make waves

Railing Redux

2011-10-06T11:38:00.000-04:00

The deck art (aka railing) is complete! After a week of fabrication and a long week of installation (really two weeks including rainstorms and Jewish Holidays) I have completed the deck art project. I've learned a few things along the way...always check the weather. Have an assistant. 110 welders are extremely convenient and there is no need for a generator. Always over build, you'll never know it if you do. But you'll know if you don't. When working remotely bring all the materials you need and then some - suppliers may be far far away. Clean air and a fresh location expand the mind... Maybe not deep philosophy but it counts for something.

artful railing

2011-09-04T13:11:00.002-04:00

I've been working on this railing for a few weeks now up in rural Maine. I set up a makeshift welding station in a builders shop in Trenton. Little did I know it would be 3 hours round trip to get welding wire, argon gas and sawblades. Better to stock up before leaving. Even if the departure is delayed, It's better to be late for dinner than to drive at least twice into town for supplies. It was wonderful and quiet and fresh up there. A great place to work. I love the local radio stations and the pace of life.

Maine Railing

2011-08-20T18:57:00.003-04:00

I'm trying to pull together an ad hoc welding shop for a railing project in Maine. I've had some great conversations with Ed at Metal Magic in Trenton Maine. I'll probably need to rent a welder and borrow a space. I thought I had access to a sculptors' space but that has fallen through. Grrr.

Wooly Fair

2011-07-31T18:44:00.000-04:00

Wow. July was entirely dedicated to cordinating Wooly Fair VII: to the Moon!
It was a smash hit with amazing pods built by the Wooly Core of Engineers, a 40' diameter geodesic dome, 18 resident artists, tons of live music and kids and adults in koooky costumes. What a ride!

Rebel HQ

2011-06-12T22:33:00.003-04:00

Recently I installed a new collection of collages and drawings- Wallpaper portraits and Totem Studies- at Rebel HQ. It is a wonderful place to showcase art because it is in a private home. There is plenty of wall space for large art and at the same time you can see it over the mantle, or next to a bookcase. This makes it a little less intimidating to imagine it in your own home...

Steel Deck Railing

2011-06-05T21:44:00.004-04:00

I recently set up the shop to make these two railing prototypes. It's an organic pattern, leaf like and a bit art deco. It will blend in with the nature behind but it will also be a distinct element on its own.

Building a furnace

2011-05-07T14:14:00.005-04:00

I've been casting iron for only two years now, but I'm hooked! The past few days we have been working to build a mother of all furnaces at the Steel Yard, Just in time for mother's day.. Brian and I are working in the shop to get the shell done before we cast the refractory inside. I welded the wind belt together (it will be on the inside of the furnace) and Brian and I figured out how to create a method to raise and move the furnace (note the I-beams at the base). There will be a suicide trap door at the bottom.
Here's the start...

Once the metal shell was complete we created an interior mould into which the refractory was cast. The refractory protects the metal shell from melting when the furnace comes up to heat. Josh Dow from Green Foundry came down to help cast the refractory. He also helped to design the tilt furnace.

This furnace, as yet unnamed, will melt entire brake drums, and can pour 400 lbs or more per tap. Its a hot n chubby behemoth, and the newest addition to the yard.

a drawn out process

2011-04-02T13:05:00.000-04:00

I've been working on a beer tap for some time now. My original idea was to cast it in metal. After wild goose chases with cast iron, cast glass, cast resin, I have hand crafed many moulds in plaster and rubber, made wax casts...I'm hoping to finalize it soon!

Generative chaos wrangler

2011-03-01T13:00:00.001-05:00

I've just signed on to be ground control for Wooly Fair VII: to the moon! It's an awesome local, DIY art fair generated from the creative minds of Providence.

Wooly Fair
7/30/2011
Stay tuned
holla if you want to participate (woolyanna at gmail dot com).

UAU revival?

2011-02-16T00:14:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Seven Arrows Farm for hosting the UAU indefinitely, for constantly being enthusiastic supporters of the project to make the thing a self sustaining unit and for offering their non-profit branch for fundraising.

With human support from the Fertile Underground. And with a small grant from NEGEF we are hpoing to get solar and wind to power the pumps with rainwater collection. We have 3 solar panels already and some great inventive innovators helping out.

We hope to garner more support as there is a venture that has offered to match any donations towards helping us reach this goal! Please contact me if you are interested in making a tax-deductable donation.

