Pockets for the Teeth

ALLY/ENEMY

2011-12-12T07:17:00.000-08:00

These are images from "Ally/Enemy", the exhibition that I just completed at Elon University. The installation had 104' of running wall space that wrapped around you as a 360 degree landscape when you walked into the gallery. Time was limited, so the days were long. I arrived on Tuesday afternoon (thank you to the Elon students who painted the walls black and grey before my arrival!) and had to complete it by Friday. This could NOT have been done without a spectacular team of Senior Art Majors who spent their time making food runs, supply runs, and helping out with parts of the installation itself in the midst of exam week. Thanks to all of you!

The installation combined images from the beating of Rodney King, the Egyptian revolution, and the Indian army's occupation of Nagaland, three global scenarios where I thought that I was on one side but then changed my opinion within one hour of hearing the other perspective.

About half way through the installation, the land started to feel very generic and I realized that this isn't the way that it works. People don't fight over dirt alone; they fight over its personal significance. For example, it is the place where they are raising their children, the place where they have started a business, and the place where their homes are built. To personalize the land, I added white, lichen-like splotches and filled them (with the help of many assistants!) with hundreds of tiny, pen-drawn bubbles. In addition, the feathers throughout the landscape are from the Hornbill, a bird that symbolizes Nagaland.

The soldier below, painted black on black was at least two times taller than the other characters (about 10'?). I painted it on the wall behind the door so that the visitors wouldn't know that they were under surveillance until the final moment when they turned to leave the room.

On two short, hidden walls (even further behind the recessed entrance) I posted segments from the longer artist statement. Here's an example:

The work has already been whitewashed in preparation for the next artist in line.

Thank you, again, to the Art Department at Elon University for providing the perfect space, the 24 hour access, and the student assistants who made this possible!

LONG overdue update

2011-11-18T13:35:00.001-08:00

I can't BELIEVE that it has been 18 months since my last post (for my Catholic friends out there, is this how you start a confession?). When I look back at everything I have experienced between June 2010 and now, I am once again reminded of how fortunate I am to be able to make art without the pressure of selling it and to teach art with the support of those who value open debate and creative experiments. Here is a very brief overview of recent highlights:

In December 2010, Brian and I had the incredibly rare and spectacular opportunity to travel across the world to Nagaland, India, a remote, tribal region that borders with China, Myanmar (Burma), and Bangladesh. There, I installed a solo painting exhibition as the first international artist invited to the state. In addition, Brian and Theja, a Naga musician/activist/friend, founded the first annual GLOCAL Youth Film Festival. Together, we traveled up and down the majestic mountains and wove in and out of the jungle to meet with artists, experience local culture, and give talks on our work at Nagaland University. We took hundreds of images, many of which can be seen here:

www.heathersnagablog.blogspot.com

On the last day of our visit, Brian, Theja, and I started to discuss the possibility of an ongoing exchange. Only six months later, we found ourselves driving to JFK airport to pick up five Naga filmmakers for a 2-week cultural tour of New York State. PBS News Hour picked up our story last summer and published the following interview:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2011/09/from-new-york-state-to-nagaland-art-film-and-hospitality-are-common-bonds.html

Other highlights of the year:

* Brian and I were selected amongst 30 finalists out of nearly 1000 applicants for President Obama's new "SmART Power" Program. While we were not amongst the fifteen selected to represent the United States in collaborative art projects abroad, the honor of being considered has served as great motivation to continue our art diplomacy work independently. As a result, we will be traveling to Karachi, Pakistan, in March to work collaboratively with individuals who are also interested in using art to build bridges across cultures.

* I participated in my first international art residency program in Mallnitz, Austria, in October. The organization, "D. Fleiss East-West Artists" is based on Dorothea Fleiss' vision to create a global network of artists through an ongoing series of 1-2 week micro-residencies that occur in different countries every year. For this one, she curated 19 artists from around the globe and hosted us in a chalet in the Alps. Over the course of the week, we spent intensive stretches of time making art in the studio in preparation for our exhibition at the end of the week. We ate together, drank together and took many expeditions including a day trip to the Venice Biennale--an experience that I will SURELY never forget.

