But I think it can also be a genuine recognition of an artistic doppelganger, a person whose work (and, possibly, aesthetic motivations) are continuous with your own.

Sliding on Down the Line

2009-03-22T16:50:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about this blog, and my aspiration to find ways to think about, create work partly motivated by, and talk about how our experience in the world as citizens connects with the life of art and aesthetics.

I've found myself, in my last several posts, blabbing on about the paintings I've been making and what I'm going to do next, and all the mechanics of making work. I try to make it interesting, and try to bring you along on what the process and experience is like, but ultimately I don't think that's what you and I want to be doing. I'm not really sure what we do want to be doing, but I will keep trying to find out. Writing, I suppose, is a lot like painting or making other kinds of art: you just have to keep puddling around until you feel you've got it right.

Sometimes painting is a heady, exhilarating experience, sometimes it's painful and frustrating. When it's boring, you just have to stop and do something else. Sometimes you make mistakes. No, that's not right: sometimes you experience the gift of making something wonderful happen that you didn't know you could do, didn't know where it came from, and you accept this gift gratefully.

When mistakes happen, it's because you aren't acting selflessly. You are imagining what you might do, where it might go, and forcing it to go there. I think that's what happened with the Priest of Schooling, at the top of this post. I put the gold foil in ("well, they're all supposed to have gold foil"...) and took away the wonderful watery blue.

I watched an interview with President Obama on Sixty Minutes this evening. He said he is constantly making decisions. Of course, he must make decisions based on evidence, facts, and assumptions about what's good for the country and what's bad for the country. I keep making decisions too, pressing forward, moving down the line. I wanted to do a Priest of Inflated Assets. It turned out to be even grosser than I imagined, like a horrible cancer. But then that is sort of what this whole economic thing has been about -- acting in ethically reprehensible ways and pretending it's great. I think he looks sort of like the Mona Lisa. That mysterious smile; those mysterious actions.

The new work on the blog this week is all in progress. It will certainly have more painting, and (like those guys on Wall Street) may even get some gold!

Finally, I want to let you know that I've decided to eliminate the FOLLOWERS widget on the sidebar. It feels weird to be soliciting "fans;" It came with the package when I was a young and green blogger, but now it seems wrong. I'll add the people who signed up there to my email list for notification when I put out a new post. And if anybody else wants to be on that list (or off that list), let me know by email at: janetvanfleet@fairpoint.net

Thank you for your interest. I'm glad you like to read this blog, and welcome your input. If you want to comment, I'd be interested in hearing about whether you like the gold leaf or not, and why.

Energy for Everything

2009-03-13T17:38:00.001-07:00

Priest of Priests, oil and gold foil on board, 16 x 16", 2009
So here are the last two Priests in this group. Today I framed up four large and one small piece, and here are the last two that I painted on today. The one at left, the Priest of Priests, I like very much. It's mysterious. After the white paint dries, I'll varnish the gold foil and frame it.

Below is the Priest of Schooling. An old lady (such as I am becoming), schoolmarm-ish. And fish. With her fish-net, hair-net / hat.

After the Priest of Schooling dries, I will put gold leaf in the background around her head. I think the piece will feel quite different after that, with the gold background and silver fish swimming through the picture plane.

I've already had two offers to exhibit this body of work, in Glover in April and in Castleton in May, so they'll soon be going out into the world. This body of work seems quite engaging to people; today I got a call from someone who saw them on this blog and wanted to buy The Priest of Unexpected Developments. I am still finding painting very exciting and challenging, and hope to have a few more pieces in the works soon.

Priest of Schooling, oil (and soon gold foil) on board,
16 x 16", 2009

On another topic, several different people have said to me recently, "People who have a job aren't really feeling the recession." Well, I have just gotten a part-time job, so that is a great relief to me, and exciting too. I will be curating an exhibit of the ten artists selected for the Art of Action project that Lyman Orton and the Vermont Arts Council have created. I will have time to work in the studio, but also have some much-needed predictable income. Plus I'll get to work with some interesting people and hone my curatorial skills. I am lucky.

All that glitters...

2009-03-05T14:38:00.000-08:00

... is not gold. It’s gold FOIL (leaf), but it still looks pretty spiffy. Here are the paintings you saw a few posts back, and it's now clear to me that they are a continuation of the Priests series. Here are the ones that I think are finished.

What do I mean by “priests”? I mean they are secular clerics, fellow travelers on the road into the future, ordinary exemplars, comrades. What does THAT mean? Well, we are all examples to each other of how to be human, how to be Americans, how to be painters, how to be wives, lovers, runners, writers, caretakers, and friends. So the people in these paintings are icons of their particular states, their tasks, their confusions.

As always, you can click for a larger image.

Priest of Beasts, oil and gold foil on board, 16 x 16 in., 2009
The Priest of Unexpected Developments, oil and gold foil on board, 16 x 16 in., 2009
The Priest of Science and Art, oil, enamel, and gold foil on board, 16 x 16 in., 2009
The Priest of Hot Things, oil and gold foil on board, 16 x 16 in., 2009

There are two more in the pipeline. Stay tuned!

Put your mouth where your money is

2009-03-01T10:01:00.000-08:00

I am one of 19 artists doing a project at the Sullivan Museum at Norwich University in Northfield VT called Inspired by Stories: Artists Respond to the Historical Collection of the Sullivan Museum.

The museum assembled miscellaneous artifacts from their collection, and each artist chose one to respond to. I chose a roll of bills called a “Short Snorter” (see below, unrolled a bit). You can see some websites that have information about these artifacts here and here and, if you're interested, you can probably find lots more if you search the web.