Work By Women Billboard

2010-08-17T18:05:00.000-04:00

Right when I got back from Wales I delved into making this 8'x13' billboard bejeweled with baubles from Wolfe E Myrow, a costume jewelry store jut wournd the corner from the billboard. It's stenciled on the back of a reused billboard, the printed kind you see on the highway.
It was lots of fun and went much much faster thanks to Jae Willard, my studio assistant for the project.

What do the Welsh and 5th c. bc chinese have in common?

2010-07-14T17:58:00.001-04:00

Not much but the international contemporary cast iron conference was held in Wales and I gave a preliminary presentation about 5th c bc Chinese iron casting, 5 element medicine and taoism...

Yagida!

Flower Tower Plower!

2010-06-09T08:44:00.003-04:00

In preparing for Wooly Fair(V):return to nature, I and a team of Flower Plowers are uniting to grow over 500 plants from seed to plant in hanging pockets made from upcycled billboards.
Here's the progress so far...

A test fair and flower tower will occur June 19 at the allmost Gallery. Details here

Recent metal work

2010-05-31T09:56:00.004-04:00

Over the last few months I have been completed two benches and a set of security grates. I always like to make non traditional designs.
For the Bench at the Brown Environmental sciences garden I used old tractor seats and a crescent, round design for the stands with small vines growing around them.

For the central Falls High School Peace bench I used sketches from the students to create a bench that incorporates all the different ways they visually represented "peace".
...photos coming soon...

And for the security grates I didn't want any straight lines or create anything that looked like a prison.

a true story.

2010-05-11T23:54:00.000-04:00

i was one of the "lucky" 7 artists in this tale...

Binghamton 5th invitational Day 4

2010-04-24T09:58:00.002-04:00

It went pretty well! I took home #30 of cast iron to play with in the studio.

Binghamton 5th invitational Day 3

2010-04-24T09:29:00.004-04:00

4 Play Day!
This is the day to finish moulds and fire up the furncaces.
It's a busy day with teams running each furnace. theres a charger, the one who loads the furnace, the pourers (2) a skimmer who skims the slag off the metal, and a mould captain who directs the pourers to the moulds that are getting poured for each tap of hot metal. There wasn't much time for pictures as I was mould captain. You can see each of the furnaces gettnng started. But I have no photos of the pours.

John Galt's New Furnace from Skidmore. I think it should be called Louise because it looks like a sider by her... but the furnace is as of yet un-named.

the maiden tap for John's ladle. That's a clean ladle!

Alair preparing Xena, Binghamton's furnace.

Vaughn Randall's Furnace, Kurt Vonnegut aka Billy Pilgrim

Jim Stark's "Jr."

The studio while the furnaces are being prepared...

Binghamton 5th invitational Day 2

2010-04-24T08:56:00.010-04:00

Day 2: Alair and I took a tour of Binghamton, home of the square deal, full of Victorian parlor houses. Also home to the NY State mental asylum, which is half derelict and half functioning, sitting on top of a hill overlooking the city, ripe for a horror flick.

We got to the studio and got to work. We had to wait a bit to get into the studio while a class was going on so we sorted and smashed metal for a bit. You need that. With out metal, you can't pour. Additionally, without Moulds there is nothing to pour.

Once in the studio we began pouring the second half of the moulds. The resin had set and I took off the flasks and emptied the bottom sand, ground down rough edges and put in key registers where needed. Then we mixed batches of sand, repaired the muller (the sand mixer). Alair was steps ahead. She was opening her moulds, cleaning them out, venting and sprueing them (these are the gates for the metal to flow into- the sprue, and the gas to escape- the vent) and mould washing and banding them.

5th annual Binghamton Invitational Iron Pour: FourPlay - Day 1

2010-04-22T14:10:00.014-04:00

I'm sitin' in the Red Roof Inn with Alair Wells, iron maiden extraordinaire who invited me to join in on the 5th annual Binghamton Invitational Iron Pour. This year it's called Four Play because there will be FOUR FURNACES!!! Last night I drove in from RI and went to a lecture by Kevin Dartt. I met both artists, Alair and Kevin at Salem Art Works last summer where I learned how to cast iron. (see US/UK June 2009 blog entry)

US/UK was founded by another iron maiden and alchemist Coral Lambert which she founded at the former New Orleans Sculpture Lab. Since the hurricane, which destroyed the studio, Coral is now Director of the National Casting Center at Alfred University. I attribute my love of iron to her. Big ups to my studio mate Sarah Clover who suggested I apply for the US/UK residency in the first place. Coral is coming with students tomorrow. Other colleges that are attending include RIT, Syracuse, Skidmore, Cornell, Ramapo College, NYIT, Keystone College, SUNY Cortland, Alfred University, and Binghamton students and visiting independent artists from Seatlle (Alair) and RI (me).