* I attended the Transcultural Exchange conference in Boston in April. In addition to meeting Dorothea Fleiss there (hence being invited into her residency), I will also be having an exhibition at the University of Massachussetts, Amherst (Spring 2013), and participating in a residency in Slovakia (June 2013) as a result:

http://www.athomegallery.org/

Hallwalls Exhibition -- "Preparing to Lose"

2010-06-06T07:33:00.000-07:00

Last year, I created a book of drawings called "Preparing to Lose". Since the book felt inadequate for the shape and scale of the space at the Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo, NY, I decided to see what would happen if I reproduced them in larger scale so that they could be "framed" and "hung" individually. This process immediately seemed to cheat and cheapen the process as they quickly became "pictures" rather than places that I was willing to believe. It seemed that my only choices were to keep them in the book--at actual scale--or to blow them up to larger-than-life translations. The remaining drawings from the book, then, could be reproduced at actual scale and installed in cinematic sequence.

Hallwalls Exhibition

2010-03-08T12:59:00.000-08:00

Completing an installation is always such a strange experience. The frantic weeks of art-making (I'll never have enough), the anticipation of installation (I definitely don't have enough), and the and the long days of judgement calls as to what to include and how it should be displayed always seem to culminate in something so simple upon reflection. Perhaps it is because, in its finished state, no one can see the 50 exhibitions that it could have been. The final exhibition looks obvious--like it was a linear process to a clear goal all along. I remember the first time that I realized this about novels--that each of the sentences could have been an infinite number of different sentences and that the author had to choose the right one. Even now when I read, I forget that there are more chapters that have been erased than chapters that remain.

These images are from a two-person exhibition that I just finished installing at Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center in Buffalo, NY. www.hallwalls.org

In its finished state, the exhibition became a series of three mural-sized wall drawings, 18 small prints, and three watercolor paintings, all stemming from my recently completed visual book called, Preparing to Lose: A History Book for the Antihero. In its final revision, if you include the sketches that I made for the wall drawings, the exhibition contains about 50% of what could have gone in it.

Letters: (Response)

2009-10-09T21:20:00.000-07:00

The following is an article about the exhibition published by the Cornell Sun:

http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2009/10/08/econ-dept-bare-walls-morph-edgy-art

Letters: THANK YOU!

2009-10-09T19:21:00.000-07:00

As always, I want to thank those who helped, in every literal way, make "Letters to a New Generation" move from my head, to paper, to a room, to an interactive event, to documentation, to memories, to a blog:

Professor Kaushik Basu, Don Opatrny Chair of Economics, for conceiving of this idea and for seeing it through to completion
Karen Brummond, for all things related to organizing the residency and curating the group exhibition
Eric Humerez, for setting up the webcam and for providing consistent technological support
Amy Moesch, for her administrative role and pocket-stuffing expertise
The Cornell Council for the Arts, for funding this project

And to the following:

* Concrete Construction Crew: Allen and Nancy Topolski

* Chief Moral Supporter: Michael Frank
* Studio Assistants: Lauren Schleider, Faeeza Masood, Neha Jain, Jen Burger
* Long Distance Letter Courier: Melissa McCallum
* Painting Students Who Forgave Me When I Didn't Return Artist Statements in Time
* Other Painting Students Who Rightly Voted Against Allowing People to Read the Letters
* Organized Letter Writing Campaign Volunteers (including but not limited to): Marilyn and Roy Layton, Marian Lloyd, Dina Smock, Melissa McCallum, Lauren Buchsbaum, Anne Lloyd, and Rosemary Shojaie
* To all of those who collectively wrote over 500 letters to new generations
* And always to Brian Bailey, this time for listening to the sound of a sewing machine at 3am and pretending like everything is normal

Letters: DAY SIX (reflection)

2009-10-09T16:44:00.001-07:00

My initial goal was to design an installation that would in some way be reverent of the space in which it was situated. While at first this seemed like a daunting task, it became immediately feasible as I scanned through the abstracts of faculty publications and realized that the Economics world and the Art world are not as far away as I had originally [and naively] thought. It was a thoroughly refreshing experience to hear themes commonly addressed in contemporary art-- globalism, race, class, gender, sustainability, and consumerism to name a few--approached from an Economist's vantage point. The best way that I can explain it is to say that there was suddenly new space to play in.

