Finalizing the Installation

When I go back to Boston in January, I'll be displaying my work in the Cambridge gallery with half of my classmates. Because I have made SO MUCH work in these last two years, a few people suggested that I contemplate an installation in the entryway of the 601 Newbury bldg - where we have our meals and critiques every day. It is a VERY tall entry space - about 4 floors high with a skylight at top - with battered concrete walls painted white. With the help of some good friends I am going to hoist this huge collage of my studio leftovers up on to the wall -- about 20 feet above the floor. I have been arranging and wiring these together in quadrants all week and I'll load them into a refrigerator box and ship via UPS - the more battered the better -

Here is a look at the piece -- my studio walls are not big enough to display it fully. It does have this crazy energy which says so much about my MFA process and work.

Working, working

I am making more of these flat constructions - varying the approach . Sometimes I start flat, build, and break down. Other times, build first then take down. Always there are surprises and unexpected compositions. I cannot get enough of it and I'm getting closer to some imagery that I will take forward into new directions.

Flattening things out

The process continues.

In morning meeting with my mentor Robert, we decided to cut a box open and splay it out flat . The most amazing thing happened - the composition unfolded as a 2D layout - when it had been created on a 3D form - and in that translation there was something very compelling. I found a way to go around myself or to trick myself. Even I was seeing it for the first time. I cut open a few more just to see what was going to happen.

I have been working toward more accidental effects in the work and this fits in exactly with that concept.

I'm still making the 3D box forms and looking at these flat layouts as a parallel/adjoining project.

I'm still working on the display ideas. I was on to a platform idea and now I am working with a pedestal idea.

Still time.

Re-opening

After sending the next draft of the thesis off, I dove back into the studio work. This week's exploration is around the forms - looking at the possibilities for opening them up in different ways.

I took 7 - 8 small models - out of tag board - all of the same crooked oblong box structure. Then I cut different sides away and looked to see how much loss and destruction the forms could handle. When would they stop reading as box forms? My mentor Robert wants me to scale some of these up in archival cardboard now and see how they read at a different size. They have a very delicate feel at this scale and I'm curious.

covering them

This last week I've been doing lots of experiments with the surfaces around these boxes. I have my usual array of

newsprint with markings in ink and paint - many are words and other marks - varying scale and

texture - some acrylic spray paint in the mix. I have been collecting process color from mailers, advertising inserts in the paper, magazine ads - I have sheets of red, yellow, green, orange, blue. It takes a long time to make a sheet, because I am trying to obscure too much readable content - lots of layering and cutting up.

So now I am exploring where to use this color - some things work, others don't. Sometimes I completely cover a form again. Here are a few examples - most are 12" high or smaller. Commodity sized, I call them.

Lots of Boxes

So I'm building lots of boxes - most in the same size range - and then I'm going to do all sorts of

experimental surface treatments - same kind of palette - some color added - and my mentor Robert and I are going to see what we think about them and how they want to live in this world. It is a kooky, intuitive, essential direction and I am having a lot of fun with it. I'll post when I get them covered.

Crunching the boxes

Now that the first draft of the thesis is in... I have much more time in the studio. A couple of weeks ago, my mentor Robert and I talked about distressing the box shapes a bit. This led to a great afternoon of smashing and learning how they would react to weight, pressure, stomping - and when they would just rip and break. I wasn't interested in the tearing and breaking, just the bending and curving. They have a whole new vibe to them. It is that awkwardness that I am interested in. So now I am making a bunch of prototypes and applying different surface treatments. Some may be open, they are all a general smaller, "commodity" size. I am experimenting with some colored commercial papers on some sides. Having the color imported from the everyday mailers that come to the house or commercial product labels. Still using the newsprint and newspaper with ink and paint.

We're discussing where they might be living - on the wall? on the floor? on pedestals? in mass? I'll keep you posted on the latest there.