So,
Last night we made 12 moulds, fine sand mixed with 3 part resin, rammed into wooden flasks. This is the second step in casting, the first being making the pattern- which is the object which will be cast. We worked late in the studio, with access to the amazing muller, surrounded by 4 1-ton hoists attached to jib cranes. In other words, it's amazing to have access to a university facility.

Garden Bench: work in progress

2010-03-13T10:51:00.006-05:00

I'm gardener - an urban, community, mobile gardener. From strawberry beds in Dorchester MA to a 30'long trailer mobile-agricultural-unit, with some hanging tomatoes, guerilla sunflowers and stairway peapods planted in between, I've enjoyed bringing life into the plots and interstices of concrete and neglected sites. I've created a few projects for local community gardens here in Providence- steel gates, fence ornamentation and benches. Recently Brown University Department of Environmental Studies commissioned a bench based on two earlier projects: Peace and Plenty community garden and the International Charter School teaching garden. This is an image of half of the Brown bench before it went to the powder coater...

Souq

2010-02-02T10:39:00.003-05:00

a wonderful show set up like a bazaar at Gallery Z. Up through Feb 10, 2010.

my website is down!

2010-02-01T11:48:00.000-05:00

Artbyannashapiro.com, my trusted site for the last 10 years, is down. Granted, it had not been updated in two years. My most current work is available to view in these posts.
Hopefully we will have it back soon!

41º N / 71º W; Volume II

2010-01-22T01:46:00.003-05:00

Opening Reception 1/22/10
6pm-9pm
Artwork by...

Adj Marshall, Anna Shapiro, Avery Lucas, Umberto Crenca, Victoria Lockard, Brian Callanan, David Allyn, Eric Aguiar, Andrew Moon Bain

Live Music to Follow 9pm-1am | $8
Live music by...

Atlantic Thrills, Boo City, Joao DeJesus, DJ Full Freq

On display Jan. 19-Feb. 14
at Firehouse 13 41 Central St Providence RI

In Your Face

2010-01-22T01:25:00.009-05:00

Above is a small sampling of the 400+ images from In Your Face, a fundraiser for the Hive Archive feminist collective...

I have a small piece (above, center). It is a study for the larger "Women at Work" billboard on the gasometer building near Atlantic Mills. The billboard is on the exterior of The Hive building (150 Manton Ave) and positioned directly above the entrance on the corner of Manton Ave and Aleppo St. The Hive is the gateway to the recently-transformed Riverside section of Olneyville, including the new nine-acre Riverside Park and Woonasquatucket Bike Path. The Work by Women Billboard will be a celebration of women in the arts and foster a sense of pride and spirit in Olneyville – it will be seen by thousands of drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists each day. I'm planning on printing an 8x13' vinyl billboard and then sew it and stitch and crochet and attach baubles and bangles. (winning sketch below)

I'll be making collaged prints to help fund this project. Please contact me if you would like more information about these silkscreened, laser cut, hand sewn collages.

Something new, something old, something blue...

2010-01-07T18:21:00.003-05:00

This project was a practice in how to stay loose and be open to new ideas.
I think of it as a short story, of incompleteness, drawing from ideas and solutions spanning 10 years of experimentation. Ideas of the past and present, of craft and fine art, of scale and gentleness, beauty and kitsch. I'm excited about this large 9' x 7' drawing. It's taking me in a new direction, and although it makes me uncomfortable, I like it.

Radical feminism

2010-01-03T18:20:00.000-05:00

Mary Daly died today.

Stone House Inn Exhibition info

2009-12-05T09:43:00.002-05:00

I'm working on it!

2009-12-04T14:18:00.003-05:00

It's an open door policy...

If you are here now, you probably linked from my e-mail update that I just sent out.
I'm frantically building a new closet and shelf so that I can hide everything that I don't want anyone to see during open studios tomorrow (yes I waited until the last minute) I was in my studio in Lincoln cutting angle iron and preparing it for the structural feat of making a flush, square and level space in this slanty old mill building...

After home made croissants and a jaunt to the Kafe Lila opening Saturday I'll be preparing work for an exhibition at the beautiful and scenic Stone House Inn (1864) in Little Compton, RI. I should have more details about that soon so please check back.

That shouls be next Saturday the 12th in the afternoon. But I'm waiting for confirmation. If you want me to contact you with the details let me know.
Thanks and I hope to see you soon!

The Feminist Art Project

2009-11-01T14:43:00.003-05:00

I have just recently become a Northeast regional coordinator for the Feminist Art Project.
Check it out.

World of Queercraft

2009-10-14T10:43:00.006-04:00

Opening Thursday 10/15, 5-9pm. But the show's up through 11/21.
at Craftland
235 Westminster Street, Providence (on the corner across from Tazza)

Liz Collins
Michael DiPietro
Steven Frost
Monica Panzarino
Christopher Schulz
Anna Shapiro
Jason Tranchida
Matt Underwood

Curated by Matthew Lawrence

It will be a fun and colorful time for you.

HOURS:
Monday – Saturday 11am – 6pm
Sunday 12pm – 5pm

craftland

Another Iron Pour~

2009-10-07T11:12:00.006-04:00

I'm just back from Salem Art Works. They have an amazing sculpture garden. Check out the DiSuvero jungle gym (I mean sculpture) on Cary Mtn.

I recently went to get a few new tools for grinding and finishing the cast iron. Today I'm going to test them out.

Ecofeminism

2009-09-24T11:37:00.004-04:00

I have been developing a reading group (Sub:text) with a local Providence organization called the Hive Archive. Our most recent reading about radical ecofeminism is really good ...

Article Title: Toward a Queer Ecofeminism. Contributors: Greta Gaard - author. Journal
Title:Hypatia. Volume: 12. Issue: 1. Publication Year: 1997. Page Number: 137.

and here's the blog for (SUB:text)

casting metal

2009-09-24T11:22:00.006-04:00

I'm going back to Salem Art Works next week for another pour. I think I'm addicted to casting metal. It's so substantial, sleek and tough.

Last night I got a boost from seeing sculptor Rona Pondick speak about her cast stainless steel sculptures at the Worcester Art Museum. This show is a "group show" of Ms. Pondick's work alongside ancient and historic sculptors' work from the top notch collection of the museum. It's really worth seeing, and up til the 11th of October.

4 Thieves

2009-09-21T13:21:00.008-04:00

This show opened saturday sept 19 at Firehouse 13 in Providence RI. The 4 Thieves are myself, Monica Shinn, Andrew "Moon" Bain and Angel Quinonez.

My goal as a thief in 4 Thieves was to paint. For 11 years I have worked with fabric, found objects, glitter, feathers, cement and steel. Six months ago a friend challenged me to use only paint. When I undertook this challenge I began to sculpt and stitch with a brush, playing with surface and depth, pattern and color. The illusion of that stitched line, connecting forms and pieces together meanings, while also taking the eye on a tour of boundaries and edges, topography and landscape. Each small work extends deeply and vastly into the symbolism of body and mind. It’s a Wild West of color, with elements of time, space, nature and culture in an era of violence and fragmentation.

These images are life sized, using silhouettes of recognizable objects. The dark interior of the silhouette has substance, reflecting automatic, intuitive associations. Formal figure/ground aesthetics mix, blurring the edge between interior and exterior, creating comparisons and inclusions of symbolic figures of authority, rigidness and softness. Pairing a small revolver with a teapot casts parameters of gendered and storied objects in a different light. These thin shadows of forms are maps and puzzles, clues for navigating the minefields of nationality, gender and the environment. These scales and measurements connect the dots, allowing the eye to piece together and form a layer cake of dimensions, patterns and dreams.

Iron Casting...It's HOT!

2009-07-16T10:11:00.006-04:00

***I am supercharged! Recently returned from Salem Art Works : US/UK Iron Pour Symposium. I've been makin new molds and casts in the studio in preparation for the next pour. Iron is an amazing medium. Earthy, raw, everyday common heavy metal. The pour takes a collaborative effort and the community or metal heads is a rockin' fun gang of talent!

I made 2 castings, one of the roadkill piliated woodpecker pictured here, and another cast of negative forms made from home-made plasticine. I sense this is a turning point in my work, a new level of involvement, a seriousness of materials. This casting process allows me the opportunity to collage form together, which I so often do with paper; now it's in 3-d.

glamourous trash

2009-06-01T17:17:00.003-04:00

Chandeliers!
How beautiful and fun to make. This one runs on 12 v of electricity rather than the usual 120v, making it glamorous and energy efficient. Made from all reused materials (birdcages, kitchen jars, found debris from the site, broken mirrors, crystal) this chandelier was made specifically for the going away party of a board member at the Steel Yard. More info on LED lights to follow soon!