I leave this project with a strong desire to pursue site-specific art projects via means of unlikely collaborations. I am convinced that there is a tremendous amount of potential for economics research to inform art practice. I am curious as to whether art practice could also serve in the reverse.

FINAL EXAMPLES OF LETTERS:

"Technology is the reason 50% of the children born in the USA today may live to be 100 years old. Greed and the misuse of technology is the reason we are running low on the high energy fossil fuels this planet held for our use."

"Stay in school."

"If possible, marry your best friend."

"Try not to get pregnant by accident."

"I used to tell the delinquents: If you always do, what you always did...then you will always get what you always got. Today is a day to make a change."

"Teach about Muslim culture in school."

"I was in college when the Internet was invented."

Letters: DAY FIVE (500 pouches!)

2009-10-09T14:44:00.000-07:00

At approximately 8:30pm on the last night of the residency, I inserted the last remaining letter from a stack of emails that had arrived in the afternoon. By sheer coincidence, this left exactly 2 pouches out of 500 unopened. It then dawned on me that I had not yet written a letter and so I did so to fill the 499th pouch. The very last pouch remains untouched so as to remind us that the act of providing guidance for the future is not a fixed exercise, but an ongoing and ever-unfinished process.

Regarding the painting that I created as part of the stipulations of the residency:

At approximately 1:30am, I rinsed my brushes out and stepped away. As I opened the doors to the elevator, I thought, "I washed out too much of the green--that should be darkened" and "I'm not sure if the flags are working--perhaps the original idea of using a fence would be better" and "I liked the idea of putting barbed wire up and showing a figure wrapping fabric around it, but that would take another month to paint" and "Should the island stay or go? Agh!" and "Should the women be in full color/detail like they once were or should I keep them in layers of transparency to indicate that this is, of course, not real?" and "I would love to put more detail into the bundles and to soften the edges near the top, but I have to get back to Rochester" and "If I only had a couple more days to work on this, I could mature the edges and put more shadows into the clothing" and "there should be faces on the women" and "I never got to add shadows and straps to the bundles..."

This uncertainty, in great part, comes from the parameters of the residency--to work in a busy, public space over the course of five days in between important coversations with interesting people. One of the great strengths of this format is that viewers have the rare opportunity to trace non-linear paths of visual decision making. One of the dangers is that it could propogate the notion that art can be made on the spot within a given time frame, without need for reflection or stillness. This residency fell somewhere in the middle, both accepting and expecting both. This makes sense, as an authentic laboratory situation would be too tedious to endure; the viewers would have to watch me work for 6 hours straight, then watch a Yankees game, then pay bills before returning to look at the painting for 3 minutes (without doing anything to it at all), then wait until five days later when I realize what it was missing, then watch as I screw that up royally, then wait until I try again several weeks later, only to be distracted by email and snacks, then watch me start three other projects while stopping to send out proposals, then watch me turn it backwards against the wall.

In the end, I decided to keep the production process as authentic as possible. Rather than stick to my original idea of pre-painting everything in neutral tones and then adding only color on site, I started with a completely blank canvas (40 x 80"). The whole time, though, I knew that the Cornell Economics Department would be keeping the final painting and that meant that I was performing an experiment that had to work.

I'm not sure that it did when I compare it to the last painting that I made (one that took me over 500 hours), but perhaps it worked with the context. And, perhaps I'll just take a little more time on it when I go back to de-install the pouches--just to "darken the green here" and "add some more detail here"...

Letters: DAY FOUR (reception)

2009-10-08T18:50:00.000-07:00

It was Professor Kaushik Basu's idea to bring contemporary art into the department space. He then sought out Karen Brummond to curate the exhibition and residency. I find it remarkable that, with all of the responsibilities he has as Chair of one of the most well-respected Economics Departments in the world, he had the foresight, determination, and creative intelligence to initiate and support this experiment. In addition, Professor Basu announced the project, through personal emails and blog postings, to Economics Departments across the United States. Within the first five days of residency, the project website received over 3000 hits. The following video footage is taken from Professor Basu's opening remarks at the opening reception:

Letters: DAY FOUR (progress)

2009-10-08T18:38:00.000-07:00

This image is from "AND THEIR ALLOCATION", a group exhibition that Karen Brummond curated as part of the larger initiative to foster dialogue between academic disciplines.

http://www.arts.cornell.edu/econ/artgallery/exhibitions.html

Karen differentiated this experimental site from other art venues by saying (paraphrased) that we were working in a space that the viewer owned. I have thought about her statement a lot since Wednesday night and how it relates to issues surrounding public art. In doing so, I have concluded that such spaces have greater potential for meaningful collaboration than traditional gallery walls but that they also have a far greater potential for disaster if the trust is broken on either side. I like this challenge.

