Installing Sculpture

I installed my fiber sculpture, The Ocean's Whisper to Me at the GoggleWorks in Reading, Pa. I want to thank Lauralynn for her help and for allowing me to pick the very best spot in the gallery to hang my large piece. I was concerned that it would only look good from the front since that's how I had worked on it in my studio so I chose a spot in front of a wall.

I worked out a new hanging system with curtain rods and felted magnets with fishing line sewn to them. After I arranged and rearranged it in my studio I numbered and color coded the magnets and their placement on the rods. I'm so glad I did all this because I wasn't allowed to get up on a ladder in the gallery. I worked with a very patient gallery helper on the ladder. Handing each numbered magnet to him, he placed it to the corresponding number on the rod. It went up easily and quickly.

Lauralynn loved it and said let's see how it looks without the wall behind it. The walls in the gallery are moveable and viola. We liked it from every angle. This was an unexpected bonus so I took some pictures right before my camera battery went dead.

The opening is on Friday, May 4, 5:30 - 7:30. I can't wait to see the rest of the show. The show runs through June 3rd.

FiberPhiladelphia

FiberPhiladelphia 2012 is an international biennial and regional festival that celebrates textile and fiber arts. The opening was on Saturday and I was kicking myself that I didn't bring my camera. The show is outstanding. I was unsuccessful in grabbing photos from the website so you'll have to follow the link and see for yourself Outside/Inside the Box

My husband snapped this picture of my daughter and her friend standing next to my piece.

Sea Foam, silk and dye

If you're local it's worth seeing in person. Pictures can be deceiving some things I thought were large are actually small and others are surprisingly large and commanding. I think there's something for everyone to love in this show. Fiber art is alive and kicking and it's not your Grandma's knitting.


If you go don't miss stopping in on Warren and R.J. at bahdeebahdu a working studio for design and the development of art, sculpture and furnishings at 1522 N. American St. I featured on my blog here. You will find beautiful art, beautiful furnishings, and amazing trash to treasure light fixtures and sculptures. It's only a block away from the Crane Arts Building.

Corning Museum of Glass

One of the stops on my recent trip to New York state was the Corning Museum of Glass, in Corning, NY. There's so much to see there it's really hard to take it all in. This is a photo of a live demonstration.

You can sign up for workshops for a hands on experience as well. I took a workshop in flameworking and made a pendant. Flameworking is a type of glasswork that uses a gas fueled torch to melt rods and tubes of clear and colored glass. Once in a molten state, the glass is formed by blowing and shaping with tools and hand movements. It is also known as lampworking or torchworking.
It was really fun and my kids said "Oh no, now we know what Mom will be doing in the kitchen instead of making dinner!" Well I probably would if I didn't have too much on my plate already. Delaney made a pendant, Savannah and Larry made flowers.

Delaney's is the one on the left, I like hers better than mine.

Larry's is on the left and Savannah's on the right.

The contemporary glass exhibition was my favorite part of the museum. Here's a few pictures of works that caught my eye. I regret not jotting down the artists names.

This piece had a motor making a piece of paper move behind the glass that animated it's surfaces and the shadows on the wall.

This installation by Katherine Gray consists of three “trees” made of everyday drinking glasses stacked on Plexiglas shelves with steel supports. The glasses are arranged on the shelves by color to form the outline of a simplified tree with green leaves and a brown trunk.

Although Gray is a skilled glassblower who could have made the components of Forest Glass herself, she chose to use only found or “pre-existing” glasses that she bought at thrift stores and on eBay. Some of the glasses are decorated with images of leaves. Others, which have birds or small animals, have been placed on the lower shelves, or at the “bases” of the trees.

Forest Glass is meant to make us think about the destruction that is inherent in the process of creation. The history of glassmaking in America, for example, is linked with widespread deforestation. Trees—in fact, forests of them—have been obliterated over the centuries so that their wood could be used as fuel for glass furnaces. (excerpted from Corning Museum of Glass website)

Silk Organza Soft Sculpture

Linda Hutchins is an artist that makes beautiful hand sewn organza sculptures.

