they hit me with a truck

These three pieces are part of a series of flowers.  For now, they are untitled, but they have the working titles of “silver flower,” “red flower” and “rainbow.” The two with open petals measure approximately three feet across, witht the vines running close to 6 feet in lenth. The silver flower is about 5 feet long with the vines straightened, and a little over a foot wide and deep.

Each of these pieces examines the exaggeration of “flower” qualities through proportion and color.  “Rainbow” is consructed of brightly colored paper over wire, with expanding foam erupting from the center.  The paper, being wrapped in stripes of color, emphasizes the artificiality of the image, coupled with the long grasping vines.  Placed in a natural setting, the flower becomes even more hyperbolic in its “plant” qualities.  “Red Flower” uses red and blue yarn, a traditionally female material of construction, to create a flower that borders on creature.  The petals are red, the color of blood and hunger, and they resemble an open mouth that confronts the viewer at eye level from a tree. Twisting around the tree branches and reaching out, the vines enhance the flower’s image as a living, grasping creature.

 Measuring 12″x4″x4″ (13″ circumference), this currently untitle piece derives from much the same idea as “Is she married…”, being constructed of masking tape and utilizing no other materials or colors. Potted plants are decorative by nature, and by stripping this image of a household flower of the charm for which flowers are generally chosed, it loses its purpose and becomes merely a functionless object.

  This piece, “Is she married? No, she’s a cat lady” seeks to examine the way in which society views individuals, particularly women who choose a life that doesn’t fit expectations. “Cat lady” is the title given to women who chose a life that would have been described as spinsterhood in the recent past.  The use of masking tape to construct the cats and cover the surfaces of the table and cup, coupled with the less than life-size proportions of the feline figures and table (26″x21″x18″ for whole piece), shows how the life of a single woman is belittled and her fascination with animals becomes seen as obsessive.  Each cat has been given a personality, but the tape surface and their connection to the actual tabletop strips them of much of their individual identity, with only the colorful ribbons to show that each figure is treasured as a separate entity. The felines also interact with one another, seemingly oblivious to the viewer, as if frozen in time.

I have to say that I read “Letters to a Young Poet” in one sitting; its short, but thats not why it took so little time.  Rilke’s ideas concerning life, and particularly that part of life that is solitude, spoke to me not only as an artist, but as a human being.  To live is to essentially be alone; no one can share the space of your mind, and no one can love or enjoy something in quite the same way you can. According to Wilke, solitude is not a state that we can reject, it is fundamental to existence. Personally, I have always considered myself a solitary person, and the world seems to consider being alone to be a sign of social ineptitude, and yet Wilke acknowledges that the inability to accept solitude is a form of delusion.  Wilke perhaps takes his ideas concerning solitude a little far, believing that one can generate ideas from the interior of one’s mind alone and that the outside world is not necessary for the germination of creativity. The world is a resource, the mind a refuge, and thus it is necessary to operate on both planes.

Then there are some ideas that I am not quite sure how to comprehend; Wilke’s advice to “not observe yourself too closely” can be read in multiple ways.  My first impulse is to understand his statement as underscoring the importance of not judging yourself and jumping to conclusions immediately, but just to live and learn from life in general. But, on the other hand, how can you know what you want and how you want to live if you don’t listen closely to yourself?

I have recently been doing some research into the realm of paper clothing.  The creation of a paper dress, which is a project I hope to overtake now, is intriguing in several ways.  One can attempt to transcend the material and transform it into an illusion of actual cloth, or the nature of the paper can be retained.  There is the “art” of paper clothing, and then there are certain do-it-yourself type undertakings, like the toilet paper wedding dresses recently created in response to a bridal magazine competition (and some of them are really amazing).  What really intrigues me is the temporary nature of the material; paper has the potential to survive when preserved, but how long can an article of clothing constructed of paper really last?  Some of the photos I have posted seem to use stronger forms of paper (like brown paper bags) while others are so delicate one wonders how they survived the process of creating them in the first place.  I’m considering working with that most fragile of materials, tissue paper, and I would like to retain its “paperness” in the process, while also using sewing and tying techniques in the attachment of pieces.

The piece above, Robert Watt’s “Table for Suicide Event” from 1961, sums up a lot of how happenings went down in the 60s and 70s.  As art events, they were intended as temporal experiences that transformed viewers into participants.  This piece, while stationary, serves this purpose in a subtle way; the table is composed of items that perhaps have been used or are prepared for use in the future.  The viewer becomes a participant in the narrative that the table and its contents seem to signify.

