It's you, not me

First things first a few corrections. The windows of the gallery aren’t frosted, the blinds were simply down. Huge difference! The stream of visitors to the show has been constant and contrary to my expectation it has been a very engaging time. But at least once a day I am baffled by a misunderstanding or misjudgement in a conversation which often leaves me wondering ‘Am I the weird one or are you?’

Here are some of those moments.

MOMENT 1

I put a large sign in the window ‘Artworks made from Dust and Ash’. Thought that was pretty succinct. Then a guy comes in…

“Hey, I saw your sign in the window, so do you like make that with spray paint?”

“Um no. I made it from ash and dust”

“Yeah I saw the sign”

“Ooookay”

He leaves. I reconsidered the wording of my sign, evaluate the conversation and conclude it’s you not me.

MOMENT 2

Around the corner of the gallery is a construction site and every day clusters of workman walk passed on the way to the deli. 90% of them stopped, watched and pointed. Now I’m sure that at least some of you are thinking they were looking at me and not the work, and I don’t think it would be too arrogant of me to confess I wondered the same thing. But one day Im in the back room and I see a few of them looking in the window  pointing and talking so I hesitantly invite them to come inside to look, still slightly unsure if they’re about to try chat me up. But it turns out I am resistible and construction workers in New York like contemporary art. They also like swearing. A lot.

“We’ve been watching all week, and you’re really making that with dust?”

“Yes”

“F*@! Me! That’s f*#!ing awesome!”

“Hey Stevie. You hear that. She made it with dust”

“You’re s*#!ing me! That S*#!s dust. That’s F*#!ing amazing!”

And on it went every day. One of them would come in with a new bunch of guys to show them the exhibition.

“She made it with dust”

“Holy C*#!! Wow!”

I have never had so much positive praise via profanities, and certainly never in the lofty halls of academia have I ever heard a critique session compacted into the singularly expressive word that New Yorkers so love. It was quite a nice change to have such a gobsmacked excited audience and perhaps we are a little weird with our cautious wordiness. Conclusion its me not you.

MOMENT 3

Another day my friend M and I were sitting on the couch in the gallery talking through the possiblities for a performance at the closing reception, some type of walking talking circular cleaning action, when a guy walks in, doesn’t notice the work, comes up to us and asks

“Are you the work?” Not a completely foolish thing to ask in a contemporary art gallery, but no. We point to the work.

“Are you going to interact with it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well you could walk around it like this”

He commences stomping around the artwork

“Or you could go the other way around”

He changes direction

“How long should I walk around it for?”

“Until you get bored of it I guess”

“You could stand on one side and wave”

He waves

He thanks us and leaves

Conclusion. He was definitely the crazy one. 100% no doubt. Accept for the fact that what he had done was very very close to what we had been contemplating doing for the performance, so guess that makes us crazy too.

MOMENT 4

“I really think this work is beautiful, I mean it really speaks to me. I really get it. You know you would love this video its exactly like your artwork” He hands me an iphone and plays me a youtube video of a toddler sitting in a kitchen sink full of water and playing with toys and a breast pump. Conclusion: It’s you, not me.

MOMENT 5

Trying to locate dust in this city of perpetual decay and construction was easy, but the ash was much harder. No bushfires, open fireplaces, or fires in general, and no cats in trees either which makes it doubly strange that I have to dodge a screaming speeding fire truck almost every day.  There were two solution; the first option was to become a fire truck chaser but I might risk third degree burns and worse still I’d have to run down cobbled streets in high heels, the second option would necessitate me getting into an awkward conversation that would undoubtedly leave the proprietor perplexed and looking at me like I was crazy. I like where possible to keep my strangeness under a bushel but alas my long term commitment to avoid running resulted in me sitting on the subway carrying two gigantic cooking pots and locating the nearest wood fired pizza restaurant where my all out strangeness would be publicly displayed. Sheepishly, I approached the counter with my prepared speech and a folder of visuals to offer clarification as proof of sanity and authenticity.

