here(t)here: another residency

Since May,  I've been away from my blog.  Back this month to report to you some of my summer and fall activities.

I'm off to Inverness (on Pt. Reyes peninsula in CA) later this month for another artist residency, this one sponsored by the Lucid Art Foundation.  And this time, intentionally close to home, for three weeks, solo without cell coverage and social media. So no reports during my time away but should have something to share upon my return.  Lots of prepping, finding that I will take more than I take to residencies afar and certainly a way to complicate an experience.

When I have traveled to residencies somewhere else,  I am often surprised by what I learn about my home. Three years ago in Iceland, I was awed by its raw landscape that had been shaped by volcanoes, glaciers, weather and its location in the Northern Atlantic. There I realized its connection to California--both lands edging the North American tectonic plate with Iceland on one end and California on the other. I wanted devoted time to experience my own landscape with this in mind.  Inverness, though not situated on the North American plate shares the San Andreas fault which separates the No American from the Pacific.  And like Iceland, its land has been shaped by invisible forces of the earth.  At Inverness, I want to further explore this connection.

I am also interested in exploring place--what it holds and what I carry to it. When I applied for this residency,  I wrote, "Using Inverness as a springboard, I will source possibilities for methods and materials from its history, stories and landscape. I will look at the archival remains--rocks and stones that hold the memory of the geologic forces that shaped the physical terrain. I will walk the terrain, feel its relief and make contour lines as I move through space. I will look at the scratches and markings of the rocks as well as their shapes.  I also will be on alert to ways of letting nature and synchronicity enter into my process. These will be my entry points to a 'process conscious' project working with themes of the archival and ephemeral."

"Language, materials and natural energies of and from the place will inform my process. Like the rocks and stones that reflect frozen moments in a changing landscape over time, I will work towards shaping moments and find ways and forms that express the movements 'between'. "

SEAGER GRAY GALLERY: "The Art of the Book"

I am pleased to announce that my work will be part of

The Art of the Book

Tenth annual exhibition

of handmade artist books, altered books & book-related objects.

At the Seager/Gray Gallery

May 5 - 31, 2015

Opening Reception on Saturday, May 9,  5:30 - 7:30

The Seager/Gray Gallery is located at 108 Throckmorton Avenue

in Mill Valley.   415.384.8288

Hours: Tues - Sat, 11 - 6, Sunday, 12 - 5

Seager Gray Gallery

I am pleased to be showing three from my mtlaugwalkcut series at the Seager Gray Gallery.

The gallery is located at 108 Throckmorton Avenue in Mill Valley.

HOURS:

Tuesday - Saturday 11 - 6 and Sunday 12 - 5

Phone: 415 . 384 . 8288

More cuts: walks and poetry

 

The installation, mtlaugwalkcuts was inspired by a walk that I took to the summit of Mt. Laugarvatn in Iceland.  I recorded the shapes of the walk with a GPS device and then printed out into 23 sections. The line sections influenced the contours of the constructions. More images of the individual works can be found on my website on the third page of  mixed media/ constructions.

During the exhibition at RiskPress,  I hosted poetry walks in and outside of the gallery and recorded their shapes with a GPS device. We chanted the words, "walking like reading like cutting like..." while looking at the artwork on the walls. Words appeared and found their place on the concrete floor of the gallery.  These words and more may find another place as I continue this work with cuttings.

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Other words that surfaced but didn't appear on the floors  but may appear elsewhere in the future are:

multiple lines, icey undulations, cold empty, sequential, serial striations, slivers and slices, shafts and shifts, gray-day shuns, uninterrupted, light of rain, shimmering ground, curves, edges, distillation, energy, music, enigmatic void, an architecture of color, meandering texts, gun metal striations, white ice open, the architecture of a cut, cuts squared, grounded sticks and stones, graphite lines go by, waves, piano keys, subtle shifts, tracking, folding, bird perches,....

'Cuttings' Opens

I was touched by all of you who came to celebrate the opening of Cuttings.    A festive evening and many thank yous are in order. Special thanks to Lin Max for her support, many hours of help with the installation and opening festivities.  Also thank yous to Eric for his assistance with lighting, Hope, Deborah, Sean, Sally, Laurie, Steph, Satri and Rich for their help with and at the reception. And finally to Charlie and Kevin, proprietors of RiskPress, for offering an alternative gallery space to artists in this county.  We are fortunate for their patronage and generosity.

The work is up. Some have sold and still many days left for viewing, walks and talk.  Here are a few glimpses of what you will see.

You can learn more about this exhibit on Satri Pencak's blog at www.satripecak.com/

And finally come to the first walk this Sunday, Oct 13th  at 1:00.  Note the prompt for this walk:  walking like reading like constructing If you can't come to this walk, there will be others on Sundays,  Oct 20th and 27th.

RiskPress Gallery is located on 7345 Healdsburg Avenue Sebastopol, CA 95472.  Gallery Hours: Wed, Fri, Sat, Sun.  11-6  & by appointment 707 494-8534

the residents & a few artists we met along the way

  2013 opens with "The Residency Show" at the  Gatewood Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro (UNCG) on January 14th through February 1st.  The show features work of faculty and other artists who participated in artist residencies recently.  I sent work inspired by my experiences at the Gullkistan Artist Residency in Iceland last summer.