Memory of the Dance

Cord

Egg, Cup, Hammer

Jade Plant

Here's an excerpt from her website: Over time, I have distilled my materials and methods to a spare, minimal aesthetic. I use hand-sewn organza to explore the effects of cumulative process in three dimensions. I use hand-drawn line as a basic element to reveal the nature of repetition itself. Dualities between full and empty, convex and concave, right and left, and sensual and cerebral have surfaced as a result. Line is the device that recurs throughout. It is a connector, a separator, a marker of boundaries, a spiraling circularity, and a thread that prevails.

Although her thought process is different from mine I admire the patience that goes into her work. This is a piece I made over a year ago that I'm in the process of trying to duplicate. Every step in the making of it has to be approached slowly and methodically. The process is very meditative, which is nice.

Rain Drop

There's one week left to catch my show Waterways at the DCCA in Wilmington.

Duets Dilemma

I've been trying to choose a duet for my application for the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, Annual Members' Juried Exhibition: Duets

The call for entry reads:
Artists are invited to submit paired works of art in order to create duets. The two works by each artist may be in any media. One work may be a video, and the other a painting—or a photo and an etching—or both may be sculptures, or textiles, or drawings, or whatever else is appropriate. The two works may be serial (think Monet’s haystacks) or completely unrelated. Here, the artist acts as a curator of his or her own work. By pairing works in duets, the artist has the opportunity to call greater attention to an aspect of his or her practice, or an element of the work, such as color, scale, subject, medium, and so on. The exhibition that will result from the submissions will be an exhibition of duets. Some works may harmonize, others may offer a radical or unexpected juxtaposition. In all instances, the hope is that the presentation of works in pairs by individual artists will offer the viewer a focused and dynamic engagement with the work. Please do not title the duet. Each work should have its own title and the viewer will make the connection between the two works visually.

I have a lot of options but found out I can only submit one. Here's a few I'm considering.

Duet #1

Bottom of the Ocean, oil on canvas, 48 x 46 inches, and Bubbles, 12 x 12 x 5 inches, silk, dye and nylon thread

Duet #2

Golden, Oil on canvas, 48 x 46 inches, and Sickening, Ink on Paper, 5 x 5 inches

Duet #3

Surf, Encaustic on Board, 9 x 12 inches, and Froth, Silk and dye, 7 x 12 inches

Duet #4

Feeling Blue, Ink on paper, 7 x 11 inches, and Go With the Flow, Silk, dye, wool and nylon thread, 15 x 17 inches

Duet #5.

Ocean View, Silk, wool, dye and nylon thread, 5 x 7 inches and Ocean, Ink on paper, 7 x 11 inches

These are only some of my choices, so you can see my dilemma. How am I suppose to chose just one? Comments welcome.

Soft Sculpture

Recently I've been researching soft sculpture. Searching the internet I found the work of Yuko Takada Keller a Japanese artist working in tracing paper. You can see more on her website.

I can't imagine how she hangs these sculptures, but they're beautiful. I love how light and airy they are.

She writes "Prismatic"is the second work that I installed 3-dimensionally. It is one of my favorite works. It is composed of 7,500 pyramids. The theme of "Prismatic" is a shower of light that I felt in nature. "Prismatic" was traveling in U.K. in 1991 and in Canada from 1993 to 1995."

"Reflection" 1990

I recently stumbled upon the work of Joan Livingstone. Here are some of her pieces in industrial felt and epoxy resin. I love her forms because they relate to nature, even though they're abstract. You can see more on her website.

Sometimes I'm scared to venture into new territory in my own work but then I say what's life like if you're not a little scared? Boring!

Upcoming Show

It's June and I'm installing my show with Kyle Ripp tomorrow in the Elizabeth Denison Hatch Gallery, at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts. Here's a teaser.

I went back and forth on whether I should paint the wall blue behind it.

I have decided to install it and then decide but I think I'm NOT going to paint the wall. I want it to be viewed from as many angles as the space allows and not just from head on.

I will know when I get it installed whether I've made the right choice. Since this is my first time showing sculpture in a gallery it's been really hard to visualize it. I'm also working on a sound component which will be available for listening on a personal player with headphones, another first for me.


Here is a detail from the painting also included in the show.

Title: "Crash, Hush..." 48 x 92 inches (diptych).

The opening is this Friday, June 4th, 5:30 - 9 pm. I'll be giving an artist's talk starting with the piece I have included in the member's show NEW juried by Roberta Fallon and ending in the Hatch Gallery. The talk will be sometime between 6:30 and 7:00.