I
counted 59 people seated in bleachers in The MAC's
dark little black box theatre, many of them were well-known
and well-established artists and other art professions
come to see the best of their peers.
Judith Segura introduced
the artists, calling them "three extraordinary
women" and later, "sculptors gone really
wild." Segura was brief, giving the show's artists
maximum time to show and tell their art.
She
did explain that Essential Space was a "three-year
series involving nine artists. Next year it's Annete
Lawrence, Martin Delabano and Jesus
Morales."
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Frances Bagley
Frances said she was "actually
kinda nervous" from the very beginning of her talk.
She said she might read her notes, but she didn't.
It was hardly the first time she'd spoken
before a group, and her natural teaching abilities seemed
to kick in almost as soon as she'd apologized for her
nervousness.
Of the three artists,
it was Frances Bagley's work about which I had the
most unanswered questions. After watching the chronological
progression of her forms in her slides, however, many
of my questions were answered.
The trajectory
from there to here was that obvious. Her early forms,
shown chronologically above, now seem almostdestined
to become her later forms.
She's always had
an obvious interest in the figure, at first as an actual
vessel — she was a potter. She spoke of the cognates
between those, even earlier forms and her long history
with the figure.
"A pot has
a belly, a head, a foot." And from almost the
beginning of her artistic career, she recognizes that
she made "pot-like forms that are figures."
The wood shard
pieces above were spacial vessels presented as human-like
torsos.
By the second image above,
which she called "a positive form" she had added "blue
burlap," as a skin for the figure. She liked the
woven quality, which was repeated in the fourth piece,
and to an extent, in the leafy quality of the third.
has done works on the wall -- she called it low relifef
cast bronze with Harry Geffert
was inpingforms and
As she noted, "I'm
not through with these (forms). I'm just somewhere else today."
The love is expexpxxxx
Mred
The further progression is almost as
obvious. Even before I get around to stringing all my
notes together below, if you just scroll down, looking
at each form in succession, you'll see how the above
became the below and the works in this show.
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Flea market mask
The Confession
bundling, waddeing up, pivotal piece
-
pc I made to amke something from. I looked at it, and
thought, I think this is the piece
Wadded up and bundled
first draped piece was 2001
[8]
slinky sleazy cloth
flesh colored
The Age of Bronze
I always loved textiles, did munt to scar just wanted to
touch it
how it hangs and folds and falls
needed to be knit to hang right
grouped to make stay
interested in actually sealty
mostly draped
interested to see if chiet ca be pd of the floor
one gued pc looks like tension between forms
animals are taxidermy forms
grew up on flarm & have
my sympathy’s really with animals
I’m on their side
[11]
Red Dog
juxtaposed with dog forms and female
savny
deer heads withoug antlers
sculting with fuber
Four Dogs
I'm really interested in noses
I ordered the head of a coyote, and it arrived with teeth,
mouth soae impalhr
sleazy ridiculous color
it was first bcedining
The Heart
seated animals form with different head.
inifual intuthuts cave ida ll up, door bottw to show
all turt
people asking question
all i have is quastions
good thing
clive friips called it art invents itself
with little help from some of my friends who talked me through
it
Frances said the
elements of her presentation Essential Space II is
taken from images we all know from Art History.
She
listed the references, explaining that she meant for us
to have
an "experience of deja vu" without fully
understanding why the shapes were familiar.
The figure sitting on the
box is
from a Matisse painting
"I don’t think you’d
know that, I just wanted it to haunt you a little."
The pieces in this show are not individual
or independent figures. It's all one piece.
trying
all in restatements of each other. they’re not
individual figures
Each form is from art history
gatia from boll
the Fallen One
Very Skinny Man
Matisse figure
reloj more androgenous
olympia,
these are answers
I think about big questions like who are we and what are
we about
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Linnea Glatt
Compared with Frances
Bagley's comparitively warm, emotionly based work,
Linnea Glatt's is cooler and much more of an intellectual
construct.
I had trouble following
each step, but the thrust of her explication was
entirely logical... I wanted so badly to write down
every carefully crafted sentence of her talk, that
I nearly mangled every one of her long, complexly
constructed logisms...