I found this artifact compelling because it seemed like the male/military version of the friendship/signature quilt. These men collected signatures of their buddies on paper money, sometimes the names of places they had passed through (along with their currencies), sometimes short messages of solidarity or humor.

I would like to create an Art Community Long Snorter (or maybe it will be called Put Your Mouth Where Your Money Is) – a long streamer of bills taped together that will be suspended from the ceiling. I'm asking artists and art-community folks to send me a piece of currency with their name(s) and/or signature(s) written directly on the bill, along with a short (snorting?) message you may wish to convey to the world and visitors to the Sullivan Museum. Write it all on the bill; you can include as many people's signatures and/or messages on the bill as you can fit!

It would be wonderful to have currencies from other parts of the world if you have something (not too valuable) you’d like to contribute to this effort (hanging around from a trip to an exotic locale?), but a regular old dollar bill would be fine too. If you don’t want to send money, cut-to-size (about the size of a dollar bill or slightly larger) fragments of maps, two-sided images from magazines or other sources that are meaningful to you, or pieces of travel brochures would also be great.

Please feel free to forward a link to this post to artists you think may be interested in contributing to this artwork.

If you are interested in participating, please send your piece by April 1, 2009 to me at:

Janet Van Fleet
32 Thistle Hill Road
Cabot, VT 05647

You can never tell...

2009-02-15T14:00:00.001-08:00

I haven't painted for three or four years, so I am surprised to find myself returning to painting intensively over the last few weeks. The work I'm doing is clearly an extension of previous work in two series, the oldest of which I did over ten years ago, when I had my studio in St. Johnsbury.

That was a series of 14 paintings responding to a group of drawings my mother did as part of a manuscript she had written called Promethea. Here are some of the early ones in that series, shown mounted with a copy of her drawing, and excerpts from the book's text. When I exhibited them (at AVA in New Hampshire and at the Woodenhead Gallery in Key West, Florida) the show was called Jungian Journey: A Mother-Daughter Collaboration.

Next came the the Priests series I was making the last time I was painting (below). (L-R): The Priest of Moisture, The Priest of Red Dresses and The Priest of Closure.

This time there seem to be two rules for the portraits

Something is coming out of (or going into -- I can't tell which) their mouths (or the mouths of someone or something in the painting) and
There is a pattern or decoration on the face (this is less important).

I have been calling this series Afflatus as a working title, as it seems to have something to do with the movement of wind, breath, or inspiration into or out of the figures.Here is a look at one piece that I've been working over a great deal in my current fling with painting; it started a long time back as a bird sitting on the figure's shoulder, but I didn't like it and put it away.

It's been through quite a few changes, and at the end of the day today I shortened the tail on the big bird at the left and painted in the rest of the shirt. I may wind up putting gold foil leaf on it (like two of the priests above) instead of the yellow ochre. I don't like this painting yet, but it may wind up being a keeper. Right now, not.

Here is another one (right), painted on a smaller board (8x8"; the ones above and below are 16x16") that had been put away long ago and actually used as a palette, so it had globs of dried paint on it. You can click on it to enlarge and see the paint globs.I think it will need some more work, but I rather like it.

And finally, two more below, with a large image and a detail shot that shows you more of what the surface is like. An interesting thing is about gender and how we know which of these figures is male and which female. In the figures below, I think the second figure is a woman, but someone who was in my studio was surprised to hear that. Remember, these are all in progress. They will all change.

Sorry for the long trip down memory lane that I started this post with, but somehow it seems good to put it all in context.

Computer Artist?

2009-02-05T03:13:00.000-08:00

Why haven’t I posted recently? I have hardly been at the studio, except for an excursion into Barre to participate in last weekend’s snow sculpting festival as part of a team from SPA headed by Georgia Landau, who rustled us into making a giant frog that won third place. It was cold, very cold. Do you realize that the temperature hasn’t been above freezing all year? But once we got going, we warmed up.

Instead of making art, I have been at my computer, working on two worthy projects. First, for many years I’ve been wanting to do a project that has many different people make small sculptures, then brings them all together in a big collective parade or throng of figures. What I wanted to do with this idea came into focus for me when I decided to apply for the Kip Tiernan Social Justice Fellowship last October, which asks women to propose projects “promoting social justice and empowering poor and homeless women.” I proposed to travel to each of the New England states, working with women at homeless shelters to create 18-24" sculptures out of materials found in the local natural and personal environment. These figures would be self-portraits, with each participant representing herself in a way that references her inner life or life experience. At the end of the Creation phase of the project, all the pieces from all the workshops I had conducted would be assembled into a large installation called WE ARE AN ARMY, marching together on raised platforms and tabletops. During this Exhibition phase of the project, I would bring this installation back to the communities where the workshops were held for exhibit, celebration, and discussion.

Well, I wasn’t chosen as one of the finalists, but by then I was really excited about this project, and wanted to do it no matter what. So I’ve been working on applications to other grantmakers, and am planning a much larger project that will involve women in countries all over the world. Perhaps this is grandiose, but I am so compelled by this idea of the poor women’s art army that I can’t rest until I make it happen. Or, I guess, until it becomes truly clear that I can’t find enough money to make it happen. At left is a figure I made to give a notion of what you can make out of found objects, and how it can speak about the person who made it. I used an old sock and other found materials. The flower is about joy and humor, the paintbrush arms are about my work as an artist, the vacuum leg says “Suck it up,” and the plastic knife says “Cut the crap.” The maniacal face is because I embroidered it with some string I found and then used paint from a squeeze tube. The figures will be mounted on discrete stands so that they can stand upright and march!

