TONIGHT!!
TMA Contemporary Exhibition reception 5-8pm
The Trout Museum Appleton WI
So happy to be included among 100+ cutting edge WI artists.
So excited to see how my installation" What connects us" is installed. It's the first time I have ever had anyone beside myself install an installation piece which is very freeing.
My family has decided to stay home but I'm hopeful to make new connections with artists and see artist friends.
Can't wait!!
If you're hanging out in Madison please stop by Communication for the Meaningful Connections exhibition reception 3-8pm featuring artwork centered around themes of connection. I had a sneak peek of most of the exhibition and it's fantastic.
It is not lost on me that my installation being shown at the Trout Museum and the works being exhibited at Communication are all about connection and community.
In a world, within systems that categorize, compete, or make it seem like consumption will solve the problems of discord, connection is our antidote.
installation
Winter is Alive- sneak peek still
So excited to see the premier of " Winter is Alive" this Thursday at 9:30pm on the Garver patio following the Silver Lining Awards. What an experience it will be seeing footage taken at sub zero temps while it will be the warmest day of the year so far ( 90)
@adgranat and @graciewallner we're such a pleasure to work with, they were with us artists during sub zero installations and recorded in depth interviews. I can't wait to see how it all intertwines together!
On another note: I'm very humbled that the @madisonbubbler
Nominated me for a silver lining award for my role as volunteer shop manager at @communicationmadison
I'll be at the awards to support all the nominees and winners. 🥂🎉
Reposted from @tonemsn 🎞 Grant Phipps previews a new short documentary, "Winter Is Alive," on 2021's citywide cooler world carnival, set to premiere after the Silver Lining Awards at Garver Feed Mill this Thursday, May 12, at 9:30 p.m. The film will be projected on the wall of the venue's outside patio.
Co-directors Aaron Granat and Gracie Wallner spoke with Phipps about making the doc, their working relationship, and more. ❄️
tonemadison.com/film
"Although 'Winter Is Alive' is a commissioned and ultimately edifying work, both Granat and Wallner were a bit humbled and inspired by the project’s unraveling interconnectivity, poetically pondering moments of creative breakthrough as well as trauma. Wallner says, 'The project is artists and activists and scientists all coming together to make change. It’s easy to be pessimistic about it on a broad scale. But when you think of it as reaching out and helping someone in the moment, [when] everyone is doing that, that’s where we can make the change'."
All images from "Winter Is Alive"
Selected to be part of TMA Contemporary
Super stoked his installation " What connects us" is going to the Trout Museum of Art in Appleton for the TMA Contemporary Exhibition.🎉
It's such a warm feeling to have my most abstract conceptual work included in one of the most competitive juried exhibitions in WI among amazingly skilled colleagues and friends.
To pick up on a sentiment I mentioned earlier this week
This is not the first time I have entered work into this juried exhibition and it's not the first time I have even entered this installation into a juried exhibition. There are many factors that lead to either acceptance or rejection and most of it has nothing to do with your work or you as a person. It has everything to do with timing, how your work speaks to other submitted work, if there is space AND the subjective tastes of the jurors themselves.
If I have learned anything in the past decade of being an artist it is to accept rejection gracefully, to not take it personal. I have also learned not to make artwork I think will get into exhibitions or I think will sell. ( it is totally fine if you do this) I make artwork I want to make because if I don't those thoughts and ideas will consume me.
I say all this because it's important to celebrate these moments and also keep this space here transparent and real. I tell you all of this because I wish someone had talked about this stuff with me and in general artists need to talk about all the hidden elements.
This installation is about all of the patterns in nature and our bodies that overlap and connect. Transparency always invites conversation, welcomes our imperfections and our complex intertwined connection.
Congrats to all accepted artists and to those that received a " no for now" please continue to make the art that opens you up and sets you alight.
Photo from Interconnected an exhibition at Wisconsin Lutheran College last fall depicts 2 of 4 panels of this installation
Reflections on being an artist
As I sit here in my bed with a head cold...
I'm taking the opportunity to slow down and reflect on how far I've come on this art journey
It hasn't been easy and I hope you know that a path worth venturing on is rarely easy.
I look back with such tenderness for all those moments I believed that impossible dialogue in my brain. I bought into programs of others that claimed to know more about what I'm supposed to do or who I am supposed to be than recognizing that the answers were already there.
On any social media platform it is too easy to look back with scorn on our former selves and criticize with 20/20 hindsight, But that would be a huge mistake!
When I look back I see all of the struggles and sticking points that I needed to endure to become who I am now. I love that I know now that no amount of programs you pay for to help you do x or y are going to let you skip further down your path.
We hold what we can at the moments that are right for us. You are an expert on your journey, don't let anyone expertly tell you need ( insert any variable) before you can get to where you are going. ( hello, all marketing to artists?!!) That is not you talking darling, it's so many systems that rob us of ourselves, distracting us from the time we have to put in.
You already know how to do this. You are already an artist! Wherever you are at on your path, take a moment to love yourself now and send love back to all of the selves you've been before that got you here.
You may always want to be further than where you are now, but look at how far you've come ❤️
A Year ago...
A year ago this SIPHONOPHORE was installed for Winter is Alive- A world wide festival dedicated to climate action.
The week I installed last year had sub zero temps and I had to stop a few times because I couldn't feel my hands.
A couple weeks after installation all the snow was gone and it was so warm that the installations on Madison lakes had to be taken down nearly 2 weeks earlier than planned
Comparatively this year and today in particular it's nearly 50 degrees more than it was at this time last year. In the past decade in February there have been 70 degree days. While many Midwesterners rejoice during warm temps in the middle of winter, I find it alarming.
This SIPHONOPHORE represents our hopes, our collective and individual actions and how they all work together. The actions we take as individuals matter. Things worth doing require time, patience and love.
