Backstory

So, the path to an art exhibition is not always as straight as one might imagine -- I thought I would share a few of the details here about how "Arroyo Seco Watershed and Surrounding Area" has fared in its evolving life as an eco-conscious installation about water, specifically about the water supply in my immediate area.

"Arroyo Seco" began life as an idea I had for an outdoor installation along the Pasadena gully of the same name. I was going to hang a shower curtain between some trees along the water that you could look through at the scenery in the area.


That never materialized, but I continued to think about the watershed and also about the conventions of traditional landscape composition that artists typically rely on.


I wanted to do something that would make people look at the natural surroundings differently and think about their relationship to water and the water supply with greater awareness.

Then winter came -- a very, very rainy winter. And the Arroyo Seco changed. It became inundated with water. I walked everywhere and shot all kinds of photos, experiencing more water in the usually dry gully than anyone might otherwise imagine possible. Long story short, I took lots of photos and used patterns of them on the shower curtain.

I have shown variations of "Arroyo Seco" in going on five exhibition spaces (Los Angeles, Riverside, Chicago and -- upcoming -- San Francisco). First I used only one shower curtain -- and learned the hard way that the colors of the photo ink were so fugitive that all of the pictures turned sepia when exposed to direct sunlight.

This was actually a lucky accident, because while I was reconstructing the shower curtain I decided to double its size -- and it looked a lot better with two curtains circling the rod instead of one. More recently, I sent it off to Chicago for a national show and somewhere during the installation process a small but crucial bit of hardware from the rod went its own separate way. As a result, as I discovered when I arrived at the gallery opening in Chicago, the curtain was installed without the vertical bar, a key visual element to the work. Oh, well. . . . Since, after subsequently combing the internet, I have lost all hope of finding another part, I will need to replace the whole rod -- perfect timing again, since the installation site in San Francisco has extremely high ceilings and the installers have been worried about how to properly hang "Arroyo Seco" in the space. So the third version of the work will involve a 108" D-shaped rod (big enough to display both curtains) that screws into the wall. No photos yet of course, but it will be interesting to experience the third version of this work.


"Arroyo Seco Watershed and Surrounding Area" will go on display as part of the exhibition Blue Planet: works exploring social, political and economic issues related to water, sponsored by Pacific Region Women's Caucus for Art and juried by Kim Abeles, at SOMARTS Cultural Center, 934 Brannan Street, San Francisco from June 19 through 26. Artist reception June 26, 5-7 pm.