So, I was on such a good role with writing everyday until visitors came, I turned 30, and we were in a rush to get Carolyn Porter and I's Artist Conversation night up and running. I will defer to Carolyn's blog to cover Guggenheim Elsewhere which took over the store and window of Elsewhere and spilled lovingly into the sidewalk. Upstairs was a combination of Guggenheim and Elsewhere..almost at odds. My room or installation, Excavation and Restoration, turned out great with the walls restored in fabric and the floors done the same. I have included a few images in the photo section. I think the experience of emptying this room and then restoring it to an inviting state was the reward for me. The last day I was at Elsewhere I saw the real boy, Shalin, heading into the space with a friend and the record player clicked on. It was what I wanted the space to be, a refug and play to pause from the over stimulation that is the heart of Elsewhere. I would like to know how long this place stays empty, what fills the space and who spends time in the space. I felt like there was a bit of a ease and permission to make the space what each individual would like. In some ways, it is really a place for the Elsewhere residents to sit. I have spent the last week back in Austin thinking about Elsewhere, all its inhabits and the objects as members of some sort of object family. I know that I will not be updating this blog often or checking in, but I feel so confident that place will not leave me.
Horoscopes by Misty the Mystic…..
Leo
7/23-8/22
This is your month to shine as bright as all the stars put together with 100000000 candle light power. You will find many that love you and none that try to poison your cake. Enjoy the heat. You will be happiest if you take everyone to the pond.
Virgo
8/23-9/22
Although you do not compare to the light that is radiating off the Leos…you are still OK. Try to get your finances in order. This seems impossible but a little easier if you rob the meanys that work the counter at the Green Bean. They will be too cool to report you.
Libra
9/23-10/22
As things start to cool off, you will find your warm fuzzy sweatshirt and bury yourself under layers of sheets with your sweetheart. Now is the time to really invest your relationship. Try to not be a prick and think more of the fact that you don’t want to grow old by yourself in a nursing home with really dry food and a dirty pair of pants.
Scorpio
10/23-11/21
Put your shirt on and remember that no one likes a crazy naked Scorpio running around. Although you might think this will help with your interpersonal relationship it may do you better to think of the good luck that will be coming midmonth. Take a walk and keep your eyes peeled for pennies.
Sagittarius
11/22-12/21
New doors are opening for you this month. Keep your head up and look under all rocks you come across. It may also help you to keep a spare set of keys in the bushes…with many drunk nights in your future, you wouldn’t want to get locked out.
Capricorn
12/22-1/19
You are on your way to becoming a strawberry shortcake
queen…keep up the good work. This sounds like a big feat but it is attainable. More importantly you are passing your good karma all over the place. Try to practice patience with your younger siblings and only drown them in a nearby lake if they mouth off to your mom.
Aquarius
1/20-2/18
Wow, a new year is exactly what you want and need to change your run of luck. After the downpour of death and destruction all around you, I can see how easy it would be to throw in the towel….but think of all the kittens that are relying on you. Once the moon has completed the rotation, you will find a special key to open your beau’s heart. Use it!
Pisces
2/19-3/20
Run, run, run away from that responsibility you cannot handle. Your health is the most important thing and you can do no one any good if you are buried behind a desk. After a quick trip on the 30th, you will know what I mean and thanks the heavens.
Aries
3/21-4/19
Stay strong Aries…. It is hard to resist the carrot as it dangles from the stick but you must head north. You will find luck in the eye of a large mammal so keep a spare rib eye in your truck. It also may be to your advantage to pay all your bills early, it looks like that shit head uncle of yours will be back to empty your account.
Taurus
4/20-5/20
What can Misty the Mystic tell you…you are already fabulous. Find additional luck on the road this month and try to hook up with as many attractive people that cross your path…a good romp is in order to make it through the crazy adventure that comes with the fall this year. Also, keep your eye on the 15th, 29th and 31st. You will find money raining down on you.
Gemini
5/21-6/21
Holidays are not the time to try to rearrange your families dynamic…so it is best that you do it now! If you ask your spouse to add a bit more to your weekly allowance you may be able to put shoes on your kids feet. With the moon rising, you will be able to make those secret plushy dreams come true…..beware of the pins.
