I recently revisited  “Lines Left Out“, an installation that I made four years ago for the Big

Read Project of Sonoma County. I was invited to create an installation in response to the

selected book, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.  A friend’s book group recently read the

book and invited me to talk about what I had done.

An opportunity to revisit, review and possibly rethink the project and how it is still

influencing my current work.  At the time I found it ironic that themes of the book that

interested me most, were issues that I needed to address in the making of the installation.

Issues such as: What gets seen? What gets cut? Who decides? How that process happens?

How pace can affect what gets seen, remembered and forgotten.

I received the invitation in July of ’07 and installed it in early October, only three months to

create and install it. The Library Gallery at Sonoma State is a large space and I work slowly.

Could I do this?  Given my interest in the changing role of books and  screens of technology,

I had already started this work without knowing. I inventoried what I had: book covers &

parts, organza silk, silk-screened American target silhouettes, prints, a salvaged structure,

bamboo, and 4 x 4 blocks.

My challenge was to put them together in a form that spoke to the feeling and space of

Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury’s themes from 1953 are still relevant today. Magritte and the

silhouette, surrealism, photography, walls, mirrors, memory & memorials, and the dandelion

came to mind. I “burned to keep a focus!” to the rhythms of Bradbury’s words: “Quick. Click, Pic,

Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What,

Where, Eh?”  Cut, Cut, Cut. A process; cutting became a way to reflect on a theme of the book.

After deinstalling, I made Lines Left Out, an iphoto book that records a poetic response to my

installation experience, using landscape, artwork, book parts, and images of the art

installation. The visual poem was inspired by Paul Klee’s concept of drawing, “taking the line

for a walk”, the words of New Zealand artist, Hadwen, as he described landscape as “the place

where everything we see, know, and imagine exists…a field punctuated by natural and

introduced landmarks that exist not only in the physical sense, but as signifiers of our

mental, psychological and spiritual world.”, and Dorothy Richardson (Pilgrimage), turn of the

20th century author committed to wandering in territory of the tangential with the belief that

“nothing is a side issue”.

I  showed this iphoto book as a slide show to the book group.  And upon reflection, I realize

how this work was a beginning and has since stimulated the iterations, “Cuttings” and

“Long Look”.  I am soon to travel to Iceland for an artist residency this summer.  My

head is churning in anticipation for the next iteration.

              The Great Grandfather Club

               Uncovering truths. One ancestor at a time.

Cuts from video, "Tangled Dreams", a collaboration with artist, Elizabeth Sher

Cocktail Party & Video Installation Extravaganza

Saturday, June 16, 2012  6 – 11

&

Collect!

June 16 – July 14

Opening Reception & Bidding: Saturday, June 16, 2012  5 – 8

Berkeley Art Center’s bi-annual exhibit/auction fundraiser, this year in

celebration of Berkeley Art Center’s 45th anniversary.  Featured artists include

those from the Artist Lecture Series and  exhibits over the past three years.

April 21 – May 26      

Reception:  April 21,  5 – 7   

Talk by Donna Seager:  April 21,  4 – 5

Talk by Lisa Kokin (Retrospective of her work) :  May 6,  3:00

Live Auction Party:  May 26,  5 – 7

"the s & s of A package", side 2, 1999

150 Bay area artists  have donated work.  A variety of book related works ranging from altered books  to handmade artist books  will be on view and can be bid upon during the five week long silent auction.  The show closes with the live auction party on May 26th.  100% of the proceeds go to support MarinMOCA’s programs and activities.

I  donated “the s & s of A package”,  an accordion fold book made with book board & cloth, acrylic gel transfers, papers and found objects. It was awarded an “Honorable Mention” by Donna Seager, one of the owners of the Seager Gray Gallery in Mill Valley.

"the s & s of A package"_detail

I am attracted to the worn and weathered.  So when I find an object with markings of use, I often pick it up and take it home.  My studio is filled with these artifacts, and each one once had a life of its own.  I love to look closely at their markings and patterns which often offer clues to a life of a particular action or way.  In this sense an artifact is a manifestation of a process shaped by it own history.

Artifacts often enter into my work. For the last few years, I have collected old hard covered books.  My studio is filled with piles of their extracted covers, often arranged by color.

Recently I have revisited an old favorite, some rusty bedsprings that I discovered years ago in our barn.  I incorporated them in an installation at SMOVA (the former Sonoma Museum of Visual Art) back in the year 2000.  The space in which I installed the piece was a hallway with doors and rather than fight what was there, named the installation “oR x do x Or”.

"oR x do x Or" Installation at SMOVA, 2000

When I took it down, I installed it on my property, next to a spring which was our water source. There the installation weathered with the wind, rain and sun, and finally fell apart. Three years ago, I moved to higher ground in Sebastopol and took the rusty bedsprings with me. Recently, they have become a focus for new work (a story for another time).