“Excuse me” I start “I know this might sound like a strange request, but umm… could I please have some of your ash”

“Sure. You must be an artists”

“What? umm, yes, why?”

“I sometimes have photographers asking for ash, so I keep a bucketful aside”

CONCLUSCION

 

God I love this city. Normality has fled to New Jersey with the receding tide of Hurricane Sandy and only the weird and wonderful remain. Please let me stay.

Gathering

Collecting carpet/wallpaper patterns for the design.

Collecting dust from the studio vacuum cleaner

Collecting snow from the roof

Cutting stencils

Probably need twice this amount

Next stop Lombardis Pizza restaurant to ask for ash from the wood fire pizza ovens.

Greener grass

I have a solo exhibition opening next week in Chelsea. 

I'm just going to let that sentence hover there. 

"I   have   a   solo   exhibition   in   Chelsea. " 

When it’s all by itself, floating in the emptiness of white space, I'm impressed by it. It's the kind of phrase that if thrown into art circle conversation makes you sound like a serious international artist. People will finally believe you're a legitimate artists rather than secretly thinking you're a waitress/trustfundchild/hipsterfashinist/flakey/sundaypainter. And regardless of postmodern decetralisaton, some may still say I have arrived at the center of the art world.

But… yes I'm sorry there is a 'but'. I wish I could take you on a swooping story of glory, however, that time is yet to come. Instead I’ll give you the honest truth, show you the pro’s and cons, let you see the quiet joy, the hope and disappointments, the labour the love and the mediocre outcomes, as there are asterisks,  clauses and footnotes to this sentence that even David Foster Wallace couldn't compete with.

So lets look at the details:

*The foundation that I’m exhibiting with is called Chashama. They are a not-for-profit group that find vacant properties for artists to exhibit. They’ve been going for about 20 years and are well established, highly regarded and as an entry point into exhibiting in NY it’s pretty solid. Click here for a link

*The space they have found me was previously an art gallery. So as far as vacant spots go it’s pretty sweet. It’s also on Tenth Ave between 28^th and 29^th, so I’m in the gallery district zone.

*except that I’m not in the zone of visability. The windows are frosted, there is no signage and I’m not listed in any gallery guide as a destination. Chances are no-one will notice I’m there.

*It’s a not-for-profit gallery so I do and pay for everything myself; invite and catalogue design and printing and posting, media release, opening night party, and sitting the gallery for 30 hours x 3 weeks. This is just Blah!

*I’m spending most days and nights creating the work, which is very very enjoyable.

*but I’m also slightly conflicted as its art week in NYC and everyone is out and about at the Armoury, Scope and Spring Break fairs, and I’m home cutting stencils.

*This scenario makes me question my intentions. On the one hand it matters that I make work which is fragile and visibly disappears into its environment and mostly I hope for just one person to deeply enter into thinking about the piece. On the other hand I’m here to expand my career so I need the crowds, need the ‘right people’ to come. Therefore there is no harmony between the philosophy of the work – creating works that might be overlooked, and the pragmatism of arts business – look at me look at me. 
 

On the way to Skagway Video

On the way to Skagway

Sublimely Wrong and Ridiculously Right

 My expectations of Alaska were muddled. On the one hand, all I hoped for was to – sleep, read, look out the window at the snow and spend time with our dearest friend K - it is a wintery wilderness after all. On the other hand, my primary source of pseudo-knowledge about this state was ‘Northern Exposure’ and when K told us that the TV show was actually based on her town Skagway, my expectations escalated to include moose wandering down the street, listening to the dulcet tones of Chris-in-the-Morning, and hanging out with the eclectic towns folk at the local bar. As it turns out I think I might have got Alaskan climate confused with the Arctic Circle, I thought the landscape would be pure white from self to ground to sky, snow up to my waist, blizzards of sleet stinging my eyes and all forces of nature - bears, wolves, wind, glaciers, and craggy mountain peeks conspiring to keep the fragile humans in there place – indoors watching ‘Northern Exposure’. But thank god for ignorance, as Alaska turned out to be a place of wonder, awe, and the tiny town of Skagway was infused with enough Northern Exposure quirkiness to keep us entertained and delighted beyond our imagination.

