Mary Tasillo - Art & Writing

Spring Updates

2011-05-08T07:54:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a long gap between blog posts means that not much has been happening. At other times (and more often in my case), it means that the days have been just packed.

Much of my recent activity has been taking place under the guise of two collaborative projects: Book Bombs and The Soapbox Independent Publishing Center.

Book Bombs has released three zine projects since my last post in the fall -- released at the Friends of Dard Hunter Annual Meeting in the fall, at the Refugee Reading Room project at Space1026 in Philadelphia in February, and at Susan Hensel Gallery's Urban/Urbane exhibition in Minneapolis in March. All zines were made available as free giveaways, and some were distributed on the street. Additionally, Book Bombs hung prints on the street in San Francisco in December and left snow stencils around Minneapolis in March. Book Bombs also participated in the exhibition "Social Commentaries" at the Catich Gallery in Davenport, Iowa, over the winter. We also contributed a piece to PublicAdCampaign's Street Advertising Takeover in Madrid, Spain. Please see the project blog for details.

The Soapbox Independent Publishing Center opened its doors to the public in March, kicking things off with a Zine and Artist Book Reading and a Zine Library Open House. We are now holding regular Library open hours, and have been attending Philadelphia events such as Philly STAKE and the Art Star Craft Bazaar to spread the word. In the coming months we will be working to set up publicly accessible studio space to support work in printmaking and bookbinding.

In March, I moderated a panel at the Southern Graphics International Conference in St. Louis. The panel, "Counterbalancing the News: Printmaking Takes On the Mainstream Media," included speakers Kristen Bartel, whose project HotOff Press involves a mobile bicycle-based screenprinting operation printing community based broadsides and distributing them freely on the streets, and Jordan Seiler of PublicAdCampaign, who has been coordinating the voices of artists and other individuals in takeovers of street-level advertising internationally, bringing the voices of the people back to our public spaces.

Now that summer is on its way, I am looking forward to the Zine Summer we have declared at The Soapbox, as well as to working on "Spilt," an artist book project that responds to last year's oil spill in the Gulf. I am working on an artist book as part of "An Inventory Of Al-Mutanabbi Street," a book project that follows the Al-Mutanabbi Street Broadside Project, which gathered broadsides by 130 international printers and writers in response to the 2007 bombing of the booksellers' street in Baghdad and has raised money for Doctors Without Borders. My broadside can be seen alongside the others on the website of Florida Atlantic University's Special Collections. Look for updates on these activities later in year.

Fall Exhibitions and Presentations

2010-09-23T10:50:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy summer full of teaching, moving, and organizing Philadelphia Center for the Book's temporary summer storefront space on South Street. Now that fall has begun, I'm pleased to spread word of the inclusion of my work in two exhibitions.

Space & Sequence is on view at the Free Library of Philadelphia Central Branch. This exhibit was organized by Philadelphia Center for the Book, curated by Jae Rossman of Yale's Special Collections Department, and includes the work of 15 artists and related materials exploring space and sequence as related to the book form and narrative. On view through October 31.

Also, opening this Friday, September 24, with a reception from 6-9pm: an exhibit of Philadelphia printmaking work at Cumberland County College in Vineland, NJ. The exhibit features the work of Amanda D'Amico, Rebecca Gilbert, Christine Victor, and myself, and is on view at the campus's Fine & Performing Arts Center.

Finally, Michelle Wilson and I will be presenting our previous year of Book Bombs activity at the Friends of Dard Hunter Annual Meeting this October in Gatlinburg, TN, featuring the release of Book Bombs Zine #2.

Book Bombs Comes to Baltimore

2010-05-20T10:02:00.000-07:00

Michelle and I completed a Book Bombs installation in Baltimore as part of the Axis Alley project, where artists have been transforming the alley side of abandoned properties along three blocks of N. Calvert Street. Sarah Doherty, who instigated the project, has initiated an incredible transformation of what was once a completely trash-filled space. Our installation, Fibrile, uses paper made from old blue jeans, evoking a working class history, to cut the shapes of endangered regional plant species such as Striped Gentians and Virginia Mallow, which were then wheatpasted to the back of 2212 N. Calvert Street.

