The Looking Glass at Ix Art Park - Jan. 2020
In June, 2019 a group of artists (including myself), led by Susan Krischel, started a project in an industrial warehouse space that came to be known as The Looking Glass. The idea was to create a sensory, immersive museum experience, a kind of playground for all ages, a network of installations that transported the audience to a different place, or served as a sort of escape into a magical world. I was brought on to work on the canopy of a giant tree that would be one of the first things you encountered when you walked into the space.
I ended up coming into a really large roll of white nylon that was woven in the building back when it was a textile factory (before 1999) called the Frank Ix and Sons Textile Factory. The white nylon was perfect to hand-dye a range of colors, and once dyed, I cut it by hand into hundreds, maybe over a thousand strips - I lost count. It makes me happy to think of the fabric finding a home in the same building where it was made, so long ago. I care a lot about the life-cycles of textiles, and this felt like a beautiful, clean circle.
If you head over to The Looking Glass website there’s an amazing little “making of” video, you should check it out! And you should visit in person once this pandemic is no longer keeping everyone at home and far apart from one another. You can buy tickets through the website!
Here’s the full statement I wrote about the project:
The tree foliage and vine inspired installation created for this space is immersive and interactive. It is intended to stimulate the audience's sense of touch and provide a safe space to get lost a little. The foliage of this tree, (which is hand-cut and hand-dyed fabric originally woven at the Frank Ix and Sons textile factory that once occupied this building) is a reminder of the delicate power of nature, its quiet elegance and loving embrace. The swings throughout the installation offer rest, contemplation and space for childlike wonder.
Here are some photos of the tree canopy in all it’s glory, once the whole space was finished:
Here’s a video of me talking about the project on their website:
I also ended up making a dip-dyed silver fabric installation for Jeff Dobrow’s projection area, here are a couple of photos of that:
The other artists that ended up being a part of the Looking Glass are (the links will take you to their information on The Looking Glass’s website):
John Owen - Lead Artist
Agnieszka Zabawa
Michael Moxham
Lastly, here’s a slideshow of casual process photos that depict the coming together of The Looking Glass, and specifically the parts I contributed to! NOTE: THERE ARE CATS!
FIRST MATTER/AN ALCHEMICAL REMEDIATION OF CONTAMINATED SPACE - APRIL 2018
In April of 2018 I had the pleasure of working alongside dear friend and very talented artist Nina Frances Burke to create two site-specific installations for Art in Odd Places, a project founded by Ed Woodham. It was an incredible experience. We only built each installation once: the morning of each day they were erected. The process was one of collecting material and then following our instincts and trusting one another to build something together that felt right for both of us. We were really happy with the way these spaces turned out and how people from the community spent time in and interacted with them.
I’ll quote the article written about the project on the McGuffey Art Center website (where we are both members) because it describes the whole event well ( I took the liberty of making it past tense instead of future-tense as it was originally written).
“Entitled First Matter/an alchemical remediation of contaminated space, the linked works by Burke and DuFlon [were] among the festival's 30 performances and site-specific installations that [occurred] on both the University of Virginia campus and on the Historic Downtown Mall of Charlottesville. The events [took] place throughout the day at two locations over two days: Thursday, April 5 on UVA Grounds, and Friday, April 6 on the Charlottesville downtown mall.
For the submissions, artists were asked to respond to the festival's theme of MATTER, defined as "Substance, Complication, State of Affairs, Content, Happening, Text, Situation, Material, Importance, Experience, Problem, Atomic." In their response, Burke and DuFlon [built] two spaces for contemplation using fiber, reclaimed materials, and organic matter from each site. One [was] at UVA under an historic tree on Monroe Hill near the Rotunda, and the other [was] at the intersection of First Street North and East Main Street, near Emancipation Park. Their goal [was] to "purify the ground" through a "dual exchange" where "alchemy is the foundation for public remediation" in response to August 12. Community members [were] invited to enter the spaces and spend time, sitting on handmade pillows or on a bench under a welcoming tree, and in those artist-created shelters think about what happened last summer—and what the future might hold.
Founded by multidisciplinary artist Ed Woodham in 1996, Art in Odd Places (AiOP) is known for its annual art intervention festival in New York City. Woodham is currently the UVA Arts Board visiting artist for 2017-18, and developed the MATTER/Charlottesville event for 2018. The organization is dedicated to working collaboratively with other artists to realize visual and performance art that activate public spaces and supports community building.”
DAY 1 - University of Virginia:
DAY 2 - Downtown pedestrian mall, Charlottesville, Virginia:
Caught Past Prime - July/August 2016
5,932 rose petals were used to make this piece that measures twelve feet in width and is roughly 8 feet tall. I started collecting petals in January of 2016. The first bunch of roses I pressed came from a friend - a gift at a show I had in January. I couldn’t bear to throw them away, so as they started to hang their heads, I pressed all the petals. While I was pressing the petals for those first roses I got the idea for this installation. In order to get enough rose petals to fill the amount of space I wanted I was going to need a reliable and consistent source, so I went and talked to local florist Hedge Fine Blooms and they agreed to donate the roses that were past their prime and unsalable to this project. No roses were bought with the intention of being used for this project - was an exercise in using and reevaluating discarded material.
Every time I went to Hedge to pick up the roses they had waiting for me I was shocked by their beauty. I started to think a lot about our standards, as humans. It’s interesting what our society considers to be an organism’s “prime” – smooth, tight, full of potential. I’m describing a flower bud but the same words can be used to describe the bodies, skins and outlooks of humans during the years we consider to be their prime years. I grew to love these open roses and the buds that had been a little battered during transport and were thrown in with the open blooms – the irregulars and the golden girls. Not only did I find them more beautiful, in the end, than the tight buds, but they were softer, and more confident – showing their full faces. I wanted to do my best to pause their beauty and give them as much of a legacy as possible while still letting them gracefully turn to dust.
The aging process of a cut rose in a vase has stages. Some stages in their openness last a matter of days – especially those last moments of heaviness before they start to wither. This project was a lesson for me in aging and being present – not only with the blooms themselves but also in my own life as my mind and body change and approach their potential and fullness.
The installation and opening night at The Ixhibit (or the Box@IX) in the IX Building, Charlottesville VA:
Describe A Childhood Memory (A Letter Project) - April, 2016
"Describe A Childhood Memory (A Letter Project)" was installed at The Gallerix gallery in the IX warehouse in Charlottesville, VA. It showcased a collection of 40 handwritten letters from anonymous people from all over the world that responded to questions I put out into tumblr in July of 2013 - I shared the link on facebook as well, various times over the course of the year and reblogged my initial tumblr post.
Here are some photos from the installation and opening night (this included a "participation station" where people were encouraged to anonymously answer one of the questions from the project on a flashcard, or to write a story about themselves):
The letters were all received between the summer of 2013 and 2014 at a P.O. Box set up just for the occasion at the post office on the downtown mall, in Charlottesville. Here are some scans of various envelopes and pages from various letters, along with some extra photos that people sent along:
