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.

"Elements" and "Blue Planet"

Recently I have found myself in the thick of organization plans for WCA's Elements: An Eco-Art Conference to be held in Berkeley in June. Although I have been interested in artistic approaches to landscape/nature/the environment since I started drawing naive mountain landscapes as a child in Western Pennsylvania, I have only recently discovered the contemporary art movement, Eco-art, that meshes environmental activism, an ecological perspective, and one's art practice. A combination of innovative and pragmatic approaches characterizes most eco-art work. Most eco-artists appear to be strongly motivated to serve the environment (for example, Lynne Hull actually lists bird and animal species as her clients) and to communicate effectively with the public (community participation has become a key feature of many projects). See my new PowerPoint to find out more about eco-art: "Eco-art: What Is It?"

Dovetailing with the conference, the Pacific Region of Women's Caucus for Art is also sponsoring an exhibition focusing on the theme of water called Blue Planet, curated by Kim Abeles at SOMArt in San Francisco. For more information on the conference and the exhibition visit the ecoartactivism blog.

From the Center: Now!

"From the Center: Now!" opened at Woman Made Gallery in Chicago last Friday -- I wasn't there, of course, so it was an interesting exercise to think about what went on and how everything must have looked. The exhibition was juried by Lucy Lippard, who revisited the question she posed in her 70s anthology, From the Center: Feminist Essays on Women's Art. It was kind of exciting to think that someone who wrote a book I had just been referring to while teaching my contemporary art class had chosen my work for a show! I don't really present myself as a feminist (too much to do walking the walk, I suppose), so it is interesting to me that my work keeps showing up in women's shows ("Material Girls" at the Riverside Art Museum a few years ago).

In any event, I will be going to Chicago on February 10 and will be at the artists' opening on February 12, in addition to attending the Women's Caucus for Art and College Art Association national conventions. I have never been to Chicago (which seems particularly odd for someone who went to school in Ann Arbor) and I am really looking forward to spending time at the Art Institute with all the Impressionist paintings and whatever they are exhibiting in the new wing. I also signed up for a Frank Lloyd Wright architectural tour planned for CAA members, and there will be lots of other interesting things to do.

Oh yes -- the overcoat is ready, the scarves and gloves assembled, and the new boots are broken in!

News of the World

Time marches on and I am currently in a show at PCC, where I teach Contemporary Art. The show is called "News of the World: A fraction of the artists who teach at PCC" -- it will be up through September 30 at the Pasadena City College Art Gallery. Here is the front of the card:



The interesting thing about this is that it features a photo of Howard Carter and his team of archaeologists opening the fourth chamber of King Tut's tomb. What this has to do with the show I'm not sure, but in two weeks I will be teaching Egypt in the other class I teach, the art history survey from ancient to modern. . . .

The show itself is a group show that includes a lot of very interesting work by other adjuncts in the Visual and Media Arts Division at PCC. I submitted a small photo/textile piece called "Arroyo rakusu". Rakusus are symbolic, handsewn bib-like wearable patchwork squares that stand in for robes and symbolize Buddhists' refuge in the precepts. I like to think about taking refuge in nature, and the greenery of the Arroyo Seco is refreshing so soon after the fires.

Bringing the Past To Light

A photo (by Kevin Hass/Cidne Hart) of the Charles Lummis home in Highland Park, site of the AAC's spring installation project. Lummis was a Harvard-educated man of letters who walked to Los Angeles during the late 19th century and proceeded to learn about the local indigenous culture and live a cultivated life in his own singular fashion. This is the home he built by hand from concrete and river rock -- the center of his literary activities, explorations into photography, and "noises" (meetings of his bohemian salon). We have received over two dozen proposals and are looking forward to an intriguing show. Details to come.

The Re-Discovery Tour

Sunday was the Arroyo Arts Collective Re-Discovery Tour, and a good time was had by all, as far as I know. I showed work at Suzanne Siegel's home at the foot of Mt. Washington -- Suzanne's daughter Rachel Siegel and Kay Brown were also guest artists at our location. I installed some of my domestic-themed works in Suzanne's vintage bathroom -- one panel of my "Arroyo Seco Watershed and Surrounding Area" shower curtain in front of the bathtub and several textile pieces on washcloths and a bathmat. Also a few diapers from my "porte bonheur" installation, "Road Trip" (my car window piece), and some other textile pieces in the kitchen. I was pleased with the relatedness of the work and look forward to making more of the textile pieces soon. As soon as I have photos of the new pieces I will post them -- photos of the shower curtain and diaper installations are already here somewhere on this blog! (look under installations).

$2 Show at i5

Recently I was invited to participate in a show at the i5 Gallery in the Brewery arts complex in east Los Angeles. Mat Gleason is curating the show -- he sent out $2 bills to one hundred artists and asked them to make wall mountable artwork. The $2 bill has the face of Thomas Jefferson on it -- so naturally I thought of Sally Hemings. I did a little background research -- which turned out merely to be scratching the surface -- on the whole controversy over the parentage of Sally's children. I discovered a lot of interesting things -- for instance, that Sally was the half-sister of Jefferson's wife, and only one-eighth African. So the free children and the slave children shared three quarters of their genetic profile and closely resembled each other. Several of the slave children walked off the plantation once they grew up and subsequently "passed" for white, living elsewhere where their origins were unknown. Others remained near Monticello, living as African-Americans. I decided to decorate my $2 bill with information about the Hemings side of the family, as well as a picture of one of Jefferson's descendants.