I do believe that individual action can drive change. In siphonophores, individual organisms join together to form a colonial organism in order to survive.
Climate action is a siphonophore, we are dependent on each other to feed the movement that ensures not only our survival but also all other life on this planet.
I believe the oceans are where life originated and the preservation of the oceans also maintains balance for all life on this blue marble.
Part of my climate action as an artist is in presenting what is contained in the blue of our marble and deep sea creatures in particular. These creatures aren't visible to us, we know relatively nothing about them and yet they're responsible for a large portion of the oxygen we breathe, for sinking tons of carbon and much else we don't even know we don't know. By better understanding them we come to know ourselves.
Reminiscing about last winter
Around this time a year ago I was continuously work on this sculpture of a siphonophore- a commentary and invitation to think about climate action.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Here in WI it's one of the coldest days we've had this winter and I reflect back on installing this outdoors during the most frigid temps of last winter. While frigid temps are no joke, the rapid rise in temperature last year, 2 weeks after installation was frightening.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Today I transported a different batch of artwork in frigid temps. Here's hoping that it will stay cold ( snow would be nice though) for awhile longer 🤞❄️⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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Messages in the nest
This nest sat in an exhibition for a little over a month. I think many thought the nest looked complete, but this piece was meant to invite reflection, interaction. Perhaps it looked too finished.
Much like every other piece of work I create/ collaborate on I have to release expectations and stand with curiosity.
With a social practice piece like this nest where the artist isn't there in person it's hard to gauge how much participation there will be. I'm glad to see even a few answers woven into the nest when I arrived to dismantle the work.
Prompts :
What ideas, thoughts, actions do you want to incubate for the future?
What makes a safe space, and/ or home?
How do we build on/ with what we already have to create new pathways for connection?
A message from the nest:
"Things are rarely easy at the start. When we learn something new, there comes a time when the enormity of the task is realized.. " I will never be that good" we think. And so we sink back into the familiar. Build on mistakes- that's how you reach new heights."
This message is the very message I needed to see when I started reflecting about the success of this piece.
Keep building folks!
Image Description: a tangle of electric cords in different colors surrounds a handwritten message on paper, the words quoted above"
Nest led a former life
This nest led a former life as another installation last winter for Winter is Alive a global festival discussing climate change.
Site specific installations can lead new lives, so can much of our waste or items that no longer serve their intended purpose. The original Siphonophore ( deep sea colonial organism made up of individual zooids) was constructed from 20 people's cord piles.
These cords were no longer useful, they had another life as a creature and now transformed yet again into a nest .
I keep asking:
How do we build on/ with what we already have to create new pathways for connection?
And you can respond too. This exact question and others invite you to contemplate, write, draw, add to this nest at Wisconsin Lutheran College.
Wellnest Installation
Interconnected exhibition brought to you by the made up term/ definition
Wellnest:
Where creating safe space and mental well-being intersect.
Image Descriptions:
A sculpture of a large scale nest of tied electric cords is placed on top of a pedestal.
3 pieces of art nests hang on a wall their details barely discernable
Close-up of a black and cream printed nest of birds on canvas
Close-up of Art installation that shows interconnected branching pattern. Parts are cut out so you can see through the piece.
Various risograph prints ( gold and black) of mirrored birds form nests on various colors of paper and backgrounds
Tomorrow is opening day! Snag your risograph nest and other printed goodies during the reception at Wisconsin Lutheran College, Schkueter Gallery MKE WI
And join me also in celebrating the work of Beth Stoddard
Sneak peek "What Connects Us"
Another sneak peek
Here's the view from inside the installation " What Connects us" out through the gallery entrance.
The deeper you dig and the farther you expand roots the more encounters of reciprocal relationships can be found. Everything really is intricately connected. Life on this planet is chaotic and yet ordered all at once.
This installation is a practice of entanglement.
The install is representative of intertwining of mycelial networks as much as it is about any other seemingly random ( but not) pattern of branching.
The process of creating this work was also a practice of connection, as well as of letting go and trusting. I did not plan how this would look I just started and let the materials guide me.
When you see it I hope it reminds you of life full of complexity and patterns. We can listen, let go and trust that the patterns that this piece represents will bring lives closer together.
Hope to see you at the opening this Friday 5-7pm at Wisconsin Lutheran College Schleuter Art Gallery
Image Description: 2 yellow earth tone branching patterned art panels with holes hang on either side of glass doorways. In between the panels there are shadows with holes that look nest- like. There is a figure reflected in the glass ( me)
Participatory art
What ideas, thoughts, actions do you want to incubate for the future?
Inviting folks visiting the
Interconnected exhibition Sept 10-Oct 15 to:
Write their words,
Depict things they hold dear
AND/OR
Use detritus from the last year ( natural or not)
to add to the structure of this nest.
Together we can build and hold this safe space to bring a new future into being.
Hopefully in this future we can better care for each other, the land and all the creatures in it.
Mycelium like Installation
What if you could see the vast networks that lie hidden underfoot, inside the mind, echoed in diverse microscopic structures?
What if you could travel and explore something like these patterns that connect plants, fungi, animals, minds, the full gamut of beingness, AKA all of life?
What if, questions like the ones listed above are what drive my work and also let me selfishly cling to wonder and curiosity with a child’s insatiable thirst.
I think when people tell children to “ grow up” we kill off entire worlds that they would have otherwise created, worlds that could be brilliant solutions.
What if we need curiosity to help us reformat systems and collective existential dread?
Let the children be children and stop demanding that they leave their hidden imaginative lives behind. That goes for all of you adult sized children out there too.
Coming Sept 10 in Milwaukee you’ll get to immerse yourself in an installation of interconnection created in part with crayons :)
