Installation view of Materiality Re_Mined; Deep Within the Screen of a Cell Phone
features an installation by two artists
Opening Reception: July 10th with a conversation between the artists at 3:00pm followed by a reception from 4 - 6pm.
At the Seager Gray Gallery in MillValley and on view till the end of July.
Gallery Address and info.
Source Material and Evidence of Process
features an installation by two artists, Brooke Holve and Catherine Richardson.
The exhibit opens at the Seager Gray Gallery in MIll Valley on July 1 and will be on view till the end of July. The opening reception is on July 10th with a conversation by the artists at 3:00 followed by a reception from 4 - 6.
I have been collaborating with Catherine Richardson on this topic of extraction for over two years. The installation will look at the global impact of our much coveted cell phones on the environment. Digging deep into the components of a cell phone, the artists reveal connections between its “smartness,” the mining industries and humans’ relationship with the earth.
For more descriptive information on the installation, click “Press Release” below.
A PREVIEW: Plexiglass & Mixed Media, Shelves of Objects that reflect the artists’ processes, Projections and Artist Book
This installation is part of a larger movement of artists, “Art On The Edge Of The Abyss” a multimedia, multi-venue, cross-border art intervention that will investigate extractive industry in all of its forms (from mining and drilling to the reckless exploitation of water, soil, trees, marine life, and other natural resources). The project will expose and interrogate extraction’s negative social and environmental consequences, from the damage done to people, especially indigenous and disenfranchised communities, to ravaged landscapes and poisoned water to climate change and its many troubling implications
.Below are pics of the catalog/exhibition guide, published by the codexfoundation.org compiled by Sam Pelts.
Materiality Re_Mined pgs 110 - 113 in the catalog. A digital “sketch” of our mobile phone project that seeks to expose the trail of minerals and elements mined to build the devices we depend on.
The Lucid Arts Foundation Alumni Artist-in Residence On-Line Exhibit is still happening HERE.
December 1, 2020 - January 3, 2021
By Measure_1-5
I am pleased to announce my participation in the Lucid Arts Foundation Alumni Artist-in-Residency exhibition (Group 3) currently on line HERE.
Five years since my residency there. I went back to the blog archives, dated November 8, 2015 to recall the experience. Fascinating to relook and see the threads in my current work from that time.
Words I wrote: I will source possibilities for methods and materials from the place—its history, language, landscapes and natural processes.
i will work towards shaping moments and finding ways and forms that express the movements “between”—looking at rocks and stones that reflect frozen moments for inspiration in a changing landscape.
Recallng some explorations there:
Deconstructing 1970s vintage development maps of Pt. Reyes Peninsula. I wondered how this exercise might influence my constructions.
Light Studies, following and tracing the changing light, discovering forms using pen and masking tape. A way to think about transient moments.
Crumpling paper—an impulse out of the blue. A way to think about natural processes and moments when this impulse might occur.
Five years later:
Still breaking apart conventional forms and discovering alternative shapes for constructions.
Crumpling in different ways and discovering how to use these processes in my constructions and artist books.
Image from the film, The Bookmakers. Yes, sitting in the audience at one of the presentations at Codex.
So if we have good communication,
I tried and now I see it’s been many months since my last post. A challenging year filled with uncertainty, living through a pandemic, fire season & evacuees, racial injustices and an election many will not forget.
I found solace entering my studio each day. Slowing down with fewer distractions revealed unexpected silver linings such as unstructured time to listen beyond the projects in front of me. To echoes from previous experiences for example, remembering a residency six years ago at Haystack in Maine, where I discovered two useful tools, a scroll saw and a laser cutter, that would enable me to further develop cuttings. I purchased a scroll saw upon my return knowing how I wanted to use it. The laser cutter was a bigger investment and one I didn’t make since I wasn’t as sure about its usefulness. I did investigate places where I might rent one, if the need became apparent.
What I didn’t expect was one coming to me during this auspicious time, from my son whose employer had two sitting around not being used. And my need had become apparent as I was working with plexiglass on a collaborative project with Catherine Richardson, Materiality Re_Mined; The Cell Phone Looking at Itself, scheduled to be exhibited at the Seager Gray Gallery in July of 2021.
Look for more on this exhibition in posts to follow in 2021. And yes, the laser cutter was invaluable.
One of our collaborative pieces to be titled (by Brooke Holve & Catherine Richardson) using a laser cutter.
It’s already been two months since my return from Cill Rialaig, the artist retreat on the Iveragh Peninsula of County Kerry Ireland.
I went with artist, Catherine Richardson, to collaborate on Materiality, Re_Mined, a project we initiated in response to the call for action proposed in Extraction: Art on the Edge of the Abyss. The event slated for 2021, envisions worldwide participation and simultaneous showing of artists from around the world concerned about how “We are recklessly modifying every feature of the planet surfaces.”
We mostly worked independently guided by our own inspirations and impressions of the place except when we took field trips to mines and quarries in the area.