Wish
I’d gone first
What I lon up to indouw aftist striving to articulare
and meanings in a lite not an extraordinarng lue
articulate a consonated that we are shue
medlding of concious & urconscious
art sorta makes itself
I try to inform the work. In the end, the work informs me
ending on crutiong place
grew up in a rich environment
place to live a life
centuriy a place to be on life a form for meating
something implicid
after i fed any plex got that out of my system
vessels containing or uncordeb
vesel comting the sh windows
beltuns attemun can
3rd drawing
creating a drawing every 24 hours
tcu installation
180 wardrobe drawers with fingertips as knobs
convey 2 very differnt spaces that were connected
implications of drawer
contact with moving video on back side (inside)_ the drawers
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Kaneem Smith
My appreciation for Kaneem Smith's art
has grown substantially during the weeks since the opening
of this exhibition.
adjunct teacher at UNT a& TWU
1st yar at Denton
“It hasn’t been perfect, but life isn’t perfect.”
title of first slide: Waiting for Prophetic Fullfiment
I love being a textile artist
There’s a historical prerspective
2 sides of my self, 1998
felt & wool
woven on floor loom
cuttina & re(hanging)
-
Means for Impertuaous Recovery
Δ Δ Δ Δ
Things we try to make new happen
fiberlas & poly resin
8’ tall
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harmful to health but gorgeous
relate to surface as skin
make thhur
light under elevates them to spiritual
Progressive Aggregation
cast aluminum & felt
wood wool yarn buit to nerdund self
body
beauty of flaws in metal
bring them out
patina seeps into the crevices
African American installation
15’ long
cotton muslin,
Project Row Houses in Houston
the resufacing mortfist of the past is inevitable
it just sucks you and draws you in
inflicts spirit - isd pe.
sing sonngy voice
I try to live by fiberglass resin
It’s so dangerous but it’s so beautiful
fiber with cotton in the bottom from the field across
frome her home in South Carolina where her mother used
to pick cotton
DVAC that now has a different name
red marks were my holographic focus grids
very Momentary appeal
Reason for only doing bufle
The Inevitability of Paradise
trying to be as elusive as possible
thinking about it more lately
there is adralnty every aspect of hvce
trying to flesh it flush it
wrap my mind around it
Questions
cow
from the Bathers from Picasso
initually all animals were covered
cow = couch
remove the corners
a reference to allegorical paintings
grew up on dairy farm. I really love cows.
Linnea, too
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color
Linnea Glatt
explained that in her eary work, "color was
derived from the materials (craft)." The brighter
colors [only] "slowly crept in." And
there were "only certain colors I’d
allow." Now, she realizes, "I’m
very intrigued working with color."
Frances
said that "color
is such a subjecive element. Bringing in color is
pushing buttons," she said, explaining that
the figures in this show are draped with gray, because
she was purposely "toning it down." She
changed what had been "Matisse colors in the
newer work," because she felt that "I couldn't
use that color" while we were "bombing
Iraq."
FB is the first artist I've heard
talk in public about how the War on Iraq has affected
her art.
Kaneem
said, "I
do not use a lot of color in my work," because
she was afraid it would "throw off the meaning
of my piece... I might later on introduce it, but
very slowly
human being as vessel
working with vessel symbolized working with humanity
-
LG duality
great sadness not a huge idea but it captures my attention
duality between pieces not whithin a piece itself
looking down into and looking above
something magical about looking down and into the sky. You
could fall up into the sky.
During her part of the talk, Kaneem alluded to the
reason many of her pieces include human figures only
from the waist down, but she did not explain it, suggesting
instead that someone should ask her about it later.
When asked during the Q&A, she said, "I
think it has to do with... head in clouds
physically here but actually you’re somewhere else...
and that it ties into vessels
A quesion about image:
Linnea
told us, "I
thought a lot about the power of the image.At some
point the image takes over. Hopefully, it’s
a lasting image. I'm not sure I have the answer."
Frances
said, "I
make sculpture more for the feeling than for the
image, but I can’t deny that I’m maiking
images."
When
Frances makes a piece, it's difficult for her to visually
understand
what she's done. She said, "I can’t see
it". She has "to make a photo [of it, then
take it home] and look at the photo to see what I’ve
made — Oh, that's what I made."
The
image comes back to you — it really seeps into
your consciousness.
According
to Frances, although she and Linnea took long hours
to install their work in this show, "Kaneem
did it overnight. Kaneem came in, and it was magically
there.
Kaneem noted afterward
that although she installed the piece in one evening,
it took much longer to stitch all those coffee bags
together.
Frances
continued, saying "Kaneem makes most of her own fabric.
I would’t consider it." For Frances, "It's
a treasure hunt" as she explored the rows and
rows of sleazy fabric stores along Harry Hines Boulevard
in northwestern Dallas.
"To get to
that gray, I’ve gone through a lot of fabric — I
have enough for the rest of my life."
KS: I had no idea the shadows would take you some other
place
coffee bags not cleaned
FB: try to abstract the fry by obsuring them
LG: a sense of every or life in trauma
KS red dots
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