the dirt

While it’s still a few months off, I’m excited to announce that I’ll be attending two residencies at the beginning and end of this summer!

I was invited to attend Buffalo Creek Art Center in Gardnerville, Nevada for the month of June and in September I will be off to a month long residency at the Fish Factory in Stöðvarfjörður, Iceland (also, I need to learn how to pronounce where I’m going!). I am so thrilled for both of these opportunities to meet and work alongside other artists, explore the natural beauty of both of these amazing places and most importantly, to make art- completely uninterrupted from daily life. It’s a pretty glorious opportunity! 

I’m really hoping to use these two months to experiment with materials I haven’t worked with in a long time (porcelain has been lingering in my mind for awhile now!), to focus on the process of making my forms and to build relationships with other artists I meet. I hope that the combination of these elements will also result in new work, a wider network of artists and supporters as well as a general boost to my art career.

I am so lucky that the residency at Buffalo Creek is partially funded, which means that they cover my housing & studio time while I’m there but I’m responsible for my materials, food & travel all of which I can cover from my current savings. My residency in Iceland however is a ‘pay-to-play’ opportunity so in a few months, I’ll be setting up a donation account and ask for some help making this opportunity happen. More to come on how you can help me boost my art career soon but in the meantime – I’m just thrilled!

photo credit: Crystal Birns

Circa 2012, I had an idea to create a curved circular structure that would be covered with ceramic cone shaped pieces. I was calling this piece the Lens Series because it had the shape of a parabolic lens and my intention was to set it up in a variety of scenes; in snow, in a river, a forest, the beach etc… and conceptually the Lens would give you a new way of seeing each of those environments. So I went ahead and starting making the cone shaped pieces and they piled up on my shelves by the hundreds. But my problem was engineering the structure that would hold all the ceramic pieces at just the right angle and just the right curve and make it mobile and easy to set up/take down and basically the math just became overwhelming and so the project sat on the shelves and collected dust until last year…

The pieces were first unboxed for their exhibition debut at the UCSC Arboretum for the Environmental Installations exhibit. They were placed in a small grove where they encircled the tree trunks and were renamed the Tree Pools. I loved the contrast of the bright blues and purples in the middle of the garden, it gave this installation a really quiet and contemplative spot. But despite a lot of interest in visitors purchasing these for their own trees, I resisted the urge to sell them because I still thought that someday in the future my Lens Series would actually happen.

In addition to the Tree Pools installation at the Arboretum, I also made a large scale installation of Umbel flowers for the same exhibit, umbels are a flower structure that that blossoms into an umbrella shape and this was a structure that I’d really fallen in love with. I had done quite a bit of research on the structures of umbels and thought it would be interesting to try to go larger with the shape. And so with my husband Nate off work for two days due to rain, we designed and he welded together some starburst shaped umbel structures for me that are about 2.5′ in diameter and we will install them on 12′ tall steel pipe for the stems. I plan to attach the cone shaped pieces that were originally intended for the Lens Series as the flower buds for these new Umbels. The idea is that you will be able to walk under them as they will blow and move in the wind like crazy sputnik style dandelions, I think they’ll be pretty fun to make and engage with in the garden.

So sometimes, it’s a good idea to let go of an okay idea. I admit now that the Lens Series may never happen, but I’m glad that I invested in an idea that led me down a long path to create these new pieces. Also really glad to have a talented husband to weld for me!

The question everyone asks themselves before they embark on a trip, right?

What am I forgetting…

Over the past few months, I’ve really been focused on two major things going on in and out of the studio. One is my solo show at the Grants Pass Museum of Art in Oregon and the other is planning an epic month long trip to Bhutan, India and Nepal. Both are projects steeped in details, research and time. So right now with about 2 weeks to go and just a few things still to cross off my to-do list, I’m asking myself ‘What am I forgetting?’

My eight foot square studio table is piled with all the art, photos, tools, hardware and pedestals that will make up my show. Somehow all of that will fit into my van and make the journey up to Grants Pass where it will magically turn into an exhibition of six installations in just 4 days. I keep looking at this pile on the table and doubting myself that I’ve planned the space well, or that I’ve measured wrong or forgotten something and there will be a glaring hole in my exhibit where art should be. Not to mention the chance of breakage in transit or installation. At this point, I’m trying to trust that I’ve done this before, that my lists are long and thorough and I’m reminding myself that drywall screws can be bought in Grants Pass too if I run out.

The show will open on the First Friday in April and just two short days later, I’ll be on a plane on the way to Bhutan. It’s obviously not an ideal amount of turnaround time between these two major events, but it is what it is. So with 4 Visas issued, 6 different flights booked, and miles of training hikes under my boots already, fingers crossed that I’m ready for whatever I’ve forgotten.

Since many of you will not see the exhibit in person, I wanted to share a few of my plans for my upcoming solo show at the Grants Pass Museum of Art in Oregon this April. I also think it’s fun to get a behind the scenes look at what it takes to make an idea come to fruition. It’s been a lot of planning to get to this point, but I think I’ve got it fairly organized and ready to go. The title of the show is ‘where art & nature meet’ and I’ll be showcasing 6 large installations from my Rock Candy, Relic, Hive, Bone, Lichen and Umbel Series. The installations will be shown alongside photos of the work as it was installed in nature. For this show, I wanted to highlight the works as they look in their ‘natural habitat’ while also creating engaging installations in the gallery setting.

Above is a selection of photos of the Rock Candy Series Installation in progress. Nearly 200 rocks were made and glazed, they have holes in the backside so that they can hang on the wall. Then I created a paper template and laid out the rocks to create a Rock Candy Ribbon that will wrap around 3 walls of the gallery, a total of about 18′. In the third photo above, you see blank areas in the paper template, this is where the 12″ x 12″ photos printed on metal of the Rock Candy Series as they were installed in a rock crack at Joshua Tree will hang interspersed with the actual rocks.
Fingers crossed it looks as good as I think it will!!

I want to leave some of these installations as surprises but I will share one more from the Umbel Series. I have 60 out of the original 230 of the Umbel flowers left and I wanted to recreate a path of them in the gallery as I had done for the Art at the Arboretum exhibit. The museum wasn’t keen on the idea of drilling holes in their floors to put the Umbel stems into the floor (surprise surprise!). So, I had square metal bases cut and welded onto 60 of the metal rods- this photo is them piled up in the back of my Subaru hatchback! Now I can position them on the gallery floor to create my path with no holes required – win!win! There will be three large photos printed on metal that will hang on a wall towards the end of the path showing what the installation looked like when it was installed at the UCSC Arboretum.
Ok, that’s all the teasers for now… let me know what you think!