Here in shorthand are a few of my favourite things:

·      The 6-hour ferry ride through the archipelago. Calm slate grey sea, snowcapped peaks, glaciers, sea lions, slowly drifting snow and a mountain/seascape that revealed itself slowly at dawn then disappeared into fog and cloud and twilight.

·      Eating mac ‘n’ cheese, wrapped in bacon then deep fried, matched with parsnip milkshakes, and followed by cinnamon infused whiskey.

·      Walking along the train tracks out of town, past frozen waterfalls and aqua blue rivers, listening to the vast silence of the wilderness trying to breath its stillness into my lungs. Then stopping for shelter and a snack in an old caboose.

·      Driving over the White Pass into Canada, with an extremely generous women who took the afternoon off work to make sure we didn’t miss this sight, and gave us an historical commentary along the way and silence when the white on white scenery demanded it.

·      Visiting the Mendenhall Glacier, with Doug our taxi driver on many occasions, who really should be a documentary narrator, every second of the journey was filled with facts, and histories, and stories of his life in different seasons. I feel very close to Doug now.

·      Meandering conversations with K, in the kitchen, on the couch, over coffee tea beer sugar puffs and dinner, under the covers, through thin walls.

·      Walking along the boardwalk of town, looking in the windows of the coloured movie set ye olde shoppees closed for the winter.

·      Meeting the town’s folk who from ever corner of the states came to Skagway for a summer and simply never left.

·      Running down the middle of the empty streets and along the airstrip away from the lights of town and into the darkness, then lying on the icy tarmac, out of breath and exhilarated to watch the dynamic show which is … the Aurora Borealis.

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Alaska

A time line. Or just a line that took time

With the open studio now done and ornately dusted, I was ready to embark on a glorious week of museum meandering. First stop, The Museum of Natural History. Wait. No erase that, let’s start before the beginning at the World Food Café in the Natural History Museum. For it’s possible that this place could and should be hermetically sealed as a diorama for future generations to study. Lets get some plexiglass and silicon and add it to the museum map. This claustrophobic sloppy beige capsule was heaving with organic humanesque matter. Packed around each tiny tin table, piled feet high with white, yellow and orange food stuffs were packs of families in matching puffer jackets with puffy ketchup smeared cheeks. Loud mouths, loud clothes and lukewarm food abounded. Some family flocks hunted for a free table, squawking and waving their sodas at the flocks who had forgotten to gather their garbage. The menu, devoid of curries, stir fries or burritos and plentiful in pizza, fries and mac ‘n’ cheese re-enforced the cliché that American culture has devoured the world resulting in the homogenisation of everything. And even though a cliché is only the truth we get tired of hearing, I have a hunch that there is still room for someone to look at this useless eco system and ask if perhaps its time to make just this one museum cafeteria extinct. Obviously a large anthropological study would have to be carried out but my guts (both the intestinal one and my intuitive one) feel that it would not be a loss if a meteor wiped out this particular location and all who inhabit it.

Staring at the museum map, soaked with my neighbours soda and soiled with my own fatty fingerprints, I longed romantically for the awesome sublime of outer space, the wowing wonder of science, the mind-blowing marvel of another kind of mankind and I laid all my hopes in the atrium called ‘The Origin of the Universe’ (please read with a 1960s echoing sci-fi voice over.)  And now in the middle of this paragraph we are at the beginning. Not the “Once upon a time…” beginning of this story, but the beginning of, the beginning of the big BANG. Day One, where time and space begin. Oh, actually, no wait a minute. Firstly I got consumed by a coat check line half and hour long and 3 people deep. Not the space and time encounter I was searching for.