Cyber-Flavor-Mashup

2009-04-26T03:59:00.004-04:00

This is opening in about 13 hours from now and I've been cramming to get the crudest things up and into the virtual studio...

The show:
April 26 - May 9 2009
Reception Sunday, April 26 5 - 8 pm

CounterpART Gallery
128 Merrimack St. 2nd Floor
Lowell, MA 01852
http://counterpartgallery.art.officelive.com/default.aspx

A mixed reality mashup of immersive, 3D and 2D artworks created and inspired by the virtual world of Second Life for the 2009 Boston Cyberarts Festival. Featured artists, Misprint Thursday, Juria Yoshikiawa, Bella Renfold, Filthy Fluno, Esch Snoats, Lily and Honglei, and Anna Shapiro will show how they are utilizing virtual worlds to create new artforms and engage new audiences. Participants at the gallery will have the opportunity to interact with both real and virtual art happenings and artworks for the festival.

Live cybersound artists and musician "Active" from Brooklyn NYC will be performing throughout the evening, as well as SL musicians via the gallery’s multimedia sound system. The island/art community of Artropolis, Boston Cyberarts Festival's inworld portal to the virtual exhibition, will also be on display throughout the evening.

Virtual hang out

2009-04-05T03:40:00.004-04:00

I've gotten into another world, into a second life where I can hover over softly lapping waves, coyly looking at the stars. My alter ego, Wavelady Winslet, can fly and walk underwater. I found this island, Blue Fusion island, by flying off my friends island of Artopolis over the open ocean. I was afraid of getting lost and hovered over the sea. To my surprise a landscape developed under me and I witnessed the evolution of a piano bar, pool, and sweet sweet hang spot in the air.

I don't have a full grasp of this other world -inworld as it's called- but i know that it is a combination of fantasy, dreamscape and some pretty good geometry. What's really odd are the personalized mannerisms of my avatar. How did I get pegged?

returning from the north woods... spring

2009-03-10T23:37:00.005-04:00

There is no image for this post, except that of puffy snow sitting on spruce boughs; gurgling spring brooks flowing softly under snow bridges; ice blue ice cascading from schist outcroppings and silence sweeping though the undergrowth. I forget how much these things feed my soul. The rush push chaos, gloom and doom overtake me and I forget to leave cement behind for the mud ruts of spring. The tree buds are out in earnest — everywhere. Have a look and breathe the daylight in...

Thanks for all of your support!

2009-03-03T22:11:00.004-05:00

The show, Roil and Flush at FH1 3 was a great success! Lots of folks have new artwork for their hearths and their minds. Thank you for your support!!!

Shameless self promotion 101:
This image, "Waiting", the poster child for the show, is a small watercolor study (8 x 11", NFS) and is available as a limited edition, enlarged, fine-art print on archival bamboo paper with archival inks (limited edition of 25, enlarged to 16 x 22"). IoLabs in Pawtucket is printing it for me. They are scanning it now. I will proof it Friday and prints will be available by the middle of next week, for the (reasonable) price of $160 unframed.

Please let me know if you are interested.

This watercolor is part of a series of studies, paintings and sculptures that use the Magnolia blossom as a motif of beauty and temporality. This spring I have secured a metalworking studio and will be working on an ornamental steel and glass piece based on this imagery. I'll keep you posted on that progress...

I am also developing a series of oil paintings in my studio in Providence for a show in Sept 2009.

don't stop, don't fall.

but i forgot the info for the podcast

2009-02-24T00:07:00.009-05:00

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The panel at Leslie University March 5 (mentioned in the previous posting) will also be podcast by Aviva Rahmani. This is gonna be super cool. Podcasts are awesome!

I hope that you can read this flyer because I forgot to add it to my e-mail updates and I can't get the text out of the image. Rats, foiled by technology again...

the last days of Roil and Flush

2009-02-24T00:06:00.005-05:00

If you haven't seen this show of glass and glitter, porcelain and fishnets and you want to...
stop by Firehouse 13 during gallery hours Tues-Fri 2-6, Sat 12-4.
The last day is Saturday Feb 28- this week!
we made it though feb yo!!!

We will also be hosting a closing party with local and out-of-town bands.
Come celebrate...

