It's been a long time since I managed to write, and so much has happened. I'll share what's coming up first, and then fill in the gaps. This weekend, Sept 12/13 is Mattoon Street Arts Festival in Springfield. This is always my favorite fall festival, and this year it is probably the only one I'll do, (though you'll still be able to find my work in a variety of local shops, and on etsy). Stop by and visit!
Want to melt some glass with me? You can sign up for fall glass beadmaking classes through the Yellow House in Palmer on October 17 and 24th. Also, please get in touch if you'd like to set up a welding class. I have a few people interested already and we can work together to schedule it.
Another event that is definitely worth checking out is Art in the Orchard in Easthampton. I built a large outdoor sculpture- Empty(v)- for AiO, and am thrilled to join a team of 28 fabulous artists who contributed to creating this awesome sculpture trail. This will be open through October 31, so you have plenty of time to get over there.
I also completed 2 new projects- one dealing with blood and how we see it, which I showed to its first audience at Vermont College of Fine Arts Summer Graduate Residency, and the other about the historic practice of Water Cures, presented at Historic Northampton, and supported by Northampton Cultural Council.
Blood Imag(in)ed is an interactive installation that uses blood as a site of inquiry into our feelings about disease and the body. The installation offers a playful, interactive space in which people can imagine then create their own blood sample using cast wax cells. As a point of refrence, viewers refer to a blood vessel collaged with blood cell images of varying diagnoses. When complete, viewers document and share their blood portrait, adding to a collective, creative conception of blood imaging. Drawing on the visual language of both art and science, the space incorporates a 'lab' environment with a cell replication station and a specimen collection.
Water as Cure and Transformation was a show of contemporary artwork at Historic Northampton inspired by water cure treatments popular in the mid- 1800s, especially Northampton's own Round Hill Water Cures. The exhibition included 1850s medical artifacts from the museum's collection, and an homage to the four humors and their associated temperaments. A hanging sculpture of steel and paper incited viewers to consider vulnerability and intervention into the body. Also on display were a series of small resin castings paralleling water cure diagrams, and a large abstract steel sculpture evoking the flow of water through an ailing body.
 |
 |
| Artifacts from the collection |
 |
| Homage to the Four Humors |
 |
| Untitled (Flow) Steel |
 |
| Shower Bath, Wet Sheet Pack, Cataract Bath cast resin, text from Water Cures Journal |
There's lots more on the horizon, but that's all I can wrap my brain around today! Happy Labor Day!