Anyway, I’m test-driving this at the end of the month in Barre (thanks to Sue for letting me use the classroom at SPA) with women from the homeless shelter there (which Good Neighbors has been kind enough to help me recruit), and I hope I’ll get a videographer from the public access channel in Barre to document the first few workshops so I can make a dvd to send out to other potential sites to let them know what I’m doing so they can decide if they would like to participate.

The second project that has glued me to the computer is a statewide visual arts publication called Vermont Art Zine that Marc Awodey and I have put together to get more talk, writing, and images online about the visual arts. We’ll be putting up reviews, essays, studio visits, interviews, and whatever else people can offer, well written and full of energy, joy, passion, and humor. We think there’s not enough coverage of the hundreds of installations of interesting artwork that dot the state, and we need a vehicle that can connect us. So, this has been the first week it’s up, and it’s not quite ready for prime time, but go have a look and see what you think.

Twice a Day

2009-01-25T08:33:00.000-08:00

Gee, I'm having to post for the second time today, as I forgot to put up two other things:
First, I promised to show you the big hanging Disarmed piece, which is now finished. (You know, you can click on these images and get a larger view.)

And also I wanted to put up the piece I finished for Landfill Art. Ken Marquis asked me if I would art up a hubcap and it sounded like a neat idea, so I have. It's called Auto Industry Humpty Dumpty.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
And all the king's horses
And all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

Art in a New Era

2009-01-25T07:49:00.000-08:00

I started this blog after Barack Hussein Obama’s election because I wanted to see how my artmaking might change when we finally got rid of George W. Bush. Now, after months of anticipation, we’ve finally arrived at my first post after the inauguration. I thought I should do a little reflection about whether there actually has been a difference.

I spent quite a bit of time in the last few weeks setting up an exhibit on the second floor at SPA called Publish That Poem, exhibiting published collections of poetry. This effort culminated in a poetry reading by 13 of those poets on Friday, January 23 in Cora Brooks’ studio. It was great, with a wonderful diversity of poems, each a gem – some funny, some heavy, some in Japanese! And it was so good to have the Visual Arts community in the same room with the Written Word community – making our own little effort to avoid insularity and create connections. I’ve been thinking about how the Obamas will (as was true in the Kennedy White House) be inviting poets, philosophers, musicians, writers and other artists to join the public life of the nation and the First Family. Obama said in his inaugural address that we need to return to the values of “tolerance and curiosity” and included “unbelievers” in the list of American religions we need to respect. Wow.

I actually spent three consecutive days in my studio this week, continuing to work on the Disarmed (or is it Disarmament?) pieces. It has come to me that the absence of arms means powerlessness. But can’t giving up power be a good, healthy thing? I am thinking of Israel pounding Gaza, of altogether-too-many examples of a display (and employment) of American power and arms. I am thinking of how animals turn over and show their defenseless bellies when they wish to surrender in a fight. And then the fight is over. Although it appears it’s not that easy in human affairs.

It also became clear to me that these figures I’ve been making have gender. They are female! I have made so many clearly male figures (I’ve been called The Penis Lady by some wags because of the frequent appearance of that organ in my work), it's a bit of a surprise to find myself making female figures. And powerless, armless females at that. But I think there are other kinds of power than the power of arms. Several posts ago there was a figure with milk squirting from her breasts: the power to feed and nurture. This week, it was birth: the power to create something new. I feel a bit embarrassed that these stereotypical female virtues/functions are making their appearance, but...

A few words about meaning in art. A friend wrote to me a while back saying “Why are you always trying to make meaning out of your art? Isn’t it enough for it just to be art?” Well, when I am making work, it is not a didactic exercise. Some other time I'll talk about what that process involves, but right now I'll say that I don’t try to make a point, preach, or politicize. But after the work is made, I look at it as an observer (just as others must) and think about what might be going on with it. Often what I find (as above) surprises me. I believe that good art is not illustration, not propaganda. Five people can look at the same painting, installation, or sculpture and have five different thoughts, feelings, conclusions, or insights. Diane Swan read a poem on Friday night about a painting called Fox Hunt by Winslow Homer . Her poem asked if she was the only one who thought the painting was not about the fox being hunted, but about the fox as a hunter, out in the snow, going about its natural business. When I look at art, it is not just about form, color, and composition for me. I guess I am practicing the curiosity that Obama just advocated – wondering whether Thing A might connect with Thing B. Making those connections enriches the experience for me.

And finally, I made something last week that seems to me like just plain fun. And cute. Though if I worked at it I could probably draw some important moral tale from it. But I don’t want to. The tail is made of sheepskin I got at the Re-Store, which has re-located in BARRE!

A Quickie

2009-01-18T18:01:00.000-08:00

I finished the Poem piece today; I’m calling it Heaven’s Chop-Shop. (The full text is in the post from Sunday, December 21, 2008 called Busy, Busy, Busy.) It was quite a thing doing all that lettering (and screwing it up and having to sand it off and do it again...), and also getting additional (more or less matching) lumber after the footage I scavenged from the dumpster behind Aaron’s ran out.

I took four days off last week (Tuesday - Friday) for a road trip with my son to Washington DC. He had work to do at the NCAA Convention / Trade Show, and I stayed with friends in Takoma Park. On Wednesday I went to museums on the Mall. Ohmigod, the Hirshhorn was amazing. It was like being in a cathedral, with one masterwork after another from the permanent collection. Very sculpture-rich. I (and everybody else moving through the “Strange Bodies” show) was blown away by Ron Mueck’s larger-than-life sculpture of a man in the corner – a truly magical, strange, and compelling giant. We humans are inexorably drawn to other humans, and this big, fat, naked guy with an enigmatic expression (Slightly paranoid? Ready to lash out? About to speak in tongues?) mesmerized me. Plus Magdalena Abakanowicz, Lucien Freud, Francis Bacon, Dubuffet, and Giacometti! A great feast.