Axis Alley opens this Sunday, May 23, with an Alley stroll and barbecue from 2-6. If it rains, the event will be moved to Sunday, May 28. Book Bombs will be there!

In other news, we have been shipping work off to The Whole Gallery in Baltimore for their upcoming exhibition Sign Language and to Lost Coast Culture Machine, which has a new papermaking facility, in Fort Bragg, CA, for their Paper! exhibition. Stay tuned for details....

Book Bombs, the Political Print, and the Democratic Multiple

2010-04-08T09:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy winter and early spring, full of activity and lacking in blog entries! The energy around printmaking has been incredible over the past few months as roughly 80 institutions around Philadelphia partnered in showcasing printmaking as part of Philagrafika2010. I was pleased to participate as part of Book Bombs, an ongoing collaboration between Michelle Wilson and myself. We peppered city parks and other public spaces with a series of prints, culminating in a zine. The prints were made using carved salvaged woodblocks and old wood and metal type on paper we made using invasive weeds harvested from empty urban lots. We were fortunate to inspire some young zinesters encountered in the park, garner some good press, and to find some of our prints holding on for weeks through blizzards and rain storms. You can see project documentation at the Book Bombs website and blog.

This weekend, I will have the Rifle Cookies zine on display alongside Book Bombs work as part of Acting Out, a one-night only exhibition put together by Homeskooled Gallery, and on view from 7-11pm Saturday night, April 10, at 131 S 50th St. in West Philadelphia. Michelle and I will also be discussing Book Bombs as part of the Plays & Players On Stage Philadelphia event this coming Monday, April 12. The program starts at 7pm at 1714 Delancey Place, and features a line-up of short performing arts pieces. We will be displaying the full suite of Book Bombs prints on site that evening.

The Southern Graphics Council Conference was held in Philadelphia at the end of March. Michelle and I were busy distributing Book Bombs Zine #1: Rooted Within in our most ambitious Philly print bombing to date. We also gave out copies at a release party as part of a reception for the Extra-Dimensional print show at Nexus Gallery. As part of the official conference program, I had the pleasure of sharing the papermaking studio at the University of the Arts (where I spent many hours as a grad student) with the printmaking community in a demonstration of image editioning techniques in pigmented paper pulp. Additionally, I was treated to the company of Libby Clarke, Jesse Goldstein, and Favianna Rodriguez in a panel I moderated entitled Resisting the Remarque. These three individuals brought their distinct approaches to engaging with the activist print and its history to this discussion of how political print work fits into both the realm of contemporary printmaking and the sociopolitical landscape.

I contributed some coverage of Philagrafika and Southern Graphics Council Conference activities to the blog Printeresting this spring and additionally participated in the Democratic Multiples exhibition curated by Lara Henderson and Mandy Dunn at the University of the Arts Book Arts/Printmaking program.

Right now I have the slightest opportunity to breath springtime in and enjoy my West Philadelphia neighborhood. Then, look for news in the coming months on Book Bombs activity in Baltimore.....

Book Bombs Away!

2010-02-05T10:27:00.001-08:00

The Book Bombs project (with collaborator Michelle Wilson) and other Philagrafika2010 activities have taken over my winter, in a wonderful way. Book Bombs park-based print drops are occurring throughout January, February, and March this year. For more details, visit http://bookbombing.blogspot.com and www.bookbombs.net. We've also had the opportunity to take over the Window on Broad through late February at 321 S. Broad Street, and install some prints in the window at the shop of Moore College of Art and Design at 20th and Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

In addition to visiting the Philagrafika site for details on this amazing print festival, you can find event coverage at the Printeresting blog, where I will be providing some guest coverage. Get out in Philly and check it all out!

Show & Bestow at the Free Library of Philadelphia

2009-12-16T19:55:00.000-08:00

Show & Bestow features the newly assembled Ruth Hughes Artist Book Collection, which will be donated to Oberlin College's Clarence Ward Art Library in Ruth's honor. I had the pleasure of meeting Ruth at the Philadelphia Center for the Book's Book, Paper, Scissors Fair a couple of weeks ago. Over 70 books have been donated, and can be viewed through the end of December at the Free Library of Philadelphia Art & Picture Collection Galleries on the 2nd floor, 1901 Vine Street.

