Drawing a Crowd

Now that the structure is taking shape I have to really think about how to draw people into it. My first thought was a maze or labrynth, but the room is not big enough for much of that. And if there is a crowd, there won't be much looking down. It has to be extremely obvious what to do. Hanging threads from the ceiling with "stuff" on them might work. I put up some twine with that sticky stuff teachers use to hang pictures. Will have to see what happens after a couple of days.

Changing Plans

Well, the racks are a little too long to fit in the room and leave people space to walk around the structure. I remembered seeing smaller ones, that might work better to trim the size. I started to envision the box to be less of a corrugated type design and more of a 6 sided structure framed with these metal panels and draped with sheer fabric in multiple layers. Once I got the first layer of fairly semi sheer fabric up, I realized I could put things in between two layers of them as well as overlapping different sheer fabrics, and light passing through it would create some interesting imagery. Goodwill turned out to be a good source for materials. There is something about continuing the life of something that has been stopped. It's not resurrection necessarily but redirection.

Time to go back for more racks.

Syncronicity

I took a bookbinding class at the Morgan Paper Conservatory, a fabulous facility, met new people, which is always a good thing. In the process of chatting with Susan, the administrative director, she mentioned that if I ever needed used racks to check out Max Applepack. Syncronicity is such a curious thing. I stopped in there and found some portable wall shelving units that just might work AND could be used for garage storage/organization when I was finished. I took a few home to work out the visuals. Being 7' x 1' creates a bit of a movability issue once I have them put together, but it's definitely the right track to be on.

It's a Go

Unbelievable! It turns out I had met Beth about 2 weeks before, at a YANEO function for visiting Turkish artist Serpil Sevgen, (a teacher and artist who does traditional Turkish marbling),  to introduce her to the arts in Cleveland. I had spent about 30 minutes talking to Beth and Executive Artistic Director Raymond Bobganand, never connecting the dots that the Cleveland Public Theatre they were talking about was the one I had submitted my initial proposal to. I didn't know whether to feel stupid or blessed????

The meeting went well. She showed me the possible spaces for my installation. One was huge but not much foot traffic, the other not quite right. On a lark, she showed me the break room in the Parish Hall. It had great light, and 2 windows. That was it.

Now down to the business of figuring out just what I was going to do. The entrance to the building was interesting, too. My room was half a flight up, the possibility of dangling things over the other half of flight down was interesting.

Mixing the Media

After about a week thinking about an 'environment' for my Petition Box Project, it seems like a good idea to work with things I know or interested in expanding upon. My first thought is to create an actual box that people could walk into. I know wood, tools for working with it and imagine constructing a box frame, like a corrugated box. I see fabric fitting fabric into this somehow. But the question of what to do after the installation is over, where to store it and the possibility of wasting the materials afterwards is not appealing and counters some of the motivation in developing this project. Think I'll give some space to this problem. I have a meeting with Beth Wood, associate artistic director at CPT to talk about it. More info breeds more ideas.

To read more about Cleveland Public Theatre:
http://www.cptonline.org/

Family

Family, can't live with sometimes and can't live without them most of the time. 

Call for Artists

It seemed like such a good idea! Cleveland Public Theatre sent out a call for musicians, performers and installation artists. Now, I have never considered myself an installation artist, but it seemed like a good logical step in continuing this project and collecting/sharing more petitions. How hard could it be? I had never been on CPT campus, which I found out is very large, with multiple buildings and parking lots. My first thought, and one that I proposed, was centered around the idea of sharing the experience, like a reading room. I have about 150 petitions from Cleveland, NYC and Philly. People seem to be very interested in reading what others have written before adding their own.

Turned out to be not quite enough. Although they liked the idea they were wondering how much of an "environment" I could create. That got me thinking in a different way. What if... my favorite words before jumping off the cliff of 'new creative opportunities'... What if I could use a space, fill it with imagery that comes from thinking about the project, lead people through it logically enough that they would offer their petitions without my personal intervention. It feels more than a little intimidating to ask people face to face if they would like to participate in my social art project. Most people have no idea what that even means and not too keen on opening up to a stranger so quickly. Hmmm, what could that environment look like?