Philadelphia

I thought I was going to Baltimore but I ended up visiting my dear friend Mari in Philadephia over the holiday.

MUTE AND PRESERVE

I am currently showing some of my work at the North Dam Mill. Here's the statement for the show.

MUTE AND PRESERVE::The act of writing rather than speaking is a means of muting language, silencing the spoken word and preserving it (so that it can be read both in the present and the future). Writing is an attempt to preserve meaning, however, written words lack the context that speech is provided. Words that are spoken are heard within their direct context while the written word is likely to be read in a drastically different context that will significantly alter its perceived meaning.

The language utilized in this body of work is familiar phrases removed from bodies of literature and historic accounts. These words have been muted and preserved through the act of writing, and my abridgement re-interprets them into an altogether new context. Through this process I am questioning how written language functions. Where and how is meaning made within the written word? Is meaning innately linked to words and phrases? When the written word is removed from its familiar context can it author new meaning?

The materials I use to work with these concepts directly reference the ideas of preservation, as salt is a preservative and the prints are created on purely archival materials. The paper is left white and color is absent, resulting in a muted aesthetic.

Some sweet scenes to check out in d-town Bidds.
Franklin Street Art Space is a contemporary art gallery started by Tammy and Russell who are really cool people. Great space, great light, great floors, if you're in Biddeford, it's worth a wander down Franklin Street.
Hog Farm Studios has a concert series, a great show was on the other night with the following artists that I recommend checking out if you're not yet acquainted with,
Tom Thumb
Run on Sentence
Midwest Dilemma

My cousin is working at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, she does things in a lab with zooplankton, fascinating subject. The word planktos (which the latter part of zooplankton originates from) means "wanderer" or "drifter", really beautiful right? everything in the ocean eats zooplankton, they get crushed by sea life, think about that.

I like these images and so does Judith Butler.

After my visit to the Bennington Memorial this summer (see previous blog entry to read about it) I have been really interested in the tourist brochures provided at such sites. I have collected many tourist brochures this summer, but my favorite has been the Bennington Battle Monument brochure. I'm stuck on the pictures of revolutionary war reenactments within the brochure and have been cutting out the pictures of the soldiers and making things with them. Since this is something that I am processing, I don't have any concrete statements to make about the things I'm making with them. (And since I'm not in Thesis I don't have one due! ha!). I know that I am interested in the idea of these brochures being mass-produced, that these war reenactments are in a way mass-produced as well (think Rauschenberg, copies of copies).
I have also been inserting these little soldiers onto postcards, displacing them from their context (which, if you consider it, is an already foreign context, as they are reenacting a piece of history today). A reenactment of the Green Mountain Boys documented and displaced.
Enough of that. Your comments are welcomed.

Art Through the Ages (this lame title is a reference to Gardner's)

I was recently at the Williams College Museum of Art for the Julie Mehretu exhibition "city sitings" I have drooled over a lot of Mehretu's drawings/paintings in books but have never seen any in person. They are large and beautiful. While I was there a woman approached me, she was probably in her 60's and she said "you look young, maybe you understand this stuff" (to be completely clear the "stuff" she was referring to was the art on the gallery walls). It was a brief conversation, mostly because I don't think this woman was really all that curious about this "stuff". She commented that she thought it was supposed to be a landscape in Africa, and that she didn't see any landscape. I suggested that it was not necessarily a concrete image that she was supposed to be viewing but a painting that draws from a number of sources, the urban environment, grids, maps, architectural plans. Then the lady said "okay" and proceeded to view the Europe and Midieval Collection.
I am really interested in the gap between generations of art viewing and art-making. I have felt this gap mostly in converstions I have with older artists. I was recently speaking with an artist in Boston, in the 1980's he was commissioned to make a number of bronze-cast public sculptures (i.e venus in a fountain or victorian lady with umbrella-that type of stuff) Listening to him talk about art, I realized that I really disagreed with his philosophy of art-making, so much so that I wondered if what I do as an artist is even close to what he does as an artist. The woman at Williams, she preferred to view European and Midieval art, (maybe she's looking at history). She assumed that because of my age, I could understand the "stuff" but that this "stuff" was beyond her, below her, whatever, just not for her. She lives in this world, so I think it is for her. It is a curious thing to consider how different generations of artists and art-viewers can engage in the same art.

