Center for Craft Creativity and Design

(02/19/07): May 2006

May 14 – 19, I visited Washington, D.C. I toured the National Galleries, spending most of my time in the Contemporary Wing. The galleries were in-between exhibitions, and were in the process of uninstalling the celebrated international exhibit, DADA, which I was very disappointed to miss by a mere two days! I did see several great exhibits at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Divine and Human: Women in Ancient Mexico and Peru, an exhibit of work by Pre-Columbian women, was of particular interest to me with its collection of “gender” and “sex” containers. These were earthen cooking pots, medicinal vases, and wash basins that were molded after figures of both women and men, with many exaggerated sexual features. Several containers depicted sexual acts between man and woman, woman and woman, man and man. It’s amazing to see tangible examples of early queer artworks. The museum also had on exhibit an ongoing series of artists’ books in their library. I am so attracted to the field of book arts. While I have made about a dozen artist books, I have yet to see many others in person, so the exhibit was a new experience for me in that respect. I purchased a monograph of Kiki Smith’s Prints and Things. I finally visited the National Museum of Textiles, which hosts exhibitions of mostly traditional/ethnic textiles and clothing. The current exhibition, Harpies, Mermaids, and Tulips: Embroidery of the Greek Islands and Epirus Region, consisted of mostly embroidered pieces from this region. Of course, it is interesting to view these pieces and learn more about the historic beginnings of the fiber arts, but I have a hard time finding inspiration in these textiles. I also visited the Hirschorn Museum of Sculpture, which is one of my favorite museums because of its excellent changing exhibitions and the architecture and grounds it inhabits. Jim Lambie’s installation, Zobop, on the ground floor was fascinating. (see photo) On permanent exhibition was a piece my Mona Hatoum, Entrails Carpet, consisting of a cast-rubber elongated large intestine, layed out in a large flat rectangular “rug.” I have seen this work before in print, but it was a totally different experience in person.

(02/19/07): May 2006

(02/19/07): June 2006

In early June I moved from my college in Smithville, TN, to Knoxville, TN. I considered several places to move after attending the Appalachian Center for Craft for three years. I settled on Knoxville because of my friends here and the city’s relatively cheap cost of living. I moved into a house and set up a drawing studio in a small room in the basement and a sewing studio in a spare room. From June 11 - 17, I attended a stellar workshop at Shakerag Workshops in Sewanee, TN, with Chunghie and Jiyoung Chung. Chunghie taught the Korean technique of pojagi, “wrapping cloth,” which is similar to quilt piecing, but the technique uses French seams to hide any raw edges, thus creating a pieced cloth that has neither a right nor wrong side. Her daughter, Jiyoung, taught us goomchi, a papermaking technique that uses elements of pieced construction much like pojagi, but is focused on the laborious process of folding, wrapping and rolling wet paper, until it becomes cloth-like. Both techniques were fascinating to learn, and pojagi translates well with the quilting work I am doing. The technique really opens up many structural possibilities for my work, as I won’t be restricted by the technical limits of traditional quilting methods, where only one “right” side exists in a finished work. June 17, I went down to Atlanta after the workshop in Sewanee, to see the closing day of the famed Quilts of Gee’s Bend exhibit at the High Museum. The quilts were beautifully displayed in the High Museum, with lots of room for each quilt to really shine. I cannot describe in words how important this show was for me. I had read the book on the phenomenon of these quilts published in 2003, and watched as the quilts were exhibited everywhere but the South. Not only did I get to see the quilts on the last day of their long tour across the country, but I also got to meet the artists themselves at a book signing!

(02/19/07): July 2006

I was invited by Michael Giles, graduate director of University of Tennessee’s 1010 Gallery, to exhibit from June 29 – July 10. I had just completed a new piece from the pojagi workshop that I incorporated into a new installation, titled “the loss.” The piece consists of varying-sized plastic pods gathered around a transparent burial quilt with a gaping hole in the center. I also showed two new mixed-media drawings and another new quilt sculpture/installation, “family tree 3.” The opening night occurred on June’s First Friday night, when all the galleries have their openings, so my show was rather well-attended, with over 200 visitors. In mid-July, my friend Becky Finley, photography professor at Sam Houston University, in Houston, TX, approached me about doing a joint show with a photographer, titled Boys Don’t Cry, in February. I accepted the offer and began making plans for new works.

(02/19/07): August 2006

From July 30 – August 5, I attended a workshop, “Borrowed Imagery: Mixed Media Collage,” with Wendy Huhn, at Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN. Wendy’s workshop focused on the transferred image. We did over thirty samples of transfers, involving photocopy, xylene, citra-solve, therma-fax transfers on cloth and paper. This is a completely new field for me; I have done very few transfers. Now that I have the tools for incorporating appropriated images into my work, I have so many plans for new pieces. From August 17 – 21, I was in Chicago to visit the School of the Art Institute as a potential graduate school. I was impressed with the studio facilities of SAIC, and I saw quite a bit of the work of graduate students in the Fiber and Material Studies department. The department approaches the medium of fibers from a very open-ended position, challenging its students to push the meaning and processes of the fibers field in boundless dimensions. I also got to spend a lot of time in the collections of the Art Institute, which are quite extensive. The textile collections on display were mainly of Asian, Indian and medieval European traditions. Interestingly enough, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art has hosted a series of fiber exhibitions in its “12 x 12” gallery. Also at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, I saw Patty Chang’s installation, “Shangri-La,” and “Drawn Into the World,” a collection of drawings from the past 50 years. I particularly intrigued by the large collection of Chicago outsider artists represented in the show, as well as one of Matthew Barney’s sculptures which featured drawn vignettes of genitalia. Another exhibit here featured Catherine Opie, a contemporary queer photographer, who had on display her body of work, Chicago (from the “American Cities Series”).