An Atlas of Rooms was an obvious choice for me to donate to the collection, as two of the vignettes were oh-so-secretly inspired by folks I befriended while I was at Oberlin myself.

More images of the exhibit can be found on the web page of Alice Austin, who generously assembled this collection.

The Welcome House at the Painted Bride

2009-10-24T09:02:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the Welcome House is on view at the Painted Bride, featuring video documentation of the October Welcome House event in Love Park. Book Bombs is much obliged to Ricardo Rivera for capturing our day of public paper art so beautifully. Please come to the opening Friday, November 6, 5-7, to check it out, or stop by during gallery hours in November and December. The Welcome House structure itself will be on view in the exhibition Shelter, also on view through the end of the year at the Painted Bride.

Come out on Friday!

2009-10-07T10:36:00.000-07:00

The Welcome House project is now underway, with residencies each day in Love Park and an opening party tonight from 7-10.

Please come by on Friday between 10 and 6 (or so) to make your own print in handmade paper pulp and contribute to an amazing community installation.

Book Bombs at the Welcome House, October 9

2009-09-27T11:07:00.000-07:00

BOOK BOMBS SHELTER
PART OF THE WELCOME HOUSE PROJECT

October 9, 2009
10am-6pm

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Philadelphia, PA - Sept. 22, 2009 -

Philadelphia's First Person Arts Festival is proud to host BOOK BOMBS as part of the Welcome House Project. BOOK BOMBS is a collaboration between artists Mary Tasillo and Michelle Wilson. The Welcome House is a 10 foot by 10 foot transparent cube installed in Philadelphia's own Love Park, featuring artist projects by day and video of the day's activities by night. On October 9, 2009, 10am-6pm, as part of their day-long residency, BOOK BOMBS will utilize handmade paper and community participation to create a site-specific one-night installation called Book Bombs Shelter. This event is free and open to the public.

BOOK BOMBS is a collaborative, site-based zine project examining Philadelphia parks and benches as social spaces, shelters and art galleries, and will culminate next year as a component of PHILAGRAFIKA 2010. For Book Bombs Shelter, Tasillo and Wilson invite the population of Love Park, including office workers, skateboarders, protesters, passers-by, and the homeless, to create works in handmade paper about Love Park. The resulting papers will be attached while still wet to the interior of the Welcome House, creating an evolving visual conversation about the nature of urban public space in general and Love Park in particular. In addition, the pieces will be documented on the project blog and used as material for the upcoming zine publication about shelter, homelessness, and urban space during PHILAGRAFIKA 2010.

The Welcome House is a project conceived and curated by artist Marianne Bernstein and presented by First Person Arts in collaboration with InLiquid.com. Designed to re-imagine art spaces, art practice, and community engagement, artists were invited to propose one-day residencies using the space as a nexus for public interaction. All daytime events will be filmed by klip collective videographer Ricardo Rivera and projected onto the cube at night for public viewing. Following the project will be an exhibition of the works created in the Welcome House at the Painted Bride Art Center, located at 230 Vine Street in Philadelphia, in November 2009. The exhibition will remain on display during the First Person Arts Festival and through the end of 2009.

SUGGESTED LISTING

October 9, 2009, 10am-6pm:
Book Bombs Shelter, a collaborative public art project by Mary Tasillo and Michelle Wilson, part of the Welcome House Project. Love Park, 15th and JFK Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA. Free and open to the public.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Mary Tasillo is a book, print, text, and paper artist based in Philadelphia, PA. She is also a teacher, writer, and independent scholar. She balances limited edition work with the democratic multiple to ensure the broadest possible audience. Mary holds an MFA in Book Arts/Printmaking from The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA.

Michelle Wilson is an interdisciplinary artist whose work focuses on social and environmental issues. Through the use of intersecting narratives, she creates situations that transform history into invented mythology, and asks viewers to consider the impact of their choices upon a larger world.

Bike Part Art Show

2009-08-24T13:38:00.001-07:00

For those in Philadelphia, please add the Bike Part Art Show to your calendar! I'm participating in this annual fundraiser for Neighborhood Bike Works. The show, featuring art from s will be up August 28 to September 18 at Studio 34, 4522 Baltimore Ave, culminating in a Silent Auction, craft boutique, and general party on September 18, 7-10pm.

Book Bombs

2009-08-10T12:52:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announce the launch of the Book Bombs blog at http://bookbombing.blogspot.com. In this collaborative project with Michelle Wilson, I will be installing prints and zines around the city this coming winter in conjunction with Philagrafika 2010. The blog will be documenting our progress along the way, and recent posts include guerrilla weeding of mugwort for handmade paper for the project and a link to Barbara Ehrenreich writing in the NYTimes about the criminality of being poor -- germane to our topic of park benches and public spaces. Follow that feed!

Naropa Day 6

2009-07-11T22:01:00.000-07:00

Last night I fell asleep to visions of the press bed - rearranging type and furniture - and later dreamed of things Philly. Time to go home. The fridge is empty of burritos, the blueberries are gone, and the print shop key has been returned.

7 broadsides came out of the shop this week (plus 1 collaborative book). 2 of those broadsides will be contributed to the al-Mutanabbi Street Broadside project. By 6:00 today I was ready to be out of the shop, and before long, off to the final evening of faculty readings: C.S. Giscombe, Steven Taylor, Simone Forti, Michelle Ellsworth.

Now it is time to pack. The prints will just fit into the suitcase.

Naropa Day 5

2009-07-10T22:10:00.000-07:00

Somehow Day 5 has come to an end. But never fear for we will still be printing broadsides tomorrow!

Threads, the collaborative class book, is printed, trimmed, and folded and looks sweet. 3 copies went missing when I passed them around the room during the week's wrap-up colloquium and I'm left to take this as a compliment.

We also printed 3 broadsides today. Two more tomorrow, plus my own. 9 hours in the print shop today, the rest mostly spent in the Performing Arts Center, minus a very small chunk of time spent on gathering and consuming food. Student/Faculty Readings tonight feeling a bit like the end of summer camp. Non-stop printing is catching up to me; I need sleep!

Naropa Day 4

2009-07-09T21:26:00.001-07:00

Printing is underway! After a fair amount of wrestling with the press, the first run of the student collaborative book is printed, plus some of the type, and we started getting folks on the press for their broadsides as well.

Exhausting and quick day. This evening: faculty readings by Brian Evenson, Hoa Nguyen, Dale Smith, Alberto Ruy-Sanchez, & Wang Ping, all flooring in their own ways.

Revisions to the text for my own broadside.

Naropa Day 3

2009-07-08T21:19:00.000-07:00

I suppose this is typical, but I missed dinner (until now) to start printing, at long last, my broadside for the Al-Mutanabbi Street project, get the press cleaned, and run off to hear student readings. I am subsisting primarily on frozen (and reheated of course) vegan burritos, energy bars, and blueberries.

I like Boulder better today after getting up the Hill to Art Hardware, buying paper, conversing with the guy at the art supply about, well, art, and finding my way to an appropriately low-key and crunchy coffee shop, where I poked through my new book o'typography. Better than the tourist-laden and partly chi-chi parts of pedestrian Pearl Street, which seems like a slightly soulless version of Ithaca's pedestrian mall.

I'm pleased with the first pass of my print, the hawk devouring the pigeon, though irked by the uneven packing on the press, which I will have to undo in the morning before printing starts on the collaborative book, Threads. We will see how much broadside work the students can get through. They still don't know the challenge of locking up the press bed.

I give the student readings the predictably mixed reviews, and try to gauge my own reactions against those of the crowd. The occasional relief of having my own skepticism reinforced by the crowd, whether overtly or subtly. My eye-rolling when poets are so clearly enamored of the Beat tradition making me wonder what other sectors of the poetry world think of Naropa's program, more generally.

I love the solar panels on my print shop and laugh at what poets' type is in the cases. I would like to see the printing more enmeshed with the program. I'm the one faculty who does not speak, who exists on the sidelines, hoping my students are pleased with what they accomplish this week.

Naropa Day 2

2009-07-07T16:28:00.000-07:00

Too much sun and a mile-high earache
Peanut tofu crepes
Wang We and the lansdscape scroll
Threads
“Poetry is a community service”
slow poetry
resilient communities
epideixis
37 years of correspondence between Duncan and Levertov, and I wonder if we will later cite social media: “Mary Tasillo and Katie Baldwin were Facebook friends for two years, before….”
(citation: Dale Smith lecture)
Revisiting the hydra

Naropa Day 1

2009-07-06T14:29:00.000-07:00

Ink under the fingernails feeling just about right. The altitude is another story.