About the work:

I walk a lot when I travel. Walking allows me to wander wherever I wish, and not be limited to "auto driven" roads. I can choose a way, a pace, and I often see more. I love how walking shifts me from an accelerated frenetic state of mind to a contemplative one.  And slowing down has a way of opening up space.  The artist, Richard Long, once wrote that "a walk expresses space and freedom and the knowledge of it can live in the imagination of anyone, and that is another space too."

And I found that space in Iceland last summer at the Gullkistan Artist Residency;  not only because  "eg' gekk mikið!", but also because I discovered that Iceland is a land with panoramic views and horizontal ribbons of sky, land, and sea.  My response was elemental and primordial and it took me back to a place of "beginning"—an invigorating feeling that I want to experience again.

I went to Gullkistan with the intent of incorporating the act of walking into my artistic process. Before I left, I purchased a Garmin GPSmap 62, a device that records tracks of walks.  In Iceland, I used it to collect the shapes and lines of my walks while exploring the new terrain.  I accumulated many tracks.  In the studio, I printed them out and displayed them on the wall.  These "visual walks" were a beginning.  However, I wasn't clear on how I would use their shapes and lines in a body of work.

I had heard of Iceland's "geologic wonders".  I was interested in how this geology related to its constantly shifting landscape. I saw this in lava beds, glaciers, craggy scree slopes, black sand beaches, glacial carved rocks and basaltic columns. These materials create a myriad of contours and textures. I have started to explore how this topography might influence my work so that it reflects the natural tensions of the land.

The work in the exhibit is a beginning of an investigation that combines both line cuts (sections from the tracks) from a walk and the contours of the landscape. The work comes from one of six walks that I tracked in Iceland; the one here is the trek up to the summit of Mt. Laugarvatn, a mountain behind the town of the residency with views of it and beyond. The track provides evidence of a step-by-step process, like walking, and is broken into 23 sections to suggest that.  The constructions, mtlaugwalkcut1, mtlaugwalkcut2, and mtlaugwalkcut3 are the result of an investigation of line and form taken from the walks.

Artwork:

mtlaugwalkcut1, 2, & 3 are mixed media constructions made from book covers, cloth & board on a birch panel. Each are 9.13 x 8.66 x 3.25 inches  ©2012

Bless Bless

I'm home now after a memorable and wonder filled six weeks of work and travel in Iceland, accumulating experiences, meeting people and photographing the dramatic land, water and sky scapes.   As I settle back, my mind is still moving with ideas and imagery from the trip. Good-bye residency and good-bye Iceland.  "Bless, bless", as they say in Iceland.  Many thanks to Alda and Kriestvieg from the Gullkistan Residency and Linda and Ægir, friends and tour guides.  You made my trip filled with memories and many inspirations for future work.  I look forward to what will come from this experience and I already can't wait to come back, see you again and continue where I left off!

I will continue to add Icelandic imagery to this blog as I begin to process what I collected.  For this entry, I have posted miscellaneous images that showcase my work and experiences at the residency.

One of my projects during the residency was tracking my walks with a gps device.  I accumulated many tracks which I then printed out to get a sense of what I had.  Lots of words came to mind: scaling, scales, "fisk", a scale of scales, step by step, planes, topography, three-dimensional, planar, linear, line shapes, broken lines, contour, installation, context, meander, wander, lost, found, mapping.

I also made a screen out of wire from a rusty fence that I found and cut up on the farm.  Liz and I used it to project our video, Tangled Dreams, for the residents.  I then took many detail shots of it for my photo library.  Interesting to me later when I found some stones with cracks that echoed some of the wire shapes.

I also experimented with the ash from the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano on a variety of papers, including brown craft paper and yupo.  Examples follow:

And finally Icelandic kennings haunt me.  I've collected many during my stay and suspect that some  will find their ways in future work and titles.

Scree wise?

  Without seeing Iceland's glaciers, one knows by the abundance of scree slopes (skriða) throughout Iceland, that they exist. Glaciers break down the land and broken rock fragments accumulate  at the base of hamars (crags) and mountain cliffs.  Deceptively smooth from a distance!

On my last day of the residency, Alda (one of the residency directors) and her husband, Jon took us on a walk down to the "milky" waters outside of Laugarvatn (an endearing term they give to rivers that looked white from a distance).  Once at the river, rather than return the way we came, Jon wanted to follow the river out and asked if anyone might be interested.  Most opted not too. His children and Auke followed Jon and  I elected to as I wanted to gps a longer walk .  Little did I know that I would call this one my "challenge" walk.

As the terrain became rockier and rockier,  it became clearer that we would not be able to walk down along the river. Jon pointed up along the hillside, "this way up".  Hmm?  Straight up a hillside of scree with minimal plants for anchors. Trusting an Icelander (???),  I followed along until I was no longer able to establish firm footing in the abundant scree, slipping and sliding with no plants to hold onto. Scree wise?

Somehow, with Aucke's help (and body), I found a way up to meet the others at the top.  Thank you Auke!

Walking my gps through Reykjavik

Við gengum mikiö!

Tracking Mt. Laugarvatn

I tracked another walk with my gps device, this time the trail up to the summit of Mt. Laugarvatn.  Beautiful views of Laugarvatn and beyond and another track!