The i5 Gallery is located at 2100 N. Main Street #A-9, Los Angeles 90031. The exhibition opens July 11 with a reception July 12 from 8-10 pm. All works are priced at $200, $100 going to benefit the gallery. It should be interesting.

Christmas Past at Future

Christmas Past at Future was a satisfying show -- it took nearly eight hours to install and the cards and other ephemera attracted a lot of positive attention from interested viewers. HOWEVER, chaos broke out! While I was in St. Louis there were heavy rains in Los Angeles, a leak appeared above the display wall in the gallery, and Amy had to quickly take the show down -- before I got a chance to photograph it. Fortunately a week or two ago I was able to turn up one snapshot taken by a friend of a friend. Here is an edited version that shows about half the wall:

Christmas Past at Future

Tonight my installation opens at Future Studio, Amy Inouye and Stuart Rapeport's gallery in Highland Park (aka Home of Chicken Boy). Here is a description of the show taken from the press release:

After World War II, sending Christmas cards became a popular way to wish friends well and to keep up with news of new homes and growing families. While dismantling the contents of her parents’ house, artist Deborah Thomas discovered a trove of boxes filled with every Christmas card her parents ever received, beginning in 1948. Appreciating the design and fabrication of these cards – many including singularly whimsical images common to that time, custom family representations, and individualized engraving -- she decided that the cards deserved to be displayed once more during the holiday season. In addition to revisiting holiday festivities of the 50s and 60s, her installation will be an exploration of memory, time and self-perception. Model trains, music and other ephemera will also add to the mid-century holiday atmosphere during “Christmas Past at Future.”

Future Studio is located at 5558 Figueroa in Highland Park; the show opens tonight (December 8) from 7 - 10; also open on Sunday afternoons from noon to 4 or by appointment (323 254-4565 or amy@futurestudio.com.

Arroyo Arts Collective Discovery Tour

On Sunday, October 18, I will be participating in the Arroyo Arts Collective 15th Annual Discovery Tour. I will be showing some of my recent mixed media pieces and a few surprises at Suzanne Siegel's home at 4563 Marmion Way in Highland Park, from 10 to 6. For more information on the Tour, visit the Arroyo Arts Collective website. If you would like to see examples of my work online, please visit my website. (Both links are listed on the right of this page.) The Tour is always an adventure, but if you don't have time for the whole thing, please feel free anyway to drop by Suzanne's to say hello.

Buddha garden design project

I have been working for a number of months on a garden design project for a client who wanted a steep slope outside her dining room windows to be turned into a garden. The garden has finally been planted, though there are still some details to be taken care of -- filling the pot with white roses, weather treating the bronze Buddha statue, and letting the plants take hold. I have been documenting the project all along -- here are some photos --

Before -- showing the rampant ivy, weeds and sprinkler pipe:



After -- a close-up of the Buddha on its stone platform surrounded by succulents and groundcovers.

Cry Me a River

Edith Abeyta invited me to be a part of her upcoming project, "Salty: Three Tales of Sorrow" -- comprised of three installations, "Cry Me a River," "Cake & Soup" and "Heart Follows Bird." "Cry Me a River" will run at El Camino College Art Gallery, Torrance, CA, November 19 through December 14. Each of 50 women artists is decorating a hankie provided by Edith along with a souvenir blue ballpoint pen to use on the hankie. My contribution is called "Six Generations of My Family Lived in Fayette County, Pennsylvania" and includes photos from Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania featuring the falls of the Youghiogheny River, a vintage photo of my family sitting on a rock near the river in 1955, and a quotation from a recent environmental study stating that the watershed area of the Youghiogheny has the highest acid rain levels in Pennsylvania. Here is a photo of my hankie:

Upcoming show at La Sierra University

So "Arroyo Seco Watershed and Surrounding Area" will go on display starting Monday, October 8 at Brandstater Gallery, La Sierra University, in Riverside. It is part of an exhibition called "The Art and Science of Climate Change," which runs through November 1.

Opening Reception -- October 8 from 5:30 - 7:30 pm, with an exhibition program starting at 6:15. For more information, the Gallery phone number is 951 785-2959. Hours: Mon - Thurs 10 am - 4 pm; Sunday 2 - 5 pm.

Driving directions: Exit 91 east at Pierce Street and turn left or 91 West at Magnolia Ave and turn right at Pierce Street. Merge onto Riverwalk Parkway and continue until Sierra Vista Avenue and turn left. Proceed about 1/4 mile then turn left onto Carmine Street. Left onto Blehm Street which curves into Quiet Lane. Turn left into the first driveway. The visual art center and Brandstater Gallery are on the right.