Letters: DAY THREE (color and composition)

2009-10-06T04:35:00.000-07:00

Even after sewing for two months straight to make over 500 pockets, we were concerned that there wouldn't be enough letters to make the installation function as planned. We are now concerned that too many of the pockets will be turned before the opening reception tonight (5-7pm, Uris Hall), as other visitors have asked if they can partipate. Last night, I received over 60 emails alone from states across the U.S. and from countries including Mexico, Canada, Germany, England, Poland, and Egypt.

The image above shows what the installation looks like when you walk in and look left. The image below shows the wall on the right.

Many people have helped with this project and I will name all of them at the end. For now, though, I would like to recognize my good friend Melissa McCallum for driving all the way from Rochester to Ithaca last night to drop off a bag of letters that her high school art students wrote.

I now have to get back in the car for my second-to-last drive. I will post again soon with images of the adjoining exhibition that Karen Brummond has curated. The exhibition represents 13 artists from across the country. More details about that exhibition, including a live webcam broadcast of the residency space, can be viewed here: http://www.arts.cornell.edu/econ/artgallery/index.html

Letters: DAY TWO (about the progress)

2009-10-03T12:04:00.001-07:00

The colored bags are noticeable now and the momentum for the project is building. Visitors are bringing their friends back to write more letters to a future generation. One woman returned to edit her letter twice. Many others are "still thinking" about what they want to say.

I have received many text messages and emails from friends and family and I hope that others pass on the invitation as well. I have decided to keep all of the letters private save for a small sampling that serve as a representation of the whole. Here are some examples:

"Don't take advice from people who have lives that you don't want to lead."

"There are MANY people in this world who care about you. Unfortunately, many of those who are more selfish hold a lot of power right now."

"At this point in U.S. History, there is a significant number of people who do not believe in global warming."

"Don't let electronic relationships replace real ones."

"Our cars are fueled by gasoline and we drive them on the ground. We speak to each other by holding palm-sized cell phones up to our ears. We have not yet discovered the cure to Cancer, A.I.D.S., Multiple Sclerosis, Autism, Schizophrenia, or Parkinson's, but we are trying really hard."

I also started the actual "painting" part of the painting today. It is a different feeling to paint in short amounts of time in between conversations with visitors. Sometimes I get a minute or two. Rarely do I get more than that. It's okay, though. I value the conversations a lot more than the painting itself. In fact, right now, the painting seems to be functioning more as a point of inquiry, observation, and conversation than as an object measured valued on its own. With that being said, however, I still hope that it is at least marginally successful on its own. There are never any guarantees, and there are only three days left before the end of the residency.

Letters: DAY TWO (about the space)

2009-10-03T11:48:00.000-07:00

A steady stream of visitors are enthusiastically participating in the project. This has been easier than I thought it would be. While, at first, I was disappointed to see that elevators and double doors dominated two of the walls, I am now appreciative of the traffic. I also get to see the immediate, unedited reactions of students, staff, professors, and administrators the moment the doors open. One graduate student, upon entering the room, dropped his jaw immediately and said, "Oh my gosh! This space gets more beautiful every time I walk by!" Visitors have consistently made comments about how the addition of art could potentially change the dynamic of the department.

There is something truly fantastic about having an audience that is not expecting an artistic encounter. Gallery spaces are predictable; the people there have sought out the experience. Public spaces, however, initiate a whole different tone of dialogue. I have found the conversations to be refreshing--They remind me of the potential that art has to transform a society. Galleries, I fear, are often limited to imagining it.