I also spent time at the Freer, saw a national show of juried work by artists with disabilities, and went to the Fritz Scholder Indian, Not Indian exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian. His paintings didn’t do much for me, but the bronze sculptures, both large and small, were powerful.

I've been wanting to see the American Visionary Art Museum for many years, and on Thursday I took the train to Baltimore and made my wish come true. There was great stuff: a cityscape made with slide-rules, three Judith Scott pieces, some Terry Turrell (though not his best, I thought). The facade of the building, a tree out front, and a bus by the entrance are covered in mirrors. But I was disappointed at how clean all the work was and the emphasis on insider-outsiders, so to speak. Names, secure reputations. Sigh. I guess it’s the same the whole world over...

A Mixed Bag

2009-01-11T05:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the opening for John Hanna’s memorial retrospective at SPA. Sue Higby knocked herself out to put it together in a few days time, miraculously getting a show of over 100 exhibitors (SPA’s annual Members Show) out the door, patching and painting the walls, and arranging publicity in every paper in central Vermont. There were almost 250 people at the reception, with projected images of John’s life as a sculptor put together by Marge Powers (who also provided some awesome chicken liver pate!). It is at times like this that I appreciate that SPA is located in Barre, with its rich history of serious artists and artisans. The building was alive with people from all over the world who came to Barre to carve stone. Real people who work with their hands and hearts. It was an experience both rich and humbling.

I’ve been talking with Marc Awodey about starting an online website or blog about art in Vermont, focusing particularly on reviews, exhibits, and miscellaneous art stuff (like maybe a classified section for selling materials and services). We think there’s not enough coverage of visual arts events and talk about issues and ideas for visual artists. I had the interesting experience of looking for online images of the work of a very prolific and well-known Vermont artist who doesn’t have a website and there was practically nothing out there. We could have links to the blogs and websites that do exist for Vermont artists and also to galleries and other exhibition venues.

As I write this, I realize the big question of how to pay for it has not been addressed. I already do maintenance for two websites (in addition to my own and this blog) without compensation. I am doing a lot of grant-and-proposal writing for a several projects that I will share with you at some point. Just yesterday I got a part-time job possibility assisting an elderly woman that may help. I also got a rejection from the Roswell A-I-R program yesterday. Somehow it will all shake down.

Oh, almost forgot! I had reason to take some photos of art in my house the other day and thought I’d share them here, as a funny follow-up to the post about Mark Waskow’s collection. I have said that there are two kinds of artists – those who have only their own art on their walls and those who also have other artists represented. I am one of the latter. Books and art are everywhere. Perhaps there is even a bit of too-muchness...

Mark S. Waskow, Collector

2009-01-07T06:52:00.000-08:00

In this blog I talk a lot about what I’m making in the studio, and a bit about the galleries and other exhibit spaces that show (and sometimes sell) my work. This time I want to talk about the end-user in this equation – the person who actually trades money for art!

Mark S. Waskow is an art collector on a grand scale. He has bought more than 25 works (both large and small) from me directly and from galleries where my work has been exhibited. He has a HUGE collection that is housed at two residences as well as at four spaces that are exclusively devoted to storing and displaying the collection, which is known (at all its various locations) as the Waskowmium. As you might expect, Mark is a person with a prodigious amount of energy, enthusiasm, and intelligence. He recently moved some of his collection to a new location in Burlington when development pressure drove the rent in two of his spaces too high. He has been working for about two months to relocate and organize the new quarters. I spent one day a few weeks ago helping out, and more recently went back to see the space as it gets closer to completion.

The part of the collection that has settled in the new space is comprised of artist books, works on paper, 3-dimensional work (primarily, but not exclusively, by Vermont artists), material related to the Vermont arts scene, and other art memorabilia. It is a gas and a delight to stroll past the many vitrines and cases, and to check out the work mounted chock-a-block (though purposefully) on the walls. Mark has stories about every single piece.

In addition to art, Mark collects all kinds of paper having to do with art and artists in Vermont – catalogs, invitation postcards, posters, and artist portfolios. He has between 1,000 and 1,200 artist books, almost 3,000 zines, and at least 5,000 art books. This is a tremendous resource for the arts and a wonderful archive that will preserve the memory of Vermont artists and art events in history. He is trying to raise the funds to construct a massive wall of bookshelves to hold some of this printed material, an undertaking that will cost about $10,000. He would be grateful for any donations to help fund this effort. Checks can be sent to the Main Street Museum which is operating as the Waskowmium’s fiscal agent while Mark works on getting his non-profit status, with a notation that it’s for the Waskowmium.

The bookcase above holds notebooks filled with biographical material, press clippings, invoices, resumes, bios, statements, and other relevant information about the artists in his collection. The pile on the top left of the case is a complete archive of clippings of Seven Days art reviews since Waskow began his collection.

Here's where my hefty section starts. It's been a while since I used that logo...

Here you can see some of my work displayed at the Waskowmium -- a steel and red fabric sculpture, a little paper-mache figure trailing the alphabet in its wake, and several altered books on the far wall. I am grateful for Mark Waskow's excitement, sensitivity, and knowledge about the visual arts. I am thankful that Mark has traded his money for my art, but even more than that, his collection honors me and preserves my legacy. And the fact that he cherishes each of these objects and devotes himself to their care makes me, anyway, feel like a bit of a big shot.

