SCRAP - Artist's in Residence Exhibit

Well, our four months of gleaning the treasures of the Santa Cruz Resource Recovery Facility is up and we are all wrapping up and fine tuning our projects for the upcoming exhibit (I'm late in posting this - we just finished our first day of installation today!) Here is exhibit information:

SCRAP: Santa Cruz Recycled Art Program

R. Blitzer Gallery, Santa Cruz, CA

December 6th - December 28th, 2019

Opening Reception December 6th 5:00-9:00

Artists' Gallery Talk: December 8th 2:00-4:00

that's me with the wood pile!

This exhibit will display the culmination of our artist residency. Artists include myself, Janet Fine, Angela Gleason, Andrew Purchin, Paige Davis, and Pamela Dewey. See the second half of this previous post for some background information about the residency.

We had fun. We worked hard. And, we learned a lot about what our city is doing to keep items out of the landfill, but also that we all need to do better. So much is ending up at the dump that can be reused or placed back into circulation. It was frustrating at times since we were unable to "save" all of the things that we knew had more life in them.

My residency project is an installation entitled “out in the distance there is a glow”*. The installation will consist of the workspace and personal library of a fictional character of my own creation whose story emerged as I worked with the found materials.

Studio shot of: out in the distance there is a glow (partial and in-progress)

The story strengthened and deepened as I noticed themes in the items I was gathering, and as found items began to relate to one another in completely unexpected ways. 

out in the distance there is glow, no. 125

This person is responding to the time in which he lives – it could be now or another time, place and existence. Wherever and whenever he is – the times are challenging and darkness is reflected in his space. 

out in the distance there is a glow, no. 101

But, there is light. He is not just hiding out or idly waiting for it all to be over. Rather, he is trying to fix us, them, me, you – with our own waste. Gathering items that have been cast off he is attempting a sort of alchemy in the hopes that just the right combination of material, imagery, placement, and order will set things right again. It is all he can do and it is his way of coping.

 

out in the distance there is a glow, no. 124

Materials used are: tar paper, stencils of found items, dirt pigment, pen and ink, thread.

I stenciled the tar paper using things I found on the ground and painted it with dump dirt that I mixed with gum arabic and water.

All in all the residency was a fantastic experience.

Thank you to Santa Cruz City Arts and the Santa Cruz Resource Recovery Facility for sponsoring this residency.

I hope that those of you who are local can make it to the exhibit and if not I'm planning to make a little Blurb book that documents the experience and my final project. Stay tuned for that! 

*"out in the distance there is a glow" is a line from the song "Big Darkness" by Crooked Fingers. The artist Eric Bachmann has graciously given me permission to use his words.