The Baylies Band (MA),
Concord Ballet Orchestra Players (MA & RI),
3d Mystery (RI),
True Womanhood (DC),
Tevellus (RI)
Sat 2/28
9pm $6

**Some of you have expressed interest in the watercolor “Waiting” as seen on the postcard (above). I will be printing a limited edition of this watercolor, somewhat enlarged. If you are interested in a print please contact me**

In other news:

March 5
I will be on a panel at Leslie University, Cambridge MA
Continuing Dialogue with BLAZE writers
There will be a book signing afterwards to celebrate the paperback publication of BLAZE!
Women's Caucus for the Arts

“The spirit of dialogue between young feminists and the pioneers is evident throughout the volume…The major message of these various essays is that we are entering a new era of feminism where global issues of social justice and ecology weigh as much as traditional ideas about glass ceilings and discrimination. Instructors looking for a way to present those points of view would be well advised to consider the essays in Blaze as a starting point for a new history.”
Pamela H. Simpson
Professor of Art History, Washington and Lee University
Review for the Woman's Art Journal

And...“Does Gender Matter” is up for two more weeks:

Art Institute of Boston
Main Gallery
700 Beacon St.
near Kenmore Sq.
Mon-Sat 9-6
Through March 7.

Roil and Flush

2009-02-09T11:16:00.007-05:00

Statement for
Roil and Flush
an exhibit with Will Machin
at Firehouse13

Presented here are sketches — gestural, momentary and playful — created over the course of weeks, months and years. These figurations are cyborgs fleshed from corners of life, an echelon of china sets, glitter, guns and plastic. The forms are a grammar culled from the lexicon of ancestors; genetic and social, bridging three centuries of collected, donated, found and preserved objects. The collection is a heritage — a diary of daily encounters and exchanges with others, embodying the logic of a magpie and a pack ra t.

Like a house of cards, delicate and structural, these works topple and teeter from the slightest tremor or breeze. It is extreme delicacy, an emotional place and a political perspective. Balance is roiled and flushed; the result is ambivalence, the challenge between abstraction and reality, thought and action.

The dictionary of shapes, cutouts, stencils, positive and negative forms, reproduce and evolve in the studio. The process is at the speed of the sewn line, hand made, machine made, chance, pop and slick. Herein lies the transformative magic of collage: painting in form, beauty in color, and exuberance of texture and line.

February 2009

Image copyright 2009, Anna Shapiro

poster post

2009-01-30T02:13:00.003-05:00

Just finished printing a poster at Jean's house. She's an angel. It's the first silkscreen that I have done in a long time, since the silkscreen shop was at the firehouse (ARC); it's my first rock 'n roll poster. It's pretty eye poppin'. The text is a little elusive- I've learned a bit about designing posters. Beware of texture, beware of gradated colors, beware of color value, beware of small text. Otherwise I think it's a pretty fun and eye catching peice of paper.

The lineup is as follows (illegible text made legible)

Roil and Flush Artwork by Will Machin and Anna Shapiro

Sat 2/7 Opening night 6-9p, free! Live Music all night After 9pm $6 Allysen Callery & the Land of Nod, Alec K Redfearn, Tallahassee Brown Bird, Ben Pilgrim and the Free Union Band

Sat 2/14 ♥2nd annual valentines cabaret ♥ ♥♥Live GRRRL Revue!♥♥ 9pm $10 advance, $12 door featuring Burlesque by -Charlotte Fever, London Britches, Betty Sioux Tailor -Jew-l of the Nile Bellydancing by-Sheherazade's Sisters: mindBending by-Rory Raven and MC Cathy Cathodic with Didakan (Malian drumming mastery)- Meghan Yates (singer/songwriter)

Sat 2/28 Closing Night Experimentalness 9pm $6 The Baylies Band (MA), Concord Ballet Orchestra Players (MA & RI), 3d Mystery (RI), True Womanhood (DC), Tevellus (RI)

At Firehouse 13 41 central St Providence Firehouse13.org

ObamaBurger!

2009-01-25T20:10:00.005-05:00

Still life courtesy of Alice Anonymous.

This is a proposal I wrote last week...It needs a little somethin' presently it is a bit didactic. What I really want to explore is why, how and where gender matters in current third wave of feminism, cause it's sited differently than in 2nd wave fem...

Presentation for “Dynamic Dialogue: Continued Discourse from Blaze Writers”
The triangulation of the third wave: you-me-it
Submitted by me.

In my contribution to Blaze- Practical Ecofeminism: How to Make Waves, I put forth a very impractical but easily practiceable instructional. It materializes an endless, cycling, recurring, fluid, performance; moon connected; earth centered. Presently the project is past the fourth wave. This magical intervention is a poetic injection of nature into life’s routine. This puckish action responds to historicizing perspectives on the trajectory of Feminism, validating and ordering the linear sequence of feminism, first second, third…while also subversively alluding to radical, grassroots movements, the ceaseless and ever changing fluidity that is the feminism of labor, civil rights, and ecological movements.