Disc Dance

2008-12-25T04:13:00.001-08:00

Tah-dah! (...the sound of horns and an exciting beat...) Finally, the long-awaited (by me) images of my Disc Dance installation! It was created as the centerpiece of an exhibit called Transformations (actually, it now seems to be called SmartART), a collaboration of four mid-size science and environmental museums, including The Ecotarium in Worcester, Massachusetts; ECHO at the Leahy Center for Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont; Musée de la nature et des sciences, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada; and The Children’s Museum of Maine in Portland.

It’s just been installed at the Ecotarium, and will travel around to the other three museums over the course of the next few years. After that, it will go into a rental pool for ten years, and then will revert to me. Thanks to Betsy Loring, the Ecotarium’s Manager of Exhibits and Collections, for taking the photographs of the completed piece (seen below). You can see more images of work in the exhibition here.

I thought it would be fun to take you on a quick trip to see how this project developed over the past year. Here’s the idea I came up with after a period of consultation and back-and-forth with folks from the participating museums. The idea was to make plexiglass buttons of various sizes (as I’ve been doing with painted tin disks) and hold them in a grid on the top of the installation. Light would cast the colors on people walking below.

I discovered when I actually created some pieces out of colored plexi and lit them, that light doesn’t really work that way. You have to be VERY close to it to have the light cast a discrete shape that can be perceived as a circle. Very shortly, the light just starts to make a vaguely-colored puddle. Plus, Mr. Gravity makes the grid s-a-g, and all it takes is one person jumping up to grab it to make all hell break loose (you’ve got to think about that sort of thing in a place where there are thousands of visitors a month). So, I realized that the image area needed to be on the sides, not the top. Here’s what I was working with in my studio, mocking things up on scaffolding, trying to see how everything would work at that scale (It turned out in the end that scaffolding was a good thing to build the piece with).

I still wanted light to be cast on the people inside the installation, so I modified a disco ball; here is a shot of it in the studio.

And here’s the final piece at the Ecotarium. You can see the lights and disco ball on top. I owe huge thanks and appreciation to the professionals at the Ecotarium who mounted the lights and built the frames that hold the artwork, as well as the whole standing structure.

Here’s how it looks inside the installation. There are three layers of plexi in the cases. The inside two layers have circles in different sizes and colors made with transparent vinyl film. The outer layer of plexi is a translucent white. When you’re inside, you see the circles overlapping in three layers, and their projections on the inside of the white “screen.”

Outside, you see the light projected from the inside, as a softer, flattened image.

Pretty cool, huh?

Busy, Busy, Busy

2008-12-21T13:19:00.000-08:00

Studio Place Arts has been selling my work like hotcakes – in the last month they’ve sold four button fish, four hanging birds, and two Herald Angels. Every time I put something in, it flies off the shelves! Whoopee! I just took in something new – Noisemakers! They use the little clay bits I’ve been making the last few weeks, and they make a great sound when shaken. The perfect item for New Year’s Eve, Purim, or something for your next gig as a percussionist.

I’m also continuing work on a piece for an upcoming SPA exhibit called Picture That Poem. I need to finish painting the text on boards that will be affixed to the sides of the sculpture (you can see the first row in the image below). The poem is called Reincarnation, and is by my mother, Sandy McKinney:

The part that arrives at heaven's chop-shop
doesn't leave much to work with, but you're
one of the lucky ones. Reliable sources
advise that Y2K came with amnesty for all
previous karma, so you'll only have to pay
for the one you messed up last time.

Things are a bit crowded at the moment,
what with a big backlog before the millennial gift,
but just hang in there. Don't make waves and you
can look forward to a safe and improved return.

I’ll post a picture when it’s finished. And maybe some detail shots.

The real reason I made the clay pieces (seen in the noisemakers above) was to use on more figures from the Disarmament series. Here’s the latest finished piece, and then a piece in progress. These are two of the ones that will be suspended, as I mentioned in a recent post.

The circular clay embellishments on the following figure have two different colors of clay. I didn’t make enough in the first load (not knowing what I might be using them for...), but I’ve now got enough new ones ready to go into the kiln to finish encrusting it. Stay tuned.

All of these figures need to have a skirt. I've used metal, hacksaw blades, clay, beach fibers, and nails for the other ones, but I don't know about this one. Anybody got a suggestion about what materials I might use?

Winter in my Heart

2008-12-17T13:29:00.000-08:00

I did more work on the Disarmed pieces (see my December 6 post, "Disarmament") yesterday at the studio, and figured out that it would be neat to suspend some of them from the ceiling so they didn’t have to be mounted on stands, but would still stand upright. One of them actually takes little mincing steps when dangled so its feet just barely touch the floor. I intended to take some photos of them for the blog today, but when I headed out in the snow this morning I fell on the ice and banged my right leg. So I stayed home and did paperwork and decided to put up a quickie on the blog. I'll take pictures at the studio tomorrow.

When the snow is on the ground and the sky is grey, it is truly bleak, even up in the garden. I think about growing older every day and the inevitability of death. John Hanna, a Barre stone sculptor and a wonderful man, died on Friday, December 12. I went to his funeral yesterday. There will be a retrospective exhibit of his work at SPA from January 10 - 16, 2009, with a reception from 2-4 on Saturday, January 10.

I’m thinking about doing a piece that involves doors, maybe combining with the Disarmed pieces for an installation: “The Disarmed Approach the Event Horizon.” I guess that's what death is -- getting sucked into the big Black Hole. I’m imagining a beautiful old door with little doors (and openings) cut into it. You could look at it from either side. There would be small people in the small doorways. And the disarmed all around, on the floor and on pedestals.

People don’t seem terribly inclined to respond to my questions, but under the circumstances I can hardly keep from asking this one: What are we here for? What do you make of the fact that our art lasts longer than we do? Is this great or terrible?