Cancer
6/22-7/22
This month could be your greatest ever. Find amazing amounts of comfort in your pet and your favorite dishes. You will be persuaded by a stranger to go on a trip to the coast. You should kick your heals up and revert back to being a 4 year old. Also, keep an eye out for you long lost friend to resurface near the middle of the month.
As I have already mentioned there are undetectable rules that somehow get verbally passed through the halls of elsewhere. But even with these rules (that are necessary for some sort of order) people place more stringent ones upon themselves. For example, Cameron is working on a book project…he is typing (on an old school typewriter) all the text from books he randomly selects from our vast library which has been underlined. Each book is a chapter. I just love that there is a challenge, a mission in most projects that are floating through elsewhere. Nothing is simple.
I began to collect the fabric that will be the replica of the walls and finished one wall today. The 10 layers that are making up the 'fabric wall' serve as patches or remake portions of the wall. This will be the meat of the work. It will take layers and layers to get the same effect as the walls but I like the challenge. This will help sharpening my skills in pattern making, fitting and also making fabric into life layers. It makes sense that would be followed by treatment of the floors and ceiling as well.
Upcoming…The Artist Conversation’s collaborative project between Carolyn and myself: Guggenheim Elsewhere
I may have jumped the gun with yesterday’s entry. Mostly I needed to get my list out and done. One personal mission of this residency is to track my artistic process; understand it a bit more. This process discovery is followed by close analysis, mostly voiced here. I now know; I need lists. I need lists of small things to quickly get accomplished in order to sort out the individual parts of the piece. It is a way of really computing in my head the next step and keep me on track and clear headed. I thought before coming here that I simply acquired a material that inspired me and ran with that material. After having so many raw materials (not to mention, lots of found objects and loaded materials) at my disposal, I find that the acquiring, taking ownership, and then recreating is much more valid to the process and is a huge part. This elsewhere work is not a result of finding a material, but a space, and part of this space is the installation directly across from my little clean, newly shellaced walled room.
Across the hall is a piece by Nick Stedman, one of the first residences here. He started with an emptied space (due to the space being used by a local film shot in that space) that matched mine. He chose to fill it…fill it because he felt like most of the spaces here were inaccessible and dangerous. Under all of the clutter and piles, I discovered his hidden work. At first it blended and this, like so many other spaces at elsewhere, kept me at bay. After spending more time in my space and making the decision to work across and in opposition to Nick’s work, it made sense that my space would evolve as it is…soft, clean, comfortable, and inviting. As a reaction to Nick’s work, and also thinking of him as a kind of silent collaborator, I am imagining his intent. The only thing I have to confirm it is an artist box he left behind. There is such a mystery behind Sylvia (the store owner and Georges grandmother) but I feel like I am just as curious about this former elsewhere resident in the first round of people’s time here. As the space has evolved just in my week and a half, I can’t imagine how different our experiences are just in the short 3-year period.
Overall list of things to do:
Fix windows to stay open
Build curtains that match the interior of the room
Outside made of new fabric wall
Scrap, shellac walls
Rebuild interior walls in fabric
Think about image outside window???
Clean lobby to see both my space and Nick's space
Build record player table for interior
Floor??? Something soft, somethingl ight
Secondary List:
Gather the samples to make into photographs
Make book out of leather samples
Animate the book into a giff
Stuff the yellow man to be a crazy sculpture
Pully outside window with messages
I decided today that I would shellac these beautiful walls...so I am going to scrap tomorrow and roll in the evening. Jay has done this in his room and I think it will help keep the layers that are here in tact for a while longer. They are peeling away everyday. I am feeling torn about doing this and hope it is not a big distraction to other decisions that I need to make. I did find some fabrics that I think match the walls close and I will try to use this to mimic the patterns already there. The big question is if I am going to fill the space. I would like for it to be a sacred space and it feels like sacred here would be empty, clean, cool but I don't want to react to the entire space in this personal way, or maybe I do. So my tomorrow mission is to keep up the mission or quick reactions to this tiny, sweet space. Work from instinct.
Most of today was spent away from elsewhere. There was a work break through this morning with the Macam Scope Camera that JJ lent me; this allowed a closer inspection of my beautiful bathroom walls. I love this camera. It was a new way to see the layers of paint, the cracks in the wall, and even my own face! I have felt really apprehensive to try new media like this at home. It seems mostly overwhelming and also very literal to me. This new plastic blue camera has given me some sort of new confidence or maybe interest. So I shot zillions of pictures and videos and more pictures. I used a caster to level the camera, then a plastic FedEx truck. I loved the result and am not sure if they are anything more than just closer looks at details in this space I may normally miss.
