This installation was created for the lexington Art league, a contemporary art space in Lexington Kentucky.
The work is made of rip stop nylon, dowles and custom connectors and is sited in a 20′ X 30′ X 15′ room.
“Inside Out”, a site specific installation.
Many thanks to the staff and volunteers at LAL for their support of this project.
Some images of the finished piece
Some images below of the construction process
This installation is made from a series of tetrahedrons, ideal solids made of 4 connected triangular planes. Inspired by tent and kite construction, the tetrahedrons are made of dowels and tensile fabric panels assembled with light weight connectors. I am interested in how the repetition of a single shape, varied in its enclosure and orientation, assembled creates a crystalline landscape. The experience of this landscape changes as one moves around the piece.
I selected white fabric for the installation because I want to emphasize the shade and projected shadows in the work. The white panels also reflect the subtle color shifts that take place as the light changes over a day. The triangle and the tetrahedron are remarkably efficient and strong forms…. forms that are the basis of the visionary work of the engineer and designer Buckminster Fuller whose work influences this piece. I am interested in how one can build light forms that compact and ship efficiently and yet deploy to activate and define a space by expanding when assembled.
These are process images of the installation- full size material studies and models.
final Materials for the project are 5′ long 1/2″ diameter dowels, rip stop nylon, tubing, hardware.The final installation will be in a 20′ X 30′ room with 14′ high cielings.
Schematic Studies
This work engages a community of people to weave strands of ribbon around trees or poles to make a series of large-scale textile installations. Expanding and radically transforming the concept of the maypole dance, this work builds on my installations made of hand- crocheted rope and adds the potential for choreographed movement. This piece is both a performance and a work of visual art.
My goal is to create striking tapered forms with varying graphic patterns. I want to make these works in series so it is important that I can vary the weaving technique to create a range of formal qualities. I intend to create a number of works for different venues.
Receive Vermont Arts Council Creation Grant
September 3, 2012
Hurray! I am thrilled to have support from the Vermont arts council for an innovative installation I am developing. This installation radically transforms the concept of the maypole dance…a group of people use a movement system to perform/construct a series of large outdoor textile installations.
The Brattleboro Museum will present the work -likely in spring 2014.
here is a design/sketch (very rough) of what one such construction might look like.
Below some early images of the installation process and of the finished installation. See previous post for the text of Miriam Sagan’s poem which is incised on the steel plates seen on the floor.
Soledad is one of 2 installations based on poems by Miriam Sagan in the exhibit “Time Pieces: Wendover Landing”. The exhibit remains up through August 11, 2012. Soledad is made of ripstop nylon, wood dowels, ribbon and steel.
The images presented below include studio shots taken during fabrication and a photoshop image of the installation as it will look in the gallery. I will install the work in the week between May 21st and may 26th.
I plan to attend the opening so say hello if you happen to be there.
Miriam Sagan’s poem:
Soledad
reading in bed
in the little trailer
at the edge of town
a crescent moon
hangs
over millions of acres
of darkness
desert sunrise–
Venus, burnished…
and everything
I don’t understand
and all of
desire
rolls towards me
like the waves
of a primeval sea.
My artist’s statement:
I created the installation “Soledad” in direct response to the poem by Miriam Sagan. I read Sagan’s poem looking for imagery, dualities, and contrasts in the text that could guide my search for a visual approach to the installation. I noticed the expanding scale in the poem – text, bed, trailer, town, millions of acres, Venus, all of desire- and I expressed this idea with the chevron form of the wall pieces and their enlarging size as they are distributed across the wall. I noticed the transition in Sagan’s imagery from darkness towards light and from the earthly realm of human enclosure and habitation towards allusions to the celestial and distant time. The presence of a text -implied by the phrase “reading in bed”- occupies in the poem the grounded real of human settlement as the reader is nested within the bed, trailer, and town. I have therefore incised the text of the poem on dark steel bars – a material that has weight and that is associated with buildings. The white fabric wall forms suggest the celestial realm, the coming of day and the imagined waves of the “primordial sea”. These stretched fabric forms blend into the white of the gallery wall, a wall that can be understood as a metaphor for the infinite space and potential of the creative imagination, which includes for me “everything I don’t understand” and “all of desire”. The fabrics forms are pulled taught and are anchored to the floor by ribbons that connect them to the steel bars. As there is a functional and formal connection between the grounded steel text elements and the floating light forms of the fabric, so too I imagine delicate threads connecting the reader to their thoughts of celestial bodies, the coming of day, primordial times, their emotions and their imagination.
I approached the fabrication of the installation by using materials and methods that were new to me. This installation is made of rip-stop nylon, birch dowels, grommets, ribbon and steel. The chevron forms are very lightweight tensile structures influenced by tent and kite construction. The constraints presented by “Soledad” – the distance of Albuquerque from my studio in Vermont, the limited shipping budget, limited time on site to install and the limited loads that the gallery ceiling could support- pushed me to make an installation that is lightweight, collapses for shipping and can be deployed relatively quickly. Because of my experience in architecture, I think about how fabrication and construction influence form and how the constraints of a project – site, budget, shipping, logistics, time, available labor – can serve to inspire and stir up a creative process rather than undermine it.
Photos of “Surface Tension” and “Points of View” as installed at BCA Center, Burlington VT
September 15, 2011
These images are of two recent installations of mine created for a solo show in Burlington Vermont that was in place January and February of 2011. Ken Burris did a terrific job of photographing these two room size installations.
The black crocheted piece is called “Surface Tension” and is made of over 20,000 ft of hand crocheted black rope. The conical forms are supported via a counterweight system, crocheted sacks loaded with river stones. The room in which this piece is sited is approximately 26′ X 36′ X 10′ .
The Bamboo and reflective tape artwork is titled “Points of View”. Blue reflective tape was mounted at level on a scaffold of bamboo tetrahedrons. This work alludes to the way water finds its own level and to our human tendency to impose order on a landscape. Visitors to this installation were given headlamps with which to view the work.
"Surface Tension", Black Polyester Hand-crocheted rope, River Stones, Carabeeners,dimensions variable, 2011
"Surface Tension", Black Polyester Hand-crocheted rope, River Stones, Carabeeners,dimensions variable, 2011
"Points of View", Painted Bamboo poles, Reflective Blue Tape, Connectors, Dimensions Variable, 2011
"Points of View", Painted Bamboo poles, Reflective Blue Tape, Connectors, Dimensions Variable, 2011