Second Tuesday

2008-12-14T04:04:00.000-08:00

This post is about making connections with other people in the art world -- which is kind of what this blog is all about! Along that line, I'm delighted to see that people are responding and/or participating in the comments section (right below this post, guys -- easy to do! Exercise for the little grey cells as well as the fingers!). Also, housekeeping-wise, I'm reminding folks that I keep an email list of people who want to be informed about new posts. I am trying to post once a week, though sometimes I get lazy or over-excited. The email I send out gives you a taste of what's on the blog, but is a special little communication all on its own. Short, really. You can email me to ask to be put on the list. Go to my website, and click on Contact.

Here's a photo of the people in my Art Group at my studio this past Tuesday. We meet on the second Tuesday of each month, discussing and sharing our own work and ongoing issues in the arts. Sometimes we come to my studio in the winter or in mud season, since it’s in town and not on a back road, where most of us live. We were a small group this month – left to right, Alex Bottinelli, Liz Nelson, Lynn Newcomb (who told us she just got a Pollock-Krasner Fellowship!), and Maggie Neale. Five other members of the group were absent for various reasons.

I’ve been meeting with this group for over ten years. I started when I still had my studio in St. Johnsbury (maybe in 1996?). The members of the group have changed a bit over the years, though it has actually stayed remarkably stable. We’re all women. We’ve invited men to come, but we never found any who were interested. The most valuable thing to me about the group is that it gives me a historical look at other people’s work, seeing the trajectory of their practice, how things have changed or remained the same. And each of these people is also a witness to how my work has morphed, and what has engaged me over the years.

Making art is a curious thing to do, and having others who have the same proclivity is comfortable and creates a bit of community in a profession that is quite solitary. The visual arts (unlike theater, music, and dance) are not practiced ensemble, but singly, one by one.

I gave Liz one of the painted political lawn signs I’d made for an outdoor installation in Johnson this summer. She took it home and has been doing her own installation project with it – putting it in various outdoor locations around her house and then photographing it. Here’s one she took at night with a flash.

So what would you like to talk about? What do you do that creates community, fellowship, fellow-feeling, fellow-traveling? Do you get enough, too much?

Around and Around

2008-12-07T14:57:00.001-08:00

I’ve been working with Izuri Mizutani, an artist in Japan, to put together two exhibits of Japanese and Vermont artists in 2010 (In Nagoya, Japan and Burlington and Barre, Vermont) to connect with the tenth anniversary of the U.N. Convention on Biodiversity.

I’m very excited to do some new work for this exhibit in my Circular Statements body of work (see below for a previous piece, Targets, and a detail of another piece, to show how the disks cast shadows). I’m so excited that I went to the studio today (Sunday) to work, and now I’m posting two days in a row. I’ll give you a bit of a break after this, I promise.

My idea is to do paintings of different species (plants and animals) on disks that will be mounted in a wire grid, like the pieces above. Here are some of them that I particularly like.

Questions? Hmm, I went to a women’s potluck last night at Irina Markova’s house. She told stories about her father and asked others to say something about their fathers. This is a good idea! I’m inviting you to tell a story about a time when your father shared an art experience with you.

Disarmament

2008-12-06T07:11:00.001-08:00

No arms. But stuff on the torso, body core, corps, corpse…

These are all pieces I've finished in the past week. I wonder what the stuff on the chest is. The surfaces suggest micrographs of pollen (scroll down about a third of the page) or diatoms (scroll down two-thirds of the page). Maybe that's because I continue to be interested in how humans are part of the continuum of life on the planet.

Those aren't arms. It's milk squirting out like pearls.

I want to let you know that I put up my 2002 stop-action animation film, The March of the Teapots, on YouTube. As soon as I figure out how to break up the Circular Statements video that Gail Schwartz made into three smaller segments, I’ll put that up too.

The question for this post comes from here. How would you encapsulate your life story, your philosophy, your achievements, or your insights in six words? I might say (partly taken from a poem by my mother):

Leap before you look! Bonzai! Hurrah!

Working the blog

2008-11-30T10:20:00.001-08:00

I’ve been doing this blog for about a month now, and asking myself what I’m after. One thing for sure is that, in addition to sharing with folks I already know, I’m hoping to get my work out into the big world outside Vermont. To make a career in the fine arts, you’ve somehow got to get a slingshot that will propel you over the border.

Since I don’t have a counter on my site, I actually don’t have any idea how many people visit and what they think. I’ve said it’s like leaving your house open and going away for a few hours. When you get home, even if nothing has been moved or changed, you don’t know whether anybody’s been there while you’ve been gone. Sometimes people stop by your house and leave a note saying they’re sorry they missed you. (Or, heaven forfend, a note saying you had invited them for dinner and where the hell are you!) Here on the blog, only a few people have left comments in the comment section at the bottom of each post, though quite a few people have told me in person that they’ve visited and mentioned things they’ve seen here. Even my daughter sent me a comment by email instead of commenting on the blog, but she gave me permission to print her comment:

Mom.
This blog is the best idea you have ever had. Seriously. It may take a while for it to spread around, but I'm pretty positive that this is going to get you noticed. And even if it doesn't, it's just so wonderful to allow a peek behind the curtain of art, not to demystify (because the mystery is still there: how does she think of these things?!) but to invite everyone to participate and invest instead of just being consumers.
I LOVE IT!!!
Berrian

I never thought before about how what is pretty much Standard Operating Procedure to me can be a peek behind the curtain to others. That’s wonderful! Later, she suggested that I ask some questions instead of just holding forth, which seems like a good idea. So after I tell you about last week’s frankly commercial (though heartfelt) effort to make a few bucks, I’ll do that.