Regarding the topic: The triangulation of the third wave: you-me-it, please give me the liberty to reduce it simplistically: “You” was the beginning of the first wave, striving for “Me”- a female voice. The “You” and “Me” of the second wave feminist generation seeks equality between the two. “It” is the third wave- demanding recognition of difference, not otherness; to be an active and engaged and respected participant of the multitude. “It” is not stuck in the binary, nor in the opposition of just “You” and “Me”. Triangulating the third wave, determining it’s location by measuring angles to it from known points at either end of a fixed baseline (first and second wave). The point is fixed as the third point of a triangle with one known side (feminism) and two known angles (1st and 2nd wave).

The third wave continues to deconstruct edifices of power, rather than assume the established role of that power. Third wave feminism examines, manipulates and subverts this power structure. It is multitudinous and collective, bridging difference with threads of connection, building community, seeking survival and power from the collective. This feminist ideal is present in contemporary art practice. (examples of collective art work: iKatun, avaf, pips, sampson, force field) (Examples of power subversion: Ghada Amer, Brown, Sara Tsze).

For me, the third wave of feminism has many directions. It is a plurality of notions about power. It builds on the hard work of feminist predecessors, using the voice of difference. It takes steps both towards and away from gender centrism and sees that race and class, agriculture and quality of life, government and free speech are all aspects of the feminist agenda.

I have participated in creative collectives and enjoy the decentralized process. I also work in isolation in my studio, toppling conventions, seeking exposure and balance between two gendered extremes. The studio work, presented here, exposes and manipulates these gendered elements using a multiplicity of process and materials . I re-appropriate gendered symbols and collage them in a humorous sometimes dashing way as you can see in the work on the poster. This is “piecework”, addressing violence and aggression, politics of the outside world of war and the inside world of the domestic. I make art from a feminist perspective, claiming a heritage of first, second and third wave feminist theory. I embrace this complex, triangulating phase of feminism.

(496 words not including title, this blurb or the footnotes)

getting ready

2009-01-13T10:13:00.004-05:00

It always so harrowing just before an exhibition. 3 weeks away! As well as booking entertainment for the 7th (opening) 14th (valentines) and the 28th (show closing). I'm finishing collages, drawings, watercolors and an oil painting maybe even a chandelier-YES!

wavelady.com
willmachin.org
firehouse13.org

he/she/it

2009-01-06T11:34:00.008-05:00

I have two shows coming up in February. One in the main gallery of the Art Institute of Boston at Leslie University, the other at Firehouse 13 in Providence RI. For both I am working on collages and assemblages. I'm navigating a space of interiority, interiority of the mind, interiority of outside space. How does the outside reside on the inside?

I'm also asking questions of gender. Seeking balance of gendered objects to attempt for something gender free. But I'm finding with the extremes of gender represented "he" and "she", then you wind up with an extremely gendered "it". weird.

There is a panel in march where I will be discussing this notion of the see saw of gender, primarily focusing on the "other" rather than "it". This is a new arena for me and I'll enjoying the journey in the labarinth. It's very intangible yet also very real. In my studies I am beginning with Sexual Personae and Transgender Warrior to get a little insight. Then on to some other heavies in teh field of gender politics. This panel discussion is concurrent with the paperberback issue of BLAZE, recently reviewed in the Women's Art Journal. All panelists are contributors to the book.

re: turn of the days

2008-12-11T13:30:00.006-05:00

This week I have begun my routine to prepare for my shows in February. It is a matter of setting aside chunks of time to go to the studio and let the mind go. I have found that audiobooks are a great way to do this. They allow for an automatic subconscious flow to emerge. I have borrowed Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice from the library, two books that I embarassingly have never been able to wade through. I was reprimanded by some expat Brits in France for this. They told me how revolutionary they are as writers, as feminists, as wavemakers... so now I return to early 19th c. texts, listen to their voice; I return to the memories of my residency; return to the connections of all the interesting people I met at conferences in November (noted in earlier posts); and in a few minutes I'll be returning to a collaborative project, in steel, for a local urban garden organization.

a reminder

2008-12-02T08:14:00.003-05:00

For the Young Who Want To

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don't have a baby,
call you a bum.

The reason people want M.F.A.'s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else's mannerisms

is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you're certified a dentist.

The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.

Marge Piercy

conferencextravaganza!

