I got busy.
busier than normal and then I had to decompress after all the business.
Most of October I did one of 3 things: Worked at
Pablo's coffee where I always work on the weekends, worked weekdays at the
Museum of Contemporary Art Denver where I do install on contract a few times a year, and worked on a large cross-stitch. I also spent a few days with my amazing, artful friends,
Nina and Craig who visited from Wisconsin and I also did the work of
GroundSwell Gallery because we had another opening (as we do every month). Here are a few notable pictures from that time:
 |
| MCA's Postcript show up through Feb. 3, I helped hang the many grid layouts |
 |
| Lindsay St. Antoine opened at GroundSwell Gallery Nov. 10, I bought this painting. |
 |
| field trip to Clyfford Still Museum with Christian, Nina and Craig. |
 |
| Pablo's Coffee... mmm, latte. I can sling a lot of lattes in 5 - 7 hours |
 |
| This is the project that it's been all about for the last 8 months. Showing one more week at Redline Gallery for the Art by Craft exhibit. (click image to see full size) | |
|
|
|
|
The month of October was especially important for completing this cross stitch project.
Spending Time, a double portrait of my husband and myself created from a photograph that I took and then pixilated. Each stitch recreates the image pixel by pixel. Formally, this work nods to early American needlework and the tedious work of commemorating family through stitches. Conceptually, the sustained work of cross stitching over 8 months,
spending time with the image of us together, builds to a meditative practice. I felt the work became compulsive as the deadline for the
Art by Craft exhibition neared, though I doubt it would have been so, had there not been a deadline. This piece is immediately very personal to me. Maybe that's obvious, but unlike other artwork that I have made, I feel more protective and private about this. I want it to be as simple as it is and as monumental as it is without elaboration.
Also installed at this exhibition, the
Tinnient Campana installation (previously installed at Forest Room 5 in September).
 |
| Tinnient Campana also on view at Redine through Nov. 29 (click image for full size) | | |
This artwork refers to the proliferation of ring tones without bells in modern culture. The bell itself (like latin and other obsolete forms of communication have done) is gradually becoming a lesser known object or tool for communication. Lovely in tactile forms and unique resonances, I wanted to make the bells for this installation out of adoration for the antiquated object and recognition for its outmoded-ness highlighted by our dear cell phones. Tinnient Campana literally means,
ring the bell, and our unknowing of that meaning may leave us hesitantly reaching for the bell as though to ring it, unsure of our intuition.
This installation is difficult to photograph because it is about 25 ft. long in total. Eventually, my
website will be updated to include best images.
Last note: Because I needed to get back to it, a thank you to Mark Bystrom for noting that my blog has been ignored since early September.
So thankful to Russ and Shannon to have this lovely black wall to install these bells. 
I talked about cryptic language in an earlier post about a drawing I made for the Exquisite Corpse project at my gallery, GroundSwell. The idea of creating works that have a message though the message is not entirely obvious or understandable to most, makes sense to me as a way of avoiding a didactic or even trite nature. I have a subtle irritation with artwork that poorly uses statements or words (so obvious, too moralistic, awkwardly immature, etc.), so I try not to use words in my work. ...lately, I can't help myself as I realize I can make the message or the words only known to me and maybe a few focused, intent, or just in-the-know individuals. This work is about the obsolescence of bells and their "language" of timbre and pitch, timing and number, but it is also about the constant language of "ring tone" in the contemporary bell or chime known as a cell phone. It's a note that says, "oh yeah, remember these?" to my peers and also says to the chicos, "Hey kids, this is what a ring tone used to come from!" I know bells aren't extinct, but... you know, I just love bells and I think it's interesting that I love something that is now becoming a sentiment or nostalgic item of antiquity. This artwork is titled, Tinnient Campana. 