New installation statement

Summer has been a bit more relaxing -- although I have some projects in process, things have calmed down since my dad's house sold. As far as art goes, I have been focusing on putting together a new installation portfolio. Although I have been working pretty steadily on one or another installation project over the past few years, for some reason I never actually thought of my installations as a coherent body of work, which, in fact, they are. So I wrote a new artist statement referring specifically to the installations. Here is is:

"In my installations I enjoy experimenting in both conceptual and material dimensions, working with themes such as family and the remembered past, or local landscape and the environment. I create each piece by combining photographic images (either from my own or found photos), familiar domestic objects (a shower curtain or diapers, for example), and layers of found text. Imagery, word play and metaphorical suggestion work together visually and poetically, conjuring multidimensional meaning. In addition, each piece is grounded in lived experience – retrieved from memory and/or presented to engage the viewer intimately and move beyond the constraints of intellect to a revised perspective.
In constructing these pieces I usually establish formal groupings of the collected images and materials according to patterns and repetitions only marginally related to the content of the piece. Although the contents of each installation are mundane and typically domestic or local, the pieces themselves speak to larger social or environmental concerns. My goal is to bring the viewer with me as I shift emphasis away from subjective content and personal affect to a more suggestive and universal zone of perception neither purely representational nor non-representational."

New photo of Arroyo Seco shower curtain installation

Here is a view of "Arroyo Seco Watershed and Surrounding Area," my installation from the EcoArt show at Barnsdall.

EcoArt installation - shower curtain redux

The EcoArt show now at Barnsdall Junior Gallery is a group show with art by women interested in environmental issues. I was able to revisit "Arroyo Seco watershed and surrounding environs" -- a water/shower curtain project that I began during the "Intimate Geography" show last spring. This time I doubled the square footage of the shower curtain(s) and made some adjustments to the fabrication process in hopes that the ink won't discolor. I also spent a lot of time modifying the arrangement of the photos and documentation. The photos were taken during the torrential rains of 2005, in and around the Arroyo Seco and Los Angeles River. I added documentation from various water companies in the area and a map, plus some photos of swimming pools to provide contrast with water flowing from the mountains into and through its channel.

Here are a few closeups of the new shower curtain:








































Here is some catalog commentary that explains the purpose of the piece:

My aim was to create an installation in which the viewer is prompted to recall an intimate relation with water (the shower), and where the scale (tiny) and number of photographs (multiples) challenge assumptions about traditional picturesque landscape presentation. I also hope questions about landscape and power, the act of looking, and specific local concerns about water rights come to mind. Who “owns” local water? Who channels or uses it at what price and to what end? By manipulating the way landscape is depicted and viewed, I want to question where a viewer stands, both literally and figuratively, in relation to landscape -- and what a more enlightened role might be in relation to the natural environment itself.

HAUSGUESTS

William Rabe and Nena Amsler of HAUS gallery recently put together a wonderful show called "HAUSguests" at the Brewery Project in order to raise money to help alleviate the suffering in Darfur. Each piece of art carried the name of a person -- the art works were the conceptual guests. I contributed a small installation called "Frances Jeane Crawford Thomas," consisting of a small towel bar with three huck towels (guest towels) bearing three vintage pictures of Grandmother -- sitting in the garden, in the side yard of the house in New Brighton, and at the kitchen sink.

Although the show has come down, William and Nena have photographed each work and posted the works online so that viewers can still buy art and participate in the fundraiser for Darfur. Please visit the show through the "HAUSguests online gallery" link at right and consider making a contribution.

Roses are Red. . . .

The past two months have been very hectic in the life department, but I have still been able to put up two small installations in two recent group shows. The first piece was for a Valentine show about food at the Acorn Gallery that was organized on the fly -- I put together an installation called "Sweet" that involved word and image play on the old "roses are red, violets are blue" rhyme. Here is what it looked like:



The first bag said "red", the second bag said "blue" and the third bag said "sweet."

"Material Girls" opening reception

Michael and I drove out for the opening of "Material Girls" in what turned into rain last Thursday evening. The show is very interesting -- several quite dramatic pieces, including two enormous embroidered white aprons hung from the ceiling, and a lot of good work. The museum employees installed "Porte bonheur," and it was a treat not to have to show up with a drill, contingency plans, etc. to get the thing on the wall! Here are a few photos of the rest of the show. I'm going to have to take more photos of my piece when we go back out to Riverside -- I didn't get any that look right. There will be a catalog of the show by the beginning of February and the show will remain up through March 10.

Material Girls to open the Riverside Art Museum

I just received cards for "Material Girls" -- the exhibition I have been invited to be part of at the Riverside Art Museum. There will be work in the show from 15 women artists working non-traditionally with fabric. The Museum itself is in a Julia Morgan building in the historic district of Riverside. I am to deliver the work during the week after Christmas (next week!). The reception will take place on Thursday, January 4 from 6-9 pm. The show runs until March 10. I can't wait to see the other artists' work -- a good show and an interesting venue. I am also very excited that my piece with Granddaddy's photos has been so well received. I wonder what he would think if he could know that his pictures were being shown in a museum in California? He really loved traveling to California every winter -- I have another series of beautiful slides he took while traveling. (Another project??) I wonder if he ever visited Riverside?