H.R. Giger is a Swiss artist, sometimes termed a surrealist, who is probably best known for his Oscar win in 1980 for his design of the alien creatures in “Alien.”  Giger was one of the initial artists to grasp my attention as I was entering high school, and I still find his unusual combination of eroticism and commercialism in his works very interesting.  No one can deny that he has what is essentially an obsession with the vagina (he has painted and sculpted multiple works called “passages” that are quite obviously vaginal in reference) and penetration.  He is particularly fond of designing human/cybernetic hybrid creatures with tubes that often enter the mouth, the vagina or the anus.  And yet this predisposition does not prevent him from publishing calendars, selling prints and designing furniture.  Giger has his own museum in Switzerland, although it is not exclusively devoted to his work; he often uses it to showcase artists in which he feels an interest.  There are even “Giger bars” with environments totally designed by him.  This is yet another artist with a dark, somewhat “gothic” aesthetic, and yet he as achieved rather massive commercial success (particularly in Europe).

What I find most compelling about Tiravanija is his focus on interaction.  Surface magazine claims he is an artist who encourages tactile interaction, “to get down with the art,” and it is true, but it goes even beyond an interaction with objects.  Tiravanija is concerned with interpersonal interaction as well; he is known for serving food to viewers/participants in galllery spaces.  Like the artists of the 60’s and 70’s who were involved in Happenings (Alan Kaplow, Bruce Nauman, Robert Watts, etc), he decimates the boundary between viewer and participant.  The video posted here is a reproduction, by Tiravanija, of a piece he did in 1992 in which he transformed the gallery space into an open kitchen.

These Swiss artists/partners in crime are the very definition of the prodigiously unusual imagination.  Not only do they produce some unusual works (like their “sausuage series” of the late 70s), but they do not limit themselves to one or two modes of production.  For them, it is not necessary to create a “core” area, but to produce and display a myriad of ideas.  Photography, video, and sculpture are often combined rather than approached individually.  If one looks at their video “The Way Things Go,” it is quite easy to move from video to sculpture; their Rube Goldbergian construction is immense and very physical.  They seem to be artists with a particular penchant for the recording of ephemeral creations, or even the re-creations of previously existing objects.  In “The Way Things Go,” Fischli and Weiss record something that probably only occurred once in its entirety, just like in their sculptures made of sausage they recorded photographically a material that is organically predestined to decay.

 (fashion show from “Sausage Series”)

And it is from the mundane, everyday nature of objects that much of their imaginitive production derives.  Their meticulous re-creation of ordinary objects like plastic cups and paint bottles is a testament to the capability of the artist rather than the nature of the initial object.

“The Spore Collective Manifesto

The Spore Collective Manifesto

Founded this day, February 6, 2008, the Spore Collective hereby declares the following purpose, principles and plan of action to be followed throughout the Spring 2008 semester.  Our purpose is to promote free cultural ideals and the making of new things.  In the spirit of David Wilson, we promote the prodigiously unusual imagination and look forward to a semester of investigation, wonderment, and exploration.

Each member will participate in a scheduled critique to be held on February 13, 2008.  Upon completion of said critique each member will then be responsible for completing four more works by the end of the semester.

The principles on which this manifesto is built are to be taken seriously by each member.
1.    One must strive to push his/her imagination beyond the comfort level.
2.    One must embrace the wonderment of the creative process and disband any thoughts of assignments and grades in order to work in the spirit of the spore.
3.    One must experience the commitment to being an active participant in the collective.  One must go to the Fast, Cheap and Out of Control blog on a regular basis and must respond to posts in a thoughtful and timely manner.  More than one response per post is welcomed.
4.    One must strive to leave the course a stronger artist.
5.    All must strive to make this the best class of the year.

The plan of action:
1.    Following the February 13, critique, each member may take one of two routes to complete the class:
One may arrange regularly scheduled critique dates.  Working critiques
will be held only when work is at a point to discuss both conceptually and
formally.
One may choose to experience the class in a more structured manner with
assignments to guide the creative process.

2.    There will be pages posted to the FCOC blog indicating writing assignments and       speaking assignments, lists of artists and other pertinent information.  All members are responsible for keeping on schedule.
3.    This success and course of direction is built upon trust for each member of The Spore Collective.”

As a member of the Spore Collective, I believe it is important  to make this a great class, but the most important thing we can possibly leave with is strength as artists.  With this newly established structure (or newly deconstructed one), I feel less constrained by the pressures of class in general.  As someone who is not the most self-motivated, I know I will run into difficulties, but I feel these will better prepare me for the future, in which I will not have the coddling structure of the classroom to guide my thought processes.  The sheer relief of tension granted by loose dates and progressive rather than fragmented assignments is incredibly encouraging.  I particlularly hope to rediscover my own prodigiously unusual imagination and put it to good use.