We then swam in the creek all afternoon, we returned and made a huge dinner.
Work break through came late this evening. I decided the toilet was not suitable for the space and that I did not want to cover it…I wanted to remove it. So it is gone but not forgotten: the smelly hole that is left seems to be full of rotten air looking for a way out. I have placed a plug on it for now and hope it improves tomorrow. I like the space so much better and as Pritika said, maybe this will break the bathroom curse that is trailing me. I am really coming to terms with the fact that I am going to let this space give to me, I am going to follow the lead and inspiration of the piece that will come out of spending time here. I am not going to try to tightly shove it into my current body or follow the trail of where I left off at home. This alone seems really important for me to state. This makes a different in how the piece will even get decided upon. So, today was good and I am excited to get up tomorrow and make some really solid decisions about where this is going.
Wow, somehow at 1:30am this building is quiet tonight.
I am closing in on my first complete week here and thinking a lot about what I am working on and why, what I want to gain from this experience and how it applies to my current body of work. Now I am going to try to erase all these ideals and just work. With help from Jay (look to images) a window has been restored to my little bathroom. It has changed it so much and I am looking forward to checking it out in the light. I have never replaced old windows like this and it was good to learn.
Process: I have realized that I am accustomed to working from a material that I find and love. I work it into an idea, which generally falls into my overall body of investigation. Here I am given a plethora of materials and am not sure the way to really make them mine. In fact I am not suppose to necessarily make them mine. Instead I have found a space. I am going to try to work this space the same way. The difference is that the space varies from the material because it is already embedded with information and it has the ability to create an overall mood and experience in a bigger way than a material. So....with this in mind, I am going to work with it as a material and see how my process evolves. It is funny to track these processes so meticulously; I have never had time for this before. Another thing that I am really concentrating on it the fact that I am at a place that is not a sterol white studio in the environment of my regular life. I am at a place that comes equipped with a new exploration and a new set of interests. So I have to really decide if this installation is for me, elsewhere, my portfolio, or for future ideas or what….
Color exploration: As if this place will fix all the mysteries of art making… I want to figure out some of my unclear thought on color. Jaime and Chris shocked me a few months ago when they pointed out how much color I use in my work ( and not in my house remodeling) while I was expressing to them my FEAR of it. So I am off to try to use blue. It seems right for this room and space and it is a color I usually exclude. Let’s see if color can be cleared from my list of scariness while I am here.
Today I think I wanted to talk about the freedom to create in the physical and mental place of elsewhere. I am surprised by the fact that there is very little pressure for me here to complete a specific project now. Mostly this is a daily pressure that is self-imposed. I think the lose of it here stems from the fact that both the directors, Steph and George, can either be found (or heard) discussing upcoming artist or plans for elsewhere, reorganizing functional and non functional spaces, or working across from one another at their desks. They work around the clock with the result feeling like a cocoon of creativity and obsession all balled into one. (By the way, I had decided throughout the course of the day that Steph and George will have to wait till the end, I will be able to share so many more stories of them by then) This also fuels the rest of us to work like this. With an unseen clock and constant live bodies working on their own investigations, I feel like there will be more time tomorrow not to mention how much time I have compared to at home. I know I am less than a quarter of a way through my time here so I guess that helps to keep my usually strict (and sort of relentless) work ethic at bay also. I am able to keep remembering that this is a place for me to think.... and collect, process, gather and move outside of my normally white walled studio. I feel as if I am taking full advantage.
So although I just finished ranting about work ethic, I spent most of my day either exploring on a bike ride, sitting at the Green Bean coffee shop emailing about the CRL, or talking to the other artists. I have purposely avoided much mention of them. Mostly, this is because a communal place like this could quickly turn into a soap opera, especially with young interns in the mix. I am really thinking of this blog as a time to process random thoughts on my work and the place. I want to have a record of the experience but feel like keeping up with all the household drama would weigh me down. So although I find some of the best moments have been chatting with the interesting people here, I will work at keeping them unnamed.