2008-11-30T11:21:00.014-05:00

Two weeks ago today I got off a plane, returning from sunny Seattle, Washington. (seriously!). I was at the Alliance for Artist Communities annual conference November 12-15 presenting on a panel about Urban Artists' Communities: Firehouse 13 (me) along with three other people representing: Louisiana Art Works , Jack Straw Foundation, The Laundromat Project. This was such an awesome and dynamic panel...people were on fire!!!

The conference met at some AwesomeCool spots like the Henry Art Gallery, Hugo House poetry residency and the Langston Hughes Performing Art Center.

It was 4 days of dialogue about arts and civic engagement. The AAC challenged us, the attendees, to think about how an artist residency can become civic-ly engaged; asked us what does civic engagement in the arts taste like? Many residencies serve as retreats for artists to get away from the clamor of everyday life. There are other residencies that are right in the middle of it all, making change, bringing creativity to the streets.

There's lots to distill: the tour through the minds of all these creative thinkers holding space for creative makers; the civil rights history of Seattle; the contemporary art scene there now; the music scene (duh): my hotel (yeow! with a great venue below). There's public transit, Mount Ranier, the Space Needle and the Rem Koolhaas designed public library (holy cannoli!) There's public art and public space and Puget Sound and chief Seattle.

WOW! I'm sorting through it now. Stay tuned...

the creative dialogue continues...

2008-11-21T10:08:00.004-05:00

I have been participating in Creative Providence community forums as reviewed in The Brown Daily Herald. I think much good will come out of these meetings. Building a network of creatives, sharing ideas and meeting neighbors creates stronger alliances. Think of that scene in Gladiator set in the Roman forum - General Maximus Decimus Meridius (Russell Crowe) gathers the other gladiators in mutual aid back-to-back confronted by their amazonian opponents-du-jour riding in carriages with razor wheels. Together the gladiators gathered, all facing outward, supporting each other in the face of utter adversity; they won. Alone they would have turned into lion fodder.

...just sayin'

arrivals and departures

2008-11-17T22:35:00.003-05:00

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

I've been back from France for two weeks as of Monday. It's been an incredible return. When I was on retreat I was without internet access and had only a change of clothes, my easel, canvas paints and a sketchbook. It was great! I started a new body of work and returned with solid conviction at my core. I am returning to a very traditional medium of oil painting yet I love exploring new media work too.

Since I have been back I have mucking about in the realm of the creative economy, and how to make change in the face of failing corporate capitalism. I'm investigating how an anarchist business principle fits in with this new economy. For me it's all about community development and community participation. It's also about turning the norm on its head, bottom-up, not top down. My two weeks back have been rich with meetings about how different facets of this new economy; Providence is re-defining itself in the 21st century in the arts (Creative Providence); New Englanders are thinking about this creative economy (NEFA idea swap), the RI Arts and Business Council is up to something, and RISCA is too; there are workshops in how to be a leader in the arts (Artist Foundation); meanwhile I am honing my entrepreneurial skills at the Women and Entrapreneurship office. Today I'm off to the Alliance of Artists Communities annual conference in seattle (this years theme is arts and civic engagement).

In between I was lucky to be able to reconnect with my friends, share photos of my travels and new artwork, eat drink and be merry.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

How To Make Waves (v.4)

1. Have you seen the other side? Do so then return here.

2. Carry this wave in your pocket and take it out to show your friends. Or stop a stranger in the street and show it to him/her/them. He/she/they may want to participate in the project, or decline.

3. Explain that this is a project about making waves.

4. He/she/they may have questions; you may want to answer them, or not.

5. Photograph him/her/it/them with the wave. Use a cell phone, film camera, digital camera, video or your own photographic memory.

6. Enjoy these shared moments, you and a friend/stranger on the street, holding a displaced wave captured in your hands, holding it carefully, preciously, playfully and sometimes upside-down.

7. Collect these images and moments of wavemaking.

8. Take the wave with you. Keep it secret in your pocket/ purse/wallet, this small piece of paper that is also a wave. Share it and make a sea of connections using this folded little image of time and space.

As the wave decays make another copy, add your own text. Make as many waves as you want and distribute them freely.

This wave is a photocopied overlay of a silkscreen of a scan of a folded photocopy of a video image of a wave that I found at Orient Point in Revere by Logan Airport on the Boston Harbor in the early summer of 1999.

Th Fourth Wave
(Instructional)
(cc)2008
wavelady.com

Making Waves-the first time

This is the first time that I've entertained having a blog. I always thought it would be too intimate a window, too impersonal a way to presentr myself. But as I know blogging is only as interesting as the people participating. So I am one participant. Perhaps there will be other participants in wave-making here.

wavelady projects