J. Kosuth Meets Worlds Largest Chair (all in my head)

Gardner, Massachusetts is known as "chair city" and claims they have the worlds largest chair. This chair sits on the front lawn of Gardner's public elementary school, as far as I can tell there is no other reason to go to Gardner, MA than to see this chair. Since seeing the chair I cannot stop thinking about Joseph Kosuth, "One and Three Chairs" in which Kosuth presents a chair, an image of a chair and a dictionary definition of a chair. In this piece things like an object and the physical representation of it, a concept and the means of presentation of the concept are explored. The connection between language (definition) picture and actual physical object is presented to the viewer and the viewer quesitons what is real, what holds and makes meaning? Which element cannot stand on its own? If the defintion of the chair did not exist would I still know what a chair was for?
back to Gardner, MA: the largest chair in the world. Does that object, that no one can sit in, that exists in the yard of an elementary school really function as a chair and if it doesn't function as a chair does/can it possibly hold meaning as a chair? There's really no end or resolution to these thoughts so this blog ends here.

si vs. porcupine

Last night my dog tried to eat a porcupine. I don't know how the porcupine fared but it went badly for Si. This involved an emergency visit to the vet and a long night for the husky. Today he doesn't remember what happened and is eager to find more woodland creatures.

The Bennington Monument: Massive and Lofty

The other day I drove through my very first hometown, Bennington, VT where the Bennington Monument exists, in all its massive loftiness, (or so claim the tourist brochures). The Bennington Monument is 306 feet tall and for the price of 2 dollars one can take a thrifty ride on an elevator to 200 feet. At 200 feet you can see NY, VT, MA and NH and on the North side of the monument there are fossils of crustaceans in the rock. The Battle of Bennington which the monument commemorates was fought on NY ground, and the place of the monument was the destination of the British troops in need of supplies. Seth Warner and the Green Mountain Boys ended it before the battle moved onto VT land...etc.etc (insert history lesson here). The quote by General Stark "live free or die, death is not the worst of all evils" (adopted by NH as their license plate bligitty blinger) was spoken in a speech after the battle at the location of the Bennignton Monument. It's cool. you should see it.

I (heart) Midway

Tuesday was my last day as an intern at Midway Contemporary Art.
I started interning with Midway last September and worked mostly in the research library, which is so brilliant. My last few weeks were spent in busy preparation for the Midway benefit; writing, painting, hauling newspapers, etc.
Megan gave me pep talks that changed my life and at the end of it all I ate a scrambled egg and lobster sandwich--Great internship. More information on Midway, their capable staff, excellent library and exhibitions can be found at
midwayart.org

Freeman Brothers

I have recently attained the highly coveted and glorified position of assistant at Freeman Brothers Studio. I've been working on a sweet mold of a life-size deer head for Nathaniel Freeman, a former professor of mine at CVA.

Nathaniel and his wife Emily are super nice and cool and they have a website you should check out www.freemanbros.com (Nathaniel and Emily aren't really brothers).

Word to Sue Tompkins

For my internship I was writing a bit about Sue Tompkins and thought I'd share with all of you, faithful and eager readers.
Sue Tompkins has seriously interesting work. It's about language and meaning and words and images that are a part of our daily lives, collaged together exhausting their perceived meaning and ascribing new meanings (maybe). Communication is unstable, written, spoken, visual and Tompkins work is all about it, words are nuanced...
There are far more eloquently written things to be read about Tompkins' work, google her, or pick up Frieze from April 2006.
and look at one of her performances here http://youtube.com/watch?v=Beaf9PovFyA

D.Q. The double threat

My website (http://suzemahoney.com) was made by Diana Quenomoen, she has skills.
LOOK!!!!! http://dianaquenomoen.com double threat double threat!!

fake post

this is not for real.

schvarts vs. yale

For her senior Thesis project Aliza Shvartz claims to have artificially inseminated herself repeatedly and subsequently induced miscarriages for the past nine months. Her project exists as documentation. It exists in the telling and re-telling and, if she were allowed to show her work in Yale's undergraduate show, it was proposed to be a large cube of blood (matter from her miscarriages) wrapped in plastic.
Shvartz has reportedly been banned from her thesis show as she refused to admit that her project was a "work of fiction", that she in fact had never inseminated herself or induced miscarriages and that no human blood would be exhibited in her work.
Yale conducted a scientific test and found no traces of human blood in her project. After a week, Shvartz is still silent on the subject.

I am not so concerned with whether Shvartz actually inseminated and induced. (Although I think it's stupid, and unhealthy, physically, mentallly, hormonally, etc. to do so) I am mostly interested in the play between the artist and the institution that is highlighted in this controversy. Shvartz, at one point must have had to submit a proposal for her senior thesis. I am curious as to the nature of the proposal. If it were an accurate description of what she claims to have been doing with herself for the past nine months, why did Yale let her proceed? If her work is about creating and sustaining a myth (which i think it is) than admitting that she never did any of these things would be an end to her myth, furthermore, if Yale knows, through scientific testing that there is no human blood in her project than why do they not allow her to remain silent on the subject and present her work?

Joesph Beuys. An artist whose entire career was based off of his own myth; his plane crashes, inidigenous people save him by wrapping him in felt and fat and feeding him yogurt and for the next 30 years he makes work with felt, fat, sausages etc.

I am not in defense of Shvarts' project, but I do defend her right as an artist not to change her work at the demand of an institution.

I like what this person has to say http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/24667