A moment of ungraspable amazement and perplexing wonder, did however emerge when I entered the ‘Universe’ atrium to look at the beginning of time time-line and saw that the target audience was 8 year old children. Which, before I continue, I would like to say I would’ve been super supportive of had even one single child looked interested in the display. But instead of doing that sponge soaking thing small brains are supposed to be capable of, they zoomed and skidded around me like pudgy insects, in groups that multiplied and expanded faster than the universe itself. Yes they have a right to be here but its hard to hold foggy big things in your mind, when small snotty masses occupy the perimeter of your personal space. I looked at them with disdain and wished evolution would speed up and give me a super power – the burning laser eye trick was what I wanted. I would’ve zapped them with one evil look. Pazzap! They’d be piles of ash and smoke and I would walk away wearing black leather. A win all round I say.

I must confess though that amidst my superhuman fantasy I had a little moment of longing for the little people that I do love and with the sentimentality that arose, came a phrase to berate me “a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met”. I seriously contemplated the possibility that I would be more tolerant of these kids if I knew them.     Hmmmm      …. ??         ????     … Nope. This philosophy cannot be expanded to include the children of strangers. Evil eyes all around. PZAPP! PZAPP! PZAPP !PZAPP. Poof. Strut strut strut.

Walking away from miniature earthlings I sought refuge reclining amongst stardust light years away from earth. In order to reach the Planetarium I had to enter the chattering, oozing, sweaty, heaving corridors of humanity. Men women, children and waisted intelligent life forms, pulsed and bumbled lethargically like a sluggish river through the bowels of the museum. I imagined a graph at the museum entrance pictoralising the amount of visitors to the museum each day, by equating the number to the population of small lesser-known nation.

Sunday 17^th February

Number of visitors to the museum = the population of Van Diemen’s Land.

It was 1:00 NYC time and the next Planetarium session was at 1:30.I queued to buy a ticket for the next session. There were 2 people in front of me. 20 mins later, still 2 people in front of me. I was stuck in a black whole, waiting, waiting,  w  a   a   a   a   i  t i n g.   Time  s t  o    p      p        e          d        .

It’s fair to say I’m impatient. I confess this openly as a weakness of my DNA. This will of course eventually destroy my descendants or if Brittany graduates soon enough and finds a cure it will assist us in conquering the world! I tried to stand still. In a resting pose I withdrew my consciousness from the world around me and took it down deep into my body to rest in a padded cell where it could scream “What’s taking you so long???”

“Yeeehhhu”

“One student ticket for the Planetarium, please.”

“Ticket please”

“What?”

“T-I-C-K-E-T puuuleeeease”

“No I want to buy one.”

“Do you have your museum admission ticket”

“Yes, but I didn’t pay for the planetarium, so I’d like to buy one now”

“Show me”

I show him.

“Where is the receipt for your admission ticket?”

“I don’t have it”

“Well how did you get this ticket?”

Note the tone of accusation

“My husband paid with his credit card”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere in the museum”

You can see why the queue took so long.

“You need the receipt.”

“ For what?”

“To buy a ticket”

“I need a receipt for a ticket which I have in my hand in order to buy a different ticket?”

I look towards the queue for moral support but they are stuck in the black hole and look back at me blankly

“Yes that’s the system.”

“THAT IS NOT A SYSTEM!”

Rationality escaped me entirely now. Poof. Gone with one evil eye stare from the attendant. PZAPP!. It vaporised, drifted above everyone’s heads, floated over the balcony and swooped into the Universe atrium where it spied Jon. And then it yelled “JOOOOOOOOON!” Yes it did. In a big loud voice. “JOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNN. I NEEEEEEEDDDD THE RECIEPT” Um or maybe that was me. As I exited the planetarium I notice that the next session time is now 3:30 and I’m told by a women in the supersized line that she is actually queuing for the 4:00 show. What? Why? THIS PLACE SUCKS!!!!!

… and then oh oh oooooohhhhhh the sweet honey of memory. I’m in New York. I have membership to every major museum in the city and so when push came to shove, rather than fight, I took flight. Located the exit and ran across Central Park to the Guggenhiem.