I’ve been making ornaments at this season for the last 4-5 years, and this year I decided to go back to simple, inexpensive ones. Someone suggested last week that I make ornaments commemorating the big political victory this year, and it came to me that I DO feel good about the country and the direction I hope it’s moving in, so here’s the outcome (They’re $2 each, and have an optional, commemorative "08" sticker that you can affix to the center of the ornament. You can buy them at Studio Place Arts through the end of December.):

Tah Dah! And here are the questions: What do you think about patriotism? What does it mean to you? Is being a partisan for your country like being egocentric about yourself? What are the good (and bad) things about having aspirations and ambitions for yourself (and/or your country)? Don’t like those questions? Write some of your own!

Home again, home again, marketing’s done

2008-11-26T04:19:00.000-08:00

Here's a partial installation shot of the Rolling Boil exhibit at the Lazy Pear Gallery in Montpelier, September 23 - November 16, 2008.

Another art lifecycle event this week: picking up and bringing back work after the conclusion of an exhibit. Making the work, loading it up and taking it somewhere, packing it up and bringing it back. Breathe in, breathe out. Jiggity-jig, jiggity-jog. A familiar ritual.

The Lazy Pear Gallery kept about a quarter of the work by volume to add to my other work on display at the gallery. There were two large pieces that came back, The Wall and Raising the Dead, as well as Rendition Vehicle. Rob, who owns the gallery (along with his wife Mary Jo), is a lovely guy. He always helps with the transportation. We packed the big work into Rob’s truck and the smaller pieces into my car and made the return trip to Barre, into the elevator, up to the third floor, and into the studio. It took about four hours with packing, transporting, and putting the work away.

One $350 piece sold during the exhibit, the turtle on wheels (see above, on the blog’s banner). It’s not uncommon, here in Vermont, to sell nothing during the run of an exhibit, so it’s interesting to think and talk about how art is priced and sold. Many people, when asking about a piece, want to know how long it took to make it, as though an hourly wage for the making (say, even a lawyer’s impressive hourly, $50 - $300, which seems extremely generous) would make sense.

In fact, it helps to think about the larger context of each individual piece to understand the business part of art. So, for example, I worked on this Rolling Boil body of work for two months and paid rent and insurance on the studio during that time. The materials were pretty much free, I’ll grant you! For this one exhibit, I spent about six hours just in packing and carting the work. Rob printed and mailed cards, hosted an opening reception and an artist talk, and kept his gallery open. He made $175 and I made $175.

Back to Business

2008-11-20T07:50:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everybody who signed up as Followers and for email notification about new posts for this blog. I appreciate that people are interested!

The last week or so I’ve been mostly involved in helping put up the SPA Members Show and getting my work out for holiday shows at SPA and AVA in Lebanon, NH (thanks to Cindy Blakeslee for transporting the work down there!). Also, I update the SPA website, so that’s taken some time, with taking photos and changing all the pages. Navigate to the Gallery pages and click on Current to see the Members Show. And come on over to the Opening Reception on Saturday, November 22 from 4-6 PM!

On the first day of the show, Tuesday, SPA sold two of my pieces (amazing and wonderful!). One was a wooden head made with a very cool piece of firewood that had been pecked by woodpeckers to create a mouth-like aperture. I made the eyes with buttons, and it had a bird perched on the top. Alas, I didn’t take a picture of it, so it’s gone into the great out-there. But this brings up the reality that once something you make actually SELLS, you are highly-motivated to make another, similar piece. So that’s what I did. I didn’t have wood that was as unusual as the first one, but here’s Woodland Spirit/Sprite (whatever) number 2. You can see I am using some of the leftovers from the clay/hair pieces I talked about in my last post:

Another thing I had to do was to CLEAN THE STUDIO because the Opening Reception for the Members Show is on Saturday and there will be lots of people coming through. It was a horrible mess. I put things away and swept and mopped the floor. Woo woo! Here are photos of the fabulous result.

And here’s what it still looks like on my workbench, behind the magic screen. I’m going in today, and I’ll hoe it out.

Not

2008-11-17T17:26:00.000-08:00

How many times do I have to learn that you don’t know what’s supposed to happen until it happens? What I mean is, I keep on saying that I’M not the one making the work and calling the shots, it’s the MUSE, or whatever it is that wants to make art happen in the world. My job is to get my ego out of the way and let that force operate.

Case in point: I came into the studio this morning bringing materials I had stored in my barn and grabbed when I came in from jogging -- some fibers I had collected on the beach a few years ago, four wonderful stubby little easychair legs, some animals I’d made for an installation at the Firehouse in Burlington over ten years ago, and a wedge-shaped hunk of wood. I knew that I was going to make some Dogs! I had made some clay “hair” last week that Georgia Landau fired in her kiln. She’s straight out finishing work for the Vermont Handcrafters show this coming weekend, so it was really good of her to squeeze my stuff in.

So immediately I started work on the first dog. I used one of the old animals, cut the legs down, put some ears on, and started affixing the “hair”. It didn’t seem quite right, but I persevered. Got the top all covered with the clay pieces, and ... and... I took it down to Georgia’s studio and asked, “What’s this?” “A sheep,” says she. Sure enough, it was a sheep. I painted the legs black and accepted it as a sheep. Where does that fit into the Circus? Got me.

When I don't have any idea what I'm doing, I rummage through my materials (junk in my studio). I found a figure I had started a while back and abandoned. I remembered about making Sentinels. I thought it might stand on tall legs like the Bondage piece. Its old-nail arms were spread wide. I added a headdress, and knew it wanted to have wings, so I used some of the long “hair” pieces. It was an angel! A Herald Angel (as in Hark the Herald Angels Sing...)!

