Spirals and wrapping

I have been doing "wrapped" work since college. I had a series once comprised of small pods made from globs of spray foam insulation then wrapped with wire and assembled on canvases. The doodles I absentmindedly make while on the phone are usually spirals. I guess even my subconscious runs in circles.

Artists like Robert Smithson, Richard Long and Christo (and the late Jean-Claude) are other, admittedly more famous, spiraling and wrapping artists. Earthworks, performance art, basically any kind of conceptual art is where my heart is. We took the kids to Nice, France in the winter of 2009 and in the Musee d'Art Moderne we were able to see one of Christo's "wrapped" works and a Richard Long installation. A real Richard Long! This is Miranda with the Long piece and the Christo.



I am usually a terrible planner, but I'm getting a head start and we're taking the family out west to Colorado in the Summer of 2013 to see Christo's upcoming installation, "Over the River". Like most of his work, it is temporary and will only be up for two weeks. It spans 40 miles of the Arkansas River and will be able to be viewed from above or below, while kayaking. Wow.
http://www.overtheriverinfo.com/page_1



While we're out there, we'll swing by Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty in the Great Salt Lake. The Jetty is walkable this spring, but has been known to submerge for many years at a time. Cross your fingers.

Spiral Jetty, as seen from Rozel Point

Waiting for the mail

I find myself waiting for the mail. New supplies arriving in the form of credit card applications, American Girl Doll catalogs and offers for new gutters. I’ve just discovered that the grocery ads and their colored ink make great tree rings. The newsprint is soft and they use lots of red ink during strawberry season. Red, my favorite.

I received a real live, honest-to-goodness letter in the mail recently from a friend I knew when we lived in Seattle. A real live letter with a stamp and everything! She actually wrote, long-hand, three pages front and back on spiral notebook paper. Her even, straight penmanship brought me right back to mornings in her kitchen drinking hot tea while our babes played in the Tupperware drawers at our feet. Her letter was newsy, full of parenting tidbits and parenting dilemmas. (Like, when is it time for the real story of the Birds and the Bees?) Somehow, a hand written letter elevates the news held therein far beyond that of an email. My real-live three page letter was hand delivered by a person to my very own mailbox. My letter was in my friend’s hand just days before, maybe written on her kitchen counter, maybe on her lap in a waiting room, and now here it is in my hand. From hand, to hand, to hand.

It seems appropriate that I’m going to chop her letter into 3/4” slices and wrap it around itself until it and the envelope are gone, wound up into something new. A transformed memory, a token to our friendship. I might even add some grocery ad red. I’ll call it “Shopping for Tea and Tia”.

Ringlets

These are my Ringlets. They are tiny, most only 1-2 inches in diameter. Each composition is a story. Combinations of grocery store receipts, credit card applications, birthday invitations, kiddo art, catalogs, magazines and newspapers. Birth announcements, spelling tests, gum wrappers, warranties, bills, and instructions.

The house is overflowing with paper. The world is inundated with stacks and stacks of unsolicited pages. Here, a few are transformed and immortalized as art.

Sadly, re-trivialized by gluing a magnet on the back. Oh well, seemed like a good idea at the time.

GroceryReceiptCSAFlyer

PledgeWCAI

NYTKindergartenArt

BabyHazelIkeaLabels