In those two months since my return, I have been working with some of the materials of Cill Rialaig that I discovered—as it was an unfamiliar source place with its own unique aura seeped in a difficult history with remains and remnants of a time.
My hope was to extract from what was there. What were those materials of this place that spoke to me?
With a predilection toward stones and wind worn landscapes, I was at home surrounded by stones & rocks—the cottages, boundary walls, ruins, standing stones. A spectacularly beautiful place with memories in these stones—trace fossils that marked a past.
If the stones could talk, what would they say?
No words but textures to touch and feel. In preparation for this residency, I extracted pages from mining books. Here I found a place to use them by backing them with wheat paste and using the rock shapes from the wall to mold them. The stone wall shaped the pages and held the art.
Trying to keep warm in a cold place:
At Cill Rialaig, a prefamine village with 19th century ambiance, I was far from the world I knew without the distractions of the 21st century—internet, iPhone, daily news.
Instead I was preoccupied with keeping warm. No central heating, no insulation and cold stone walls & a slate ceiling. The turf eater (an Irish term for the wood stove) became my focus as it consumed the peat, the fuel used here. Discovering that peat was so fast burning, I found that the stove required vigilant attending to ensure uninterrupted warmth.
I went through many bags of peat and accumulated many pails of ash. So it became a material to experiment with in its various forms of brick, charcoal, ash and ink.
My work, cuts make you. will be on view in this exhibition.
“No one went over to Bolus but in hope of getting something there.” A proverb from Iveragh
More about my recent artist residency at Cill Rialaig in Ireland, now that I am connected to WiFi.
Updates on my collaboration with Catherine Richardson and Materiality Re_mined.
Mark your calendar for the retro/intro(spection) exhibition at the San Francisco Center for the Book (SFCB), February 7 - April 19, 2020. Opening reception is slated for February 7, 2020. My work, cuts make you. will be a part of this exhibition.
Off to Ireland this week for an artist residency at Cill Rialaig on Kerry’s spectacular Iveragh Peninsula. This remote and rugged village of eight little stone cottages, was built out of the ruins of a 1790’s prefamine village atop a cliff face overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and Skellig Michael (a UNESCO World Heritage site). Seven of the cottages are living work spaces without TV, telephone and internet for the visiting artists. The eighth, Tigh an Comhra’ ( Gaelic for “house of conversation”) or Meeting House offers residents a place to gather and partake from a rich library. It was formerly the home of a famous inhabitant, seannachai (storyteller), Sean O’Connaill in the early part of the 20th c. I have been assigned cottage #3.
The closest village, Ballinskelligs, is three miles away. This is in a Gaeltacht, a rare Irish-speaking area, and is one of the least populated areas in Europe. With a population of less that 600, it offers few services: one general grocery store, a post office, two pubs and a few seasonal eateries, which most likely will not be open during my stay.
While there I will be working with Catherine Richardson on a collaborative project on extraction in addition to continuing my own investigations on processes of shaping. Not sure how often I will be blogging on this trip as all will be dependent on how connected I will be. Do look occasionally, however, on my instagram site holvebrooke.
Little online presence recently as I have been involved with three others on a project at North Bay Letterpress Arts which we have called Prototype. Prototype #1 is a new _____________________. We are leaving it blank because it is still unclear to us what it is and what will come. So
Here beginneth:
Some Kind of Information. About the nature of Titles. Inspired by a poet who introduced a poem with two titles, then another with three and another without. Prototype #1 reflects our conversations and explorations about titles—-what they are, and what they are not. Of course we started by first consulting the dictionary for its definition:
NOUNThe name of a book, composition, or other artistic work
A name that describes someone’s position or job
The position of being the champion of a major sports competition
A right or claim to the ownership of property or to a rank or throne
(in church use) a fixed sphere of work and source of income as a condition or ordination
VERB1. give a name to (a book, composition, or other work)
ORIGINOld Englishtitul, reinforced by Old Frenchtitle, both from Latintitulus’ inscription, title’. The word originally denoted a placard or inscription placed on an object, giving information about it, hence a descriptive heading in a book or other composition.
Four folds and 24 folds ago. Now prepared to assemble.
Four folds and 24 folds to go to create just the structure (the spine and cover) for prototype. Image above are the printed parts of the spine for 100 prototypes.
Still under construction due to be launched at *NBLA’s Second Annual Fundraiser on Sunday, October 6th.
We have printed and currently are binding an edition of 100. Pricing still under discussion as we are trying to decide how to price it— by its folds, its page number, print runs, and…..
All proceeds will benefit North Bay Letterpress Arts. More to come upon its completion.
*One more note:
Please join us at Hopmonk Tavern for our Second Annual Fundraiser on October 6th! A celebration of printmaking, book arts, education and community. Tickets are available by contacting NBLA
Sunday, October 6, 2019
Lunch: 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM at HopMonk
Reception: 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM at Iota Printshop