Hello fellow residents,
My recent work has been almost exclusively large graphite drawings. I made a vow recently to avoid pencils and large drawings for the rest of 2010, and I'm hoping this residency will help me to stick with it. However, I'm finding it hard to think of things to do that don't involve some form of drawing; maybe you all can help me to figure out expanded ways of thinking about what drawing is.
I just returned a week ago from 2 1/2 weeks traveling around the southwest looking at Land Art sites and gigantic rocks. One of the things that struck me about visiting Spiral Jetty, Lightning Field, Marfa, CLUI, and etc, is the disconnect that seems to exist between the surrounding communities and these sites, which bring in a very particular form of art tourism but seem to barely engage the local community. I started thinking about the particular community in which Art of This exists, and am beginning to imagine some projects that might take place out in the neighborhood rather than inside the gallery itself. I also have some more traditional gallery based ideas. I'm open to anything.
These are rough ideas but some of them include:
--> Constructing a portraiture booth to install in the front lawn periodically, for making portraits of neighborhood folks, which they would then keep, taking a photograph of the person with each portrait before they leave, and then having an exhibition of the photographs with a reception for the neighborhood. Any other residents could also use the portrait booth for drawing/painting portraits so that it could be open often. I'd like to walk to all the neighboring business and invite them to participate. I like meeting people and portraiture can be a very intimate, transformative act.
--> I'm trying to find new ways of drawing from observation and so I'm thinking about doing some micro-drawings in the streets and surrounding neighborhoods (which also includes my own neighborhood). I like the idea of a studio without walls. All the looking at mega-landscapes that I did on my trip has made me think a lot about micro-landscapes. Weeds and rocks and dirt.
--> I would love to experiment with sculpture in the woodshop, but is plaster okay to use?
--> I'm interested in sound recording also, and did a lot of this on the road trip, but I have no idea if it worked because my computer can't open the files! If any residents have audio knowledge I'd be super grateful for some pointers.
--> You mentioned lectures in the welcome packet, and I'm putting together a slide lecture on Land Art and Landscape that I'm going to be giving at a couple of places this fall. I think it would be fun to do a test run of this at AOT sometime this summer, if other residents are up for a show-and-tell night. I have access to a digital projector.
Things I can contribute to others include:
- Short-term access to various media equipment through my job at Macalester.
- I have an overhead transparency projector and a slide projector that I am happy to loan out.
- I live nearby and can be easily on hand to help other residents, even at the last minute, please contact me anytime.
- I have a big garden and would like to give you my excess vegetables.
I'm really excited about this opportunity. I'll be around all summer and am only teaching intermittently, mostly mid-July and early August.
My websites: http://www.meganvossler.com
http://landlandland.wordpress.com
http://seedsandsprouts.wordpress.com
Email: mail [at] meganvossler.com
All best wishes, looking forward to meeting many of you on Wednesday and/or Saturday.
Megan
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