I am in Boulder for the week for Naropa University's Summer Writing Program, the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, teaching letterpress to a small group of complete letterpress newbies in the Harry Smith Print Shop, which is full of cases of Perpetua.

Anne Waldman and I have the same sunglasses.

An opening panel on performance was moderated by Anne Waldman, and featured Michelle Ellsworth, Simone Forti, Dan Machlin, and Steven Taylor. Waldman reports that in China, Nietzche translations appear on the bestseller list alongside Harry Potter. She is expert at bringing the ersatz non-sequitur to the table. Forti's role as performer and dancer is evident in the continuous gestures that accompany her speech, and I am intrigued to learn that she utilizes newspaper phrases as a source for movement, since this is a source I have gone to for my own work. She also spoke of creative community and the "great Los Angeles mycelia" with these mushrooms of activity popping up. She addressed doublethink, acknowledging the discrepancy between her understanding of global warming and her actions as she travels via plane and car, and suggesting the parallel of Nazi Germany - a sickeningly elegant connection. The panel discusses the third presence that comes into being in collaboration, and I think of Marshall Weber's question, "do collaborations cognate differently than individuals?"

The sun is hot. The pace is slow. The air even smells good.

Hybrid Book Fair

2009-05-20T07:27:00.000-07:00

Come and see my book work at The Hybrid Book Fair, June 5-6, 1-6 pm, at the Gershman Y, 401 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147. Over 100 artists and other vendors will be taking over 2 floors of the building to share their work in books and other media, as well as handmade paper and binding tools.

I've collaborated with Katie Baldwin of Queen Anne's Revenge Press on a new zine, Book Artist with a Back Up Plan, which will debut at the Fair. I may manage another new publication or two. I will also be showcasing Citizen Hydra, which is included in the concurrently running exhibit Art to Be Read, on view at The University of the Arts Hamilton Hall Galleries, 320 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102, June 2-30, M-F 10-5.

For more information, visit www.hybridbook.org.

Artist Talk at UPenn

2009-03-30T08:54:00.002-07:00

I will be speaking about my work at the University of Pennsylvania as part of the Penn Art Club's Art Speakers at Penn series. I will also have artist books along with me for viewing/reading. The event takes place April 8 from 7-9 pm, room M20, Harrison College House, 3910 Irving Street. http://harrison.house.upenn.edu/events/view_event.php?id=1735

Hybrid Book Filling....

2009-02-25T12:24:00.005-08:00

As part of the planning committee for the Hybrid Book Conference and Fair I'm both pleased and disappointed to share that tables for the trade fair are sold out and registration slots for the conference are getting slim--pleased because there has been so much interest, and disappointed because we'll have to start turning people away! There is a waiting list for trade fair tables, and registration is presently still open for the conference. Attending the trade fair is free and open to all comers. Please visit the conference site for more details on our dynamic panels, vendors of luscious bookworks, nuts-and-bolts, and more.

Redefining the Democratic Multiple Redux

2009-02-16T07:59:00.004-08:00

For folks in Philly who missed my November presentation "Context is King: Redefining the Democratic Multiple for a Digital Age" at Pyramid Atlantic Book Arts Conference & Fair, there is good news. I will be presenting this talk at The University of the Arts on Wednesday, February 25, at 11:45 am at 333 S. Broad Street on the 6th floor. If you are not a UArts regular and interested in attending, please drop me a note at mary (at) citizenhydra dot net to confirm the location.

My talk will be followed by "Point of View and the Artist's Book" by Susan Viguers, Director of the MFA Book Arts/Printmaking Program. There will be opportunity for discussion and questions.

For a description of "Context is King," visit www.bookartsfair.org.

Zine Reading on Nexus Radio

2009-01-27T18:38:00.000-08:00

It's been a little while since my last post, but that doesn't mean I've been bored!