"oR x dO x oR" installation outside

Artifacts are a source material that begin a process. When one enters my studio, I look at it. I can’t recall who said “the thing seen is the thing seen” but this phrase, every time I read it, has a way of stopping me and reminds me to spend some time to look and contemplate what is before me. What is its “thingness”?  What is its shape?  How was it made?  What is its condition?  What did it go through before it arrived here?  How can its history inform my process of working?   And finally how can this object of the past move me to the present and forward to the future?  No answers, just passing thoughts.  And somehow these thoughts engage me to begin a process of working.

Back to the Bedsprings:

A rectilinear grid with coils protruding from its base and like an artifact, is also a source.

The Bedsprings

“Bed” from the root, “bhedh” means to dig. “Springs” from “spergh” means to move, hasten, leap; it also means to sprinkle and scatter.  Not only does this artifact  define itself; it also offers a clue. “Dig to move”.  Look to a source for a direction or way. So where does one look?

“Bed” is a charged word full of associations:  sleep, rest, dreams, relationships, birth, death, desires, geology, gardening, base of a body of water, foundation, support, a press.

“Springs” too, has many associations: water, action, shift, release, emerge, season, wires and coils.

And with rust describing them, other associations arise: memory, ancestry, passing time, aging, a museum, an era, an atmosphere and environment.

Many associations suggest many possibilities.  Does it matter where or how I begin? Probably not.  No matter where I start, I hope to release the object from its charge of associations.  And with it will come a renewal, I hope.

In Material: E-Book

The last few shows that I have posted have come about due to work that I created for the In Material exhibit at Quicksilver Mine Co in Forestville, California last year.  The exhibit featured my work and the work of two other artists, Susan Field and Elizabeth Sher.  We explored materiality through various materials and mediums including stones, book remnants, digital technology and algae.   The e-book documents the exhibit. Take a look.

You can also find a review of this exhibit on the blog of  Satri Pencak, an independent curator in Sonoma County.

In Material blurb book

Union Street Gallery

February 29 – March 31, 2012

Opening Reception: March 2,  6 - 9

This exhibit features art by 52 artists from 21 different states. Art displayed is inspired by nature and the natural world and represents a variety of styles, technique, and media.

The juror, Elizabeth Whiting (curator for the Union League Club of Chicago, IL), chose art that takes the theme above and beyond the traditional landscape painting. Art chosen for this exhibit is contemporary, fresh, and contains innovative interpretations of the exhibit title.

My artwork, “1111″, a xerox transfer print on algae, was selected and currently is on view in this exhibit.

December 17, 2011 – January 29, 2012

OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, December 17, 2011

Berkeley Art Center 1275 Walnut Street Berkeley, CA 94709  Wed – Sun, 12:00 – 5:00

This salon-style Artists Annual includes work in a variety of media from Berkeley Art Center’s eclectic artist members.  If this exhibit is like others, there will likely be up to 200 works featured.

Look for my diptych, “11112222″ in this exhibit.  This will be the second time these two works have been shown together. Last March they were a part of  the “In Material” exhibit at Quicksilver Mine Co in Forestville.

]]> http://www.brookeholve.com/wordpress/2011/12/shine-artists-annual-exhibition-2/feed/ 1 http://www.brookeholve.com/wordpress/2011/11/the-line-exhibit-at-prescott-college-prescott-arizona/ http://www.brookeholve.com/wordpress/2011/11/the-line-exhibit-at-prescott-college-prescott-arizona/#comments Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:25:33 +0000 Brooke http://www.brookeholve.com/wordpress/?p=32 The LINE: National Juried Printmaking Exhibition   November 4th – December 1, 2011

Juror: John Risseeuw, Professor at Arizona State University

Prescott College Art Gallery  at Sam Hill Warehouse

232 N. Granite St. Prescott, Arizona 86301  928-2341

Hours:  Tuesday  – Saturday  11 – 3

I was pleased to have these three pieces selected for this exhibit:

Under Cover 5 ©2010 Mixed Media Box Construction: silk-screened & dyed organza silk, book covers, thread 11.75 x 7.75 x 2.75 inches

Wind Egg ©2009 Cover Book with Coptic Binding: book covers & cloth, monoprinted & miscellaneous papers, sumi ink, gouache, thread 3.66 x 7.25 x 1.75 inches

2222 ©2011 Mixed Media: xerox transfer print on algae, book covers 11.875 x 12.5 inches

Statement:

A line leaves a memory.  Whether you  find

one in a drawing, a book, or on a map, each

tell a story of an energy, a movement

in a time and space that elicits

traces of feeling and  thought.

I place drawn and printed lines in a context

using materials that elicit multiple associations.

Like old and used books, vessels

of knowledge and information. Artifacts today

as many are discarded and replaced with digital

delivery systems like the internet and e-books.

And like the weather maps of New Zealand

that reveal mutable patterns of highs and lows.  Fleeting

winds that shaped a landscape and people of a region.

Unpredictable like the appearance of algae.

Conditions were ripe.

Algae that I found floating on the surface of a river in Northern California.

A felt field of matted and knotted threads.

A pad of mottled greens used as  material for my work.

I culled sheets of it to dry and printed wind maps on its surface.

I hope that the artwork evokes these feelings of change through

the materials and the language of line.