Letters: DAY ONE (about the introduction)

2009-10-03T11:37:00.000-07:00

I arrived early on my first day of the residency to install the last of the bags on the walls. I then talked to students and faculty about the installation all day. In the (very) short segments of time that I was alone in the space, I began to draw out my imagery on the canvas. This must have looked funny in the live webcam being that the pencil was too light for anyone to see. Those watching the broadcast could only see me make short, invisible pencil marks on the canvas, then stand back and squint, and then repeat the process until someone entered the room. My mom said that she saw me eat an apple. To see footage in real time, go here and click "artist-in-residence":

http://www.arts.cornell.edu/econ/artgallery/index.html

I will be in the space from 10am-6pm this Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Letters to a New Generation: Overview and Artist Statement

2009-10-03T11:26:00.000-07:00

I am currently working as an artist-in-residence in the Economics Department at Cornell University. Over the course of one week, I will move my studio into a public space and create a painting and interactive installation. The installation, "Letters to a New Generation", asks people to respond to the question, "Given the chance, what would you say to a new generation?" Each response is then folded up and inserted into one of over 500 bland, tan pockets that hang from the wall. Before inserting the letter, however, the pocket is turned in-side-out to reveal the unique, colorful fabric that lines the inside. The idea is that, as we begin to think about future generations, the space will turn from a uniformly depressing shade of tan to full color. It is born of my concern that we are becoming an increasingly selfish society and that, if we do not redirect our power and resources, it will lead to our destruction.

ARTIST STATEMENT

At this current point in U.S. history, Donald Trump is far more famous to the average American than Greg Mortenson, a man who has spent the last 16 years establishing over 90 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan so that young women have access to education. This seems to indicate that pop culture is prioritizing monetary rewards over humanitarian efforts. In this social climate, I wonder if our ability to appreciate beauty has deteriorated in the wake of our desire for traditional wealth. This installation reflects my interest in how the products we market reveal our expectations for a society and how the products we consume affect our experience of living within it. In an extreme case scenario, what would our lives look like if we measured the worth of every act and object exclusively on margins of profit? In another a hypothetical scenario, what would our society look like if we designated the value of our products based exclusively on the degree to which they increased the quality of our lives?
This time-based, collaborative installation is the inverse of a quick fix, an alternative to reality t.v., and the worst example of mass production possible. The work starts with rows of empty, interchangeable pouches made from ordinary fabric; stand-ins for the corporate-owned songs that play over and over again on the radio, the clothing that sits on the clearance racks at Walmart, and the 2.5 million cups of coffee served through a Dunkin Donuts take-out window in the United States every day. Throughout the course of a week, visitors are invited to write letters to a future generation. Each letter is then inserted into a pouch that, when turned inside out, transforms into an individually adorned, colorful vessel. Slowly, the space turns from all beige to fully colorful as the room fills with private offerings of wisdom, humor, advice, and reflection. The pouches, each sewn shut, become time capsules—significantly selfless gifts for a generation of people we will never meet. For a brief window of time, I hope to create a space that allows us to collectively imagine and appreciate something bigger and more important than ourselves.

Decks and Fences

2009-09-07T10:53:00.000-07:00

I was having lunch with Douglas one day (I've decided not to use last names in this blog) and he told me a story about his parents' vacation home. When they first bought there, the beach was open to the public. Beachgoers could walk for miles in either direction for free. Day-strangers could swim openly, and picnics could be set up without restriction. This, understandably, became increasingly annoying to the homeowners who payed a lot of money for second homes. Little by little, they began to mark their space. It started with one homeowner who put some buoys in the water so that the kids would know where to swim. Another homeowner added a nice white fence from the back of their property to the corner of their lot where the grass met the sand. A third homeowner built a wooden deck with stairs leading down to the beach. And each year, the homeowners found small ways to protect their privacy and increase the value of their vacation homes.

Now, many years later, the beach itself is partitioned by nicely-constructed fences that mark the edge of each lot. The homeowners, though, don't go to the beach anymore. Most of the vacation activity now takes place on their decks that overlook the beach that leads to the water where people used to swim.

Pockets for the Teeth

2009-03-12T00:03:00.000-07:00

Okay. So I tried a blog last year and I failed miserably. I posted three times and then spent more time thinking about how to revise those posts than I did posting anything else. After reading Rachael Hetzel's blog tonight, though, I decided to try again. So here it is, "Pockets for the Teeth".

I have rewritten that title in my last four sketchbooks, hoping that I would follow it with a body of work. That's how I start everything. I come up with the title and then wait to see if anything follows. Perhaps one day I'll find the perfect name and then have a kid.