(02/19/07): September 2006

In late July, my instructor from the Shakerag workshop, Chunghie Lee, had asked me to participate in a group show of American artists who have used the techniques of pojagi in their work. The show was to be held at a new artists’ village, Heyri Art Factory, in Seoul, South Korea, from Sept. 1 – 26. In early August I sent Chunghie “the loss,” one of the installation pieces I had exhibited a the Gallery 1010 show in Knoxville. At the center of my installation is a small pieced pojagi inspired very much by the traditional pojagis I was exposed to during the workshop. Also, at Chunghie Lee’s request, I sent three useable pojagis made of silk organza which incorporated screenprinted targets tucked into the folds of the satchel. These were items for sale and all three of them sold—which covered almost exactly the shipping costs to/from Korea. From Sept. 5 – 22, I visited New York City. I really saw too much to list in detail, so I will only expound upon the highlights of my trip. I went to the American Museum of Folk Art every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings for the entire two weeks, to research quilts and quiltmaking in their library holdings. The museum was also hosting an exhibition, White on White, and a Little Gray, a collection of monochromatic cotton quilts from the 19th century. Next door, at the Museum of Modern Art, I saw several amazing exhibits, most notably the DADA exhibit which I missed in Washington D.C. One of my most formative activities in New York was attending four showings of the Global Queer Cinema film series showings at MOMA. These films were a completely new experience for me; I had never studied film, nor even heard of the queer cinema movement. I gained so much insight on this queer artform and the multifarious perspectives it has presented. At the Museum of Arts & Design, I saw the opening of the international Droog exhibit. The other prominent shows I saw in NYC were Eva Hesse at the Jewish Museum, a gallery show of Annette Messager’s, a members show at the Center for Book Arts, tapestries and Cai Guo-Quiang’s sculpture on the Roof: Transparent Monument at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a utensil show at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, and many selections from the permanent collection at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in Queens, NYC.

(02/19/07): October - December 2006

This was a very busy time of year for me, with the holidays and all. Right after Halloween, a new friend of mine, Katie Ries, invited me to participate in a collective book arts project with the theme of “Dia de los Muertos” (Day of the Dead). Twenty people participated in the project, so everyone got a packet of twenty different books in the end. My first collaborative art project in Knoxville was a great success! I purchased a very large quilting machine with capabilities of quilting up to 10 ft. wide and unlimited length. I continued developing work for the Houston show. I have been working on a series of small drawings intermittently for the past six months titled the “Romance Series.” With this body of work, I have dissected the garishly romanticized cover art of romance novels, calling into question the institutionalized notion of romantic love as something that exists only between hetero-normative couples.

(02/19/07): January 2007

At long last, I moved into new studio!!! My friend Katie Ries secured renting the vacant community center next door to her, and began sub-leasing studios to artists. I got one of the best rooms in the house; it has three large windows, supplying lots of natural light, and plenty of storage space. Continuing to make work for Houston show, I eventually took my drawings and made a couple into quilts. They are a very new experiment for me—they are basically pieced paper quilts, with very little cloth. In the beginning of January, I began the arduous process of planning out the Houston exhibition. All I had to go by was map of the gallery. I laid out on the map where I wanted pieces installed and had to make very detailed hanging instructions, since I would not be present for the installment. In the middle of January I had professional digital photos and slides shot of the work completed in the past 9 months. Next came packaging up all 28 pieces of work. I had to make a lot of the shipping boxes myself, since several pieces were of such odd dimensions. Finally, all the work got shipped out on Feb. 3.

(02/19/07): January 2007

(02/19/07): February 2007

The exhibition was put together and installed Feb. 9 -10 by Rebecca Finley, the Photography professor at SHSU. After receiving digital photos, it appears that the show went up well. In the photo you get a good idea of the work of the photographer, Geof Teague, whom I exhibited with. I will be traveling to Houston from Feb. 22 – 25, to attend the opening reception at SHSU. I look forward to also checking out Houston’s art scene. A tentative list of places to visit includes: the Menil Collection of 20th Century Art, the Rothko Chapel, the Cy Twombly Museum, a Contemporary Asian Art perspective at the Blaffer Gallery of the University of Houston, the Contemporary Art Museum of Houston, and seeing the large collections at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. In the studio, I have begun a mail art book project to mail out to artist acquaintances, old classmates and friends. I am currently researching screen printing equipment for my studio.

(02/19/07): February 2007


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