Kitchen Sink Omelet

We entered a house, portal ornate and measured with simple lines, filled with corridors strange, yet somehow comforting, and rooms that turned upside down as we walked into them, while doors appeared without warning and opened as if to invite us further inward. What would we find, ever deeper, ever further inwards? The mathematical precision of the floorplans belied a feeling of artless improvisation, chaos twined around and about the wallpapers and the wainscoting, highlighted the trim and sank deep into the foundations. Yet this wildness was not rot, nor corruption--no more than that of any life lived in a morass of a world perhaps denied. Stairs upward instead led us inward, strophes between floors, between layers, kindness of the hostess melded with the casual dismissal of the hermetic, the withdrawn, the soul become it’s own shell, gritty sense of self an irritant to form the lustrous pearl. A moment’s pause to cast eyes about, our breath fog, wondering what had led to this, lea...

Another fascinating untitled installation in the Flex Room of the Emery Community Arts Center. I call it "Ammo Altar" but I'm told it's untitled. I hope to speak to the artist soon.

There are two paintings by the same artist hanging side by side in Emery Community Arts Center. I hope to speak to the artist soon. Here images of them. The full image is a still picture. The close-ups to show the brushwork and working surface are stills from videos. Determine These Confines. Like Evolution Never Happened. I found the best way to study the brushwork and composition with video "fly-bys" was to hold the cmaera at a slight angle to the painting surface. The close-ups on  Like Evolution Never Happened  are to show how the artist used hot-glue as a texturing medium to create a bas-relief of the primodial creatures swimming in the deeps.

At the Emery Community Arts Center : This fascinating sculpture on the fragility of industrial farming has been up for some time. I've tried to talk to the artist, but the timing always seemed to be off.  I also have a video "walk-by" to post once the installation is taken down.

See previous blog posts here and here . Ashley's untitled installation is complete. It's located in the Flex Room of the UMF Community Arts Center in Farmington, Maine. The full installation is best appreciated by actually experiencing it at the site. Ashley explained it's meant to be interactive. "It'll have a door, an opening, at one end and you go through a tunnel to sit in a chair inside." Once the installation is taken down, I'll post more images of the completed installation (including a video walk-through of the interior).

The Farmington Maine Historical Society held their annual wreath-making workshop. Located in the basement of the old North Church, members and volunteers from the city of Farmington and UMF students twisted together wreaths onto metal forms. Images by Willena Jennings The wreaths will be sold for $20USD each next Saturday for Chester Greenwood Day in downtown Farmington. The FHS would appreciate it anyone who purchases the wreaths returns the metal forms when they're done with them. The metal forms are the major expense of making the wreaths. Recycling them would help the FHS do this again next year.

While walking to UMF Mantor Library I spotted this protest taking place--in the middle of an empty commons? Turns out, that's the whole idea. An art installation by Ben, assisted by his classmates, on the theme of apathy, both public and private. Ben was faced with a creative block where he couldn't really find something to care about. His instructor suggested Ben use apathy as a theme. Ben took the idea and ran with it. "It's about the hypocrisy," Ben explained. "People don't care, I don't care. People don't care because they're isolated."

While interviewing Ashley and Rachael about their work in progress, I found myself also being interviewed. Jamie is in the same class and has the same assignment, "dinner memories." Jamie then produced an (awesome) digital audio recorder and asked me a few questions. Jamie has focused on dinners as communal events, where many families pray before eating. Her composition is to take conduct interviews on family prayer and then weave them together into an audio composition. Jamie's inspiration for this composition came from her own protestant background, but she told me of how her parents also examined other religions to better understand their own faith.

I've already posted about this work in progress here . Today I met the artist, Ashley, while she and her friend, Rachael, were working on the installation. The untitled piece arose from an assignment in her class on the theme of "dinner memories." For Ashley, who grew up in poverty, there are no family dinner memories. "Instead we spent our time stressing over how we were going to get our next groceries." All these worries Ashley described as a web of questions, a web still enmeshing her today. Ashley immediately conceived her theme as a large installation in space; "It had to be large, not just some little thing, because it's not a little thing to me." Ashley's design takes advantage of space to enable viewer participation; people will be able to actually enter into the artwork once it's completed. The initial concept was for a tunnel, but there simply was not enough space to make one. Ashley realized she could take advantage of t...

I spotted this while walking through the UMF Community Arts building. This is an apparent work in progress in the Flex Room, located just inside the entrance. Not only the spaces are part of the composition, but also the webbing of the work itself, how it's anchored and how they intersect (or don't). The last image in the lower-right corner shows how support is provided not just by the wall anchor points, but also by the strings themselves.

While checking out the interior of the new UMF Community Arts Center, I found two students installing an art project for viewing. The installation is the work of Tatiana (on the ladder) assisted by Amanda (blowing up balloons). Tatiana explained the installation is for the class "Art On The Edge." For this assignment Tatiana chose a theme on childhood simplicity. Rather than a spontaneous concept, this was an idea she had long carried with her. The subject is hot-air balloons, something she's always loved. All of this is meant to be seen from a child's perspective. Amanda added how they had considered using something to suggest large blades of grass, like lying in a field and watching the balloons high above. But they had to discard this approach as impractical. I noticed all the other installations in the center were "high-tech", or at least heavily relied on technology. Tatiana, however was using only basic materials: paper, toy balloons, a smal...

At Wicked Gelato I was interviewed by Noelle Dubay for a UMF class project on Writing for New Media. Noelle is creating an encyclopedia of Farmington residents. Since she is a newcomer to Farmington--and has fallen in love with the place--all the people she's interviewing are strangers to her. So she has given her project the working title of Strangerpedia.  The title is partly a comment on Wikipedia and modern media. If you happen to see her, fear not. She asks only nine simple--and painless questions. She hopes to be able to place her encyclopedia on the web so people can view and comment.

Places in Time The selection of modern Japanese woodblock prints is excellent, and truly representative of the modern styles. The choice of white walls is a good one. The prints are so vivid and colorful, any color scheme would clash with them. And the delineation of each piece is so bold that any pattern used on the walls would clash as well. Both the woodblock prints and the modern drawings each need to be considered in their own right, not in contrast to the surrounding environment. It may have been tempting to echo the themes and treatments of both the prints and drawings, but that would only detract from the strong use of color and line present in both styles of art.