Newton’s Apple / Gravity Installation

I worked on an apple installation this morning. I started small to get to know my materials better. I realized that the narrow rods are very bendy under the weight of the apples. I want them to be narrow so that they’re both nearly invisible and they don’t destroy the fruit. I want to do a much bigger one. I need to figure out how to create an armature that can withstand the weight without being too visible. I also want a little more blue sky, is that too much to ask?! The apples do look great in the environment, and I appreciate that they’re the state fruit of Washington where I live. Of course, there is tons of conceptual baggage to deal with, with apples. Right now I don’t really care about that!

Apple Collection for a New Installation

Temporary outdoor intervention going in on Friday. Stay tuned for more photos.

Today’s Artist Statement

My current work maps weight and time in relation to place and space. I use a variety of materials like string, flagging tape, paper, cardboard, liquid, glass, steel, and rock to make my mark. Each location where I create my installations is chosen carefully. I consciously sense a place through the act of meditation and living with it. The work I make is in response to the one-of-a-kind relationship I'm experiencing with each place at that moment. Once an intervention is complete, it is quickly removed. It becomes a memory of a relationship shared with the place itself.

The idea of "place" is important — what are the qualities of a location that make a person feel grounded? What is home? How big is it? How transient is this feeling—the feeling of belonging and of being a part of something bigger than oneself? I believe that having a sense of place is impermanent. The old cliché holds a lot of truth: "You can never go back home." But I also believe that it's possible to nurture, appreciate, and underscore these fleeting experiences. I do this with my art-making practice. 

Signal Fire Residency: Water

Here are some more images from my residency with Signal Fire. It occurs to me that the work from this residency revolves quite naturally around themes of nature: earth, water, fire. Look in earlier posts for earth, and stay tuned for fire images to come soon! Mazatzal Wilderness, Tonto National Forest, Arizona

Signal Fire Residency: Cairn Village

I just returned from a week backpacking in the Arizona wilderness. I was on a residency with Signal Fire, a fantastic organization that takes artists into the wild to think about the relationships between art and nature and landscape. Each day, one participant led a “deep play” exercise for the group. When it was my turn, I invited everyone to collaborate to create a cairn village in the riverbed. The whole process was meditative and mindful. We worked in silence, and then surveyed our work. In the spirit of “leave no trace”, I tore it down once I got the photos. I was conflicted, because despite the ideal of leaving no trace I’m drawn to the comfort that cairns bring. A cairn represents other human interaction, coming upon one indicates that I’m not lost. Even though I might be the only person for miles, there is a kind of conversation that happens through cairns between strangers and over time. There’s something really special about that relationship. Stay tuned for more images to come. Mazatzal Wilderness, Tonto National Forest, Arizona, USA

Today’s Project: Shadow Play #01

Finally! After at least a month of non-stop rain, it’s #sunny! I’ve been collecting #shadow images of my #dogs for a while now. This is the first set of shadow #stencils from today’s work. Gotta try some different surfaces and color combinations. #shadow #art #sun #dogs #stencil

Inspiring Artist: Danae Stratou

Desert Breath is a stunning earth work in Egypt, completed in 1997 by artist @DanaeStratou and her team. It’s pretty much just displaced sand piled into a spiraling pattern on the desert floor. What’s fascinating and surprising is that it has remained intact almost 20 years after it’s completion. I’ve lived in the American Southwest and also in the Northwest — one desert environment, and one mostly forest and water. It’s interesting how time affects each of these types of landscapes differently. It moves so much slower in the desert. Human marks can last decades, even centuries. But in the forest, all that extra water allows nature’s processes of decay and growth to happen much faster. Human imprints can be wiped out in a much shorter timeframe. #Danae Stratou #Land Art #Landscape #Art #Environment #Inspiring Artist

Sketches for My Next Drawing Device

As always, I have a ton of ideas spinning around in my head… I met with glass artist Amanda McDonald yesterday about the vessels we’re going to make for my next drawing device. If all goes according to plan, it’s going to be ahhhhmazing! We’re doing a test run in a few weeks, then (fingers crossed) we’ll go into production. My show in June isn’t going to make itself! #madewithpaper #glass art #installation 5 notes

Grant Mudford’s American Landscapes

Grant Mudford's #photographs of the #American #landscape have captured my attention today. These images illustrate the residue of human intervention on the land. In some ways its as if the native landscape ceases to exist. If there's nature in the photo at all, it's relegated to the margins and the background. These images aren’t joyous — I get a sense of melancholy, maybe a touch of nihilism. I think the symmetry and geometric formal qualities in these three photographs enhance those feelings. The artifacts depicted in these landscapes are monumental, almost bigger than life, but they seem deserted, unloved, left behind. I always say that people are like rats. We populate a space and make huge messes; in a way we’re nesting I guess. Then, when the mess becomes intolerable, we move on to someplace else. Now that we’ve pretty-much taken over any habitable place on the planet (and some uninhabitable ones too), we don’t have anywhere else to go. What happens now? I don’t know. #photography #landscape #grant mudford #America 1 note

What I’m Reading Now

The stack of books I’m sifting through these days. #art #landscape #nature

Drawing in a Friendship Garden

I created this afternoon intervention in the park today. I loved the meditation of walking around and around this tree to envelop it with my attention. Then the meditation continued afterwards as I walked around the tree an equal number of times to disassemble the piece. #contemporary art #installation #nature #landscape 9 notes