The bottom image shows the back of the figure. It has striped legs and dots under the wings, and it flies. It is a very odd piece, like an alien insect. It needs something coming out of its mouth, like music.

Showtime!

2008-11-16T05:38:00.000-08:00

I am really enjoying the metaphor of the three-ring circus for my new work. All those different acts taking place simultaneously implies the world stage, with all the different hot spots, alliances, and diverse cultures, each confined to its own ring, seemingly apart, but really embedded in the same event.

It's funny how when you're on to a new direction, everything seems to be related. I look at my Rolling Boil pieces (above, on the banner) and think Circus Train!

I would especially like to make some dog acts, to be called Dogs of Peace.

Back in 2003 we had an evening of Peep Shows at Studio Place Arts during one of our annual Galas. The several dozen peep shows were on all kinds of funny topics, set up in cardboard boxes with a slit in the front for peeping through (see top image), and mounted in voting booths that we borrowed from the City of Barre. Lucinda Mason sat inside one of the booths and read love poems. Andrea Stander and I collaborated on a peep show called Dogs of War. She made the small clay Pups for Peace. Time to make a commitment to those little guys.

It would also be fun to make a circus band (Who calls the tune?!), a ringmaster (Decider or Collaborator?), and some Hoochie-Koochie dancers (a little erotic flavor always helps).

The whole world's a circus

2008-11-13T23:11:00.000-08:00

I've been playing with some old pieces that I made at the Vermont Studio Center about ten years ago, during the War in Kosovo. The little wooden figures (12-14" high) were part of something I made called Ethnic Encampments, where groups made of the same materials were huddled together under the control of bad guys who looked kind of like Transformers (the toy). They are coming back in the context of the Circus. Each of the rings (thank you Axel Stohlberg for giving me the rings) has a drama unfolding in it, and the war context of the original pieces still seems to inform their activities.

Are these guys helping these women or not? Rescuing or raping? I don't know. In the center ring some kind of blessing seems to be happening. On the right the figures always make me think of middle eastern guys because of their headgear and beards. I don't know if I'll make a displayable piece out of these things, or just keep re-arranging them in the studio.

Happiness is not a bad thing

2008-11-11T15:34:00.000-08:00

A friend recently told me about an upcoming exhibit at the American Visionary Arts Museum (AVAM) called Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, which, of course, rang my political bell. The first thing that came into my mind was Death, Bondage (see below, in previous post) and the Happiness of Pursuit. So I said to myself, "Come on, you said you were going to lighten up."

Although I thought it might be kind of hard to make something cheerful about death and bondage, there were possibilities in The Happiness of Pursuit. So here it is, and actually it does make me smile.

I found the little tricycle at Recycle North in Burlington, Vermont. It's about 6 inches high and appears to be handmade (by someone else's hand, though). What a great find in a store for recycled housewares. It's pulling a tiny swan. Happiness! Not a bad thing.

Here's what I'm thinking about

2008-11-09T11:09:00.000-08:00

I am feeling more hopeful about the future, but there are still lots of problems to solve and we need to stay awake and vigilant. I'm thinking of a new series of standing figures called Sentinels. This is the first one (above), Bondage. It's made out of wood; the white things on the chest, possibly a kind of armor, are the tips of pork ribs I got from a pot of posole my mother made me. The arms are mostly chicken bones, the skirt is a bunch of old hacksaw blades, the head is the bowl of a clay pipe. It's standing on very long legs made of steel rods, welded to a steel base (that you can't see). I guess we're not out of the woods yet.

To put this work in context, I've made lots of different kinds of standing figures over the years, like Oracles, three of which are seen at right as a part of an exhibit I had called Gene Pool at 215 College Gallery in Burlington, VT about a year ago -- October 12 - November 4, 2007. This was, I think, one of the best exhibits I've ever mounted, and one of the first that was (in terms of my intent) about a political/social issue -- in this case, race and gender. The wooden trencher in front of the figures is the Gene Pool, with lots of buttons representing people, MOST of which are brown and black. Only a few are white. Who would have imagined then that we'd have a president-elect who's African-American? Hurrah!

The other early Political exhibit was my first solo show at the Lazy Pear, March 15 - May 14, 2007, titled Curious Lifeforms, including These two pieces, Homage to Cindy Sheehan (left) and Mother Earth (right).

The election's over, time for new work

2008-11-08T16:39:00.000-08:00

OK, here we are less than a week after the election, and I'm thinking about new work. The work I've been doing for the last year was called Rolling Boil, and it had to do with being REALLY PISSED (angry, boiling angry) about the direction in which my country was being railroaded. Everything in this body of work was on wheels, rolling along toward an indeterminate future. The piece that most powerfully spoke to this time in our history (and this time in my artmaking) was Rendition Vehicle. You can see a video about it here

YouTube

Here are some photos of it. The eagle sits on top of the vehicle, piloting it, and the vehicle rolls very quietly, with only the sound of the leper's bell tinkling softly. Back in the middle ages when leprosy was a scary reality in the world, lepers were obliged to carry and ring a bell, calling out, "Unclean, unclean," to warn others. The vehicle rolls so quietly and unobtrusively, you'd almost not know it was happening. In fact, lots of Americans DIDN'T know it was happening, that our country was taking people to other countries to torture them in an effort to get information that was supposed to "keep America safe."

The bottom image shows the rendition victim inside the vehicle. It is shocking to open up the vehicle and see the victim inside -- it kind of takes people's breath away. It IS shocking.

This Rolling Boil work was on display during the election season, from September 23 - November 16, 2008 at the Lazy Pear Gallery in Montpelier, Vermont (a great gallery) during which I gave a talk on Art and Politics on Saturday, October 25.