The first public project of the new year comes in the form of a zine reading on a radio segment hosted by Katie Haegele of The La-La Theory. Nexus Gallery is broadcasting at 1650 AM; the zine segment takes place between 2 & 4 pm on Feb 1:

Philly zinesters on the radio!

On Sunday, Feb. 1, a diverse group of zine writers from Philadelphia will give a reading on the radio as part of the Nexus Gallery's analog radio experiment. For two months Nexus is broadcasting a low-powered radio station right from inside the gallery, and the producers have invited a variety of musicians, poets, and other performers to do live shows. Neat, right? Readers for the Philly Zine Ladies Performance Spectacular include:

* Katie of The La-La Theory, a crackpot zine about language!
* the fabulous and exalted Rebekah Buchanan of Emma Goldman and Pony Express zines!
* veteran zine maker and podcaster Raequel Solomon!
* book artist and multilingual zinester Michelle Wilson!
* slam poetry champion Bonnie MacAllister!
* Ali Thompson and Mikkie McGregor of Best Available Productions, a comic and zine label and craft extravaganza!
* Mary Tasillo, the zinester and book artist behind Cake & Pie Press!

And Pyramid is over....

2008-12-07T07:22:00.000-08:00

Watch for the written version of my talk, "Context is King: the democratic multiple in a digital age," in an upcoming issue of JAB.

Pyramid is Coming....

2008-10-09T08:17:00.000-07:00

Authors of Mischief

2008-10-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

This Friday, October 3, I will be a reader for the opening reception of Authors of Mischief, a juried show of artist books devoted to themes of censorship and control, co-sponsored by the Rosenbach Museum & Library and the Philadelphia Center for the Book. The show is scheduled to coincide with Banned Books Week, and the reception, which takes place from 5:30 to 7:30, features a public reading of passages from the many banned and censored books in the collections of the Rosenbach Museum & Library. The show comes down October 5, so be sure to stop by if you are in Philadelphia.

ALL THINGS PYRAMID

2008-10-01T09:44:00.000-07:00

Friday, September 19 brought an event co-sponsored by Hand Papermaking and Pyramid Atlantic. I was pleased to have my work included in Gretchen Schermerhorn's talk featuring emerging paper artists. Tom Bannister and Helen Frederick also spoke about the history of Hand Papermaking Magazine and exemplary projects in handmade paper. The evening also featured a demo and keepsake by Gretchen Schermerhorn and Lisa Hill. The talk was standing room only, thanks in part to the interest of attendees of the Movable Book Society Conference.

And speaking of Pyramid Atlantic, my colleagues at the event were so kind as to remind me that the Pyramid Atlantic Biennial Book Arts Conference and Fair is right around the corner! Not only will I be in attendance all weekend, but I will be speaking about the current state of the Democratic Multiple in the field of artist books, as well as sharing some books of my own at the trade fair. The event takes place November 7-9, the weekend following the election. May it be a joyous affair!

All Things Electoral, Susan Hensel Gallery, Minneapolis

2008-09-10T16:47:00.001-07:00

I am pleased to have three pieces included in All Things Electoral: Redux, an exhibition opening at the Susan Hensel Gallery in Minneapolis this Friday, September 12. The group exhibition features work in response to...you've got it--electoral politics. My own contributions include the 2008 Citizen Hydra book, Slippery, and a special Minnesota edition of Soapbox: Step On Up! alongside work by: Carol Morris, Elena Siff, Janet Colbertson, Jeff Lohaus, James Leonard, James Michael Lawrence, Kate Van Cleve, Karen Hanmer, Kari Guter Seymour, Michael Kabbash, Mike Elko, Patricia Dahlman, Peter Wilson, and Sarah Hauser.

The gallery is at 3441 Cedar Ave. S., right between both of my former South Minneapolis apartments. It opened--right after I'd moved to Philadelphia, of course--four years ago in the lead up to the last Presidential election, with the first All Things Electoral. The show runs through October 25.

When Art and Life Intersect

2008-07-12T18:14:00.000-07:00

On occasion, one feels that one's entered a movie scene.

This evening, approaching the token machines at the City Hall stop, I was approached by a young guy who wanted to sell 4 tokens for 5 dollars...a savings of eighty cents...because he needed cash for a regional rail ticket. Seemed like a reasonable enough story. "If you've got change for a ten." He gave me the 4 tokens and 5 bucks in exchange for a 10. I headed down the hall to catch my trolley. You must imagine that the city hall stop is a labyrinth where trolley lines, 2 subway lines, and the regional rail station all intersect and folks sometimes sleep at night. The hallways are dingy and seem too long and slightly underpopulated. "I love you, miss," I hear called after me as I recede down the hallway. "Miss, come back. I love you...." I give a wave without turning around. "I love you, miss...."

I envision the movie continuing on without me, wonder how it would have played out had I acted differently and stuck around a bit longer. Is the narrative better or worse for my presence and absence? Did I appear early on or towards the middle? If I was someone else, would I have played the part differently? Moreover, do people act like that in real life? Do I know anyone who would enact such theatrics?

I get on the trolley and run into a friend. Chattering and rolling back towards my neighborhood, the set is soon forgotten. Meanwhile a voice faintly echoes the hallways of the subway station. I know my part.

Review of "Wake Up!"

2008-07-06T19:05:00.000-07:00

July 4 brought a great independence day review of Wake Up! Are We Desensitized? at Pierro Gallery. See the New Jersey Star-Ledger: http://www.nj.com/starledger/stories/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-0/121514627343700.xml&coll=1

Despite a couple of typos, it is a nice summary of the show and linking of the works. In the somewhat idyllic setting of the Baird Center, which houses Pierro Gallery, I can see how Dan Bischoff's review contextualizes this work in terms of American prosperity. The Baird Center sits in the middle of a large park of trees and playing fields, and one can usually hear the sounds of basketball and soccer games. It appears to be a far cry from the trash-lined Philly streets I walk daily. Both settings, of course, are apt for the work as it partly speaks to this disparity. And both, of course, represent different hydra heads of the American citizenry. Presumably all those heads get together and enjoy the fireworks on July 4; perhaps they can do the same this election day.

Summer Issue of Hand Papermaking

2008-07-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

The summer issue of Hand Papermaking is now out and in the hands of subscribers. The Newsletter includes my column on making paper in other studios, and it just looks better all the time, with lots of images accompanying the columns and increased ads (or at least news ones).

This issue of the Magazine is especially exciting for its focus on paper artist communities (including the Guild of Papermakers, with which I am affiliated) and its list of studios around the world that rent access...and much more, as always, on contemporary paper art. www.handpapermaking.org

I also heard a rumor that my write up of the 2007 Friends of Dard Hunter conference in DC is now in circulation in the FDH newsletter The Bull & Branch, but the newsletter has yet to catch up with me.

Artist Panel at Pierro Gallery

2008-06-24T20:48:00.000-07:00

Wake Up! Are We Desensitized? is a three person show of mixed media work relating to things political, curated by Raleigh Caesar. My work is featured alongside the work of Frances Heinrich and Hernando Rico-Sanchez. The show runs through July 27 at the Pierro Gallery in South Orange, NJ. Information on the gallery and exhibit can be found here: www.pierrogallery.org

On June 22, I participated in a panel discussion with the curator and other artists. The theme of the talk: SECURITY. (The caps come courtesy of the curator!) The discussion centered around politics of the Bush, Jr., and post 9-11 American landscape. Hernando's perspective was particularly appreciated as someone now living in the States but native to Columbia, and who points out how particular American citizens' reticence to voice their opinions is to, well, America. I must admit that the discussion was challenging at times because, while I am the first to admit that my work and political outlook is hugely shaped by a voting life that just barely started before the infamous 2000 Bush v. Gore election, my adult and art making life is almost entirely post 9-11 so it is in many ways impossible for me to identify the impact of this event and the resulting political climate on my artwork. This political climate is everything I am working within and about, but at the same time, my artwork changed between 2001 and 2005 much more as a result of my completing college, beginning an adult life, starting graduate school, and thus finding my artistic voice.

It was easy, within this discussion context, to feel trapped within an identity of the young, naive, hopeful artist (if it weren't for the element of cynicism I share with my generation). While I don't doubt that this tag is partly representative, my position is also affected by being the most activist in orientation of the artists on the panel.

In any event, it is always great to have the opportunity to dialogue with artists with whom one is sharing a gallery space.