Reader's Art 12: Alicia Bailey

Reader's Art 12: Longing for Home  Denver artists Alicia Bailey says, "The phrase “home is where the heart is” is one that confounded me in childhood. Others seemed to think that home was a house somewhere.

I asked my mother about it once, or maybe more than once. Her response to my idea, if my home is where my heart is, then my body must be my home, was an exasperated “Where do you come up with these ideas?”

The conviction that my home is the one that I carry with me everywhere, my physical body, has stayed with me and continues to make sense. I find comfort in the notion of my home as something that is wholly mine. A thing while it can be shared, used or abused by others, exploited even, belongs to no other. A place that will cease to exist at the same moment that I do.

The five books here reference the physical (Shedding), the sensual (Burning Me Open), the psychological (Two Hearts), the spiritual (Mercy) and all the above (Ab)."

Reader's Art 12 : Longing for Home

March 16-April 26, 2012

opening reception Friday, March 16, 7-10pm

Reader's Art 12: LaThoriel Badenhausen

Reader's Art 12: Longing for Home  New York artist LaThoriel Badenhausen wrote: "Paper dolls!  Growing up poor in rural Minnesota, my paper dolls were wrinkled, faded dolls culled and cut from the Christmas Sears Roebuck catalog.  Every year, I received a bounty of new paper dolls in the mail.  (Montgomery Ward’s “dolls” were inferior).  My paper dolls were constant friends during days spent indoors waiting out a blizzard. Schiaparelli Fashion Paper Dolls remind me of that place, those days.  Just as a child I pasted new dresses to a doll when I became bored with her fashion presence or posture, I have transformed the dated Schiaparelli paper dolls by giving each doll a face evident in the currently fashionable art context.  Yoko Ono, Pamela Lehman, Nara, Cattelan, Warhol, Jesus and his disciples and McCarthy’s “Tomato Head”." 

Reader's Art 12 : Longing for Home

March 16-April 26, 2012

opening reception Friday, March 16, 7-10pm

Windows on Cedar: Sharol Nau

Sharol Nau is a Northfield artist who is obsessed with mathematics. She is NOT a mathematician, but attended a math and art conference on a whim and found the confluence of art and mathematics fascinating.  Her work can be seen in the windows and in the gallery during Reader's Art 12.

My artwork develops from doing.  Inspiration may arise from a location, a sheet of good rag paper, a block of Styrofoam, a stack of books or more. I begin by experimenting with materials until ideas and techniques come together.  Progress demonstrates adjustments along the way but I know when it is finished because it is successfully filled with my visual ideas.

Making art for more than thirty years gives me an abundance to draw from.  However there are periods in development when a diversion from my usual practice is required to keep the work fresh and interesting.  Even though it is not readily apparent in this collection of recent book sculptures they are influenced indirectly by visual memories of my trips to a local creek that runs slowly at a bend where trees and rocks block the flow.  The creek is transformed from a stream to a wavy pond as the flow—not completely blocked—stagnates just enough for waves to bounce off the banks and obstructions to form wonderful patterns.

The best books from which to shape engaging sculptures are gently used with good quality paper bought by the bagful at an annual book sale.  Methodically folded pages hinged to a book spine take on unexpected, graceful structures.  Shapes can be prescribed mathematically; others are freely formed.

My first attempts at creating small sculptures by folding the pages of recycled books were experimental.  Mathematics came into play only after I had folded a set of encyclopedias.  Being material conscious, I switched to novels constructed of higher quality paper with deckled edges.  The performance of waves from the resulting series of folds is beautiful as I use variations on a classical math problem, the so-called Paper Creasing Problem.  More recently the waves are popping up due to parabolic curves.  Each page is folded to a common point, the focus, with the edge serving as the straight line.  Thus the collection of folds forms an arch-curve.  Abounding waves emanate as the book is opened and spread out.  I am discovering more waves as I delve into the problem of creating works that represent a perfect shuffle, as in playing cards. In mathematics a perfect shuffle is when a set of cards is divided into two equal piles and shuffled to interleave them perfectly.

Reader's Art 12 : Philip R. Luoma Anderson

Reader's Art 12: Longing for home covers a lot of territory.  Over the next few weeks I will be featuring images from the artists who are participating from close to home and as far away as France.

Pictured above is an image from Changing Face of a Nation  by Philip R. Luoma Anderson. In the book Adult Basic Education students who are learning English wrote a personal narrative. They wrote about their lives in their home countries, coming to the USA, their current lives, and their hopes for the future. Philip was their instructor. He wrote about demographic change in the USA and Minnesota, language acquisition, and the loss of heritage language and the factors that influence language acquisition, language maintenance, and language loss. 

Reader's Art 12: Longing for Home

March 16- April 26, 2012

opening reception Friday, March 16, 7-10pm

Reader's Art 12 opening soon

Changing Landscapes by Elizabeth Carls

LONGING FOR HOME: Reader’s Art 12

March 16-April 26

Susan Hensel Gallery, 3441 Cedar Ave S, will take a break from retirement for the annual book extravaganza, Reader’s Art 12: Longing for Home , Friday March 16 with a reception and celebration for the artists from 7-10pm.  

This long running show is a national/international survey show of artists books originated by Ms. Hensel when she lived  in East Lansing, Michigan. Now in its twelfth consecutive year, forty two artists form the US, Canada and France responded to the call for artists books that considered the following questions:

What does home mean to you?

Is home a place, a building, a feeling, a belief system,a family, a way of being in the world?

What do you long for?

Not surprisingly, in these transitional times, many artists dwelt in nostalgia for a past time that may or may not have been their own.  There are also political pieces dealing with immigration, and environmental destruction of the planet.  There are pieces that deal with the body as the ultimate home, with identity.  There are beautiful, ethereal books; crudely natural books; creepy books; humorous books; elegant books.

Among the forty two artists are many local folks:  Carolyn Halliday, Phillip R. Luoma Anderson Elizabeth Carls, Maggie Miller, Mary Bergs and Beth Dorsey.

Most of the books may be handled and read. After all, what’s a book if you cannot read it?

Come join the fun, Friday, March 16, 7-10pm.

§  Reader’s Art 12 : Longing for Home

§  March 16- April 26, 2012

§  Susan Hensel Gallery

§  3441 Cedar Ave S., Minneapolis, MN 55407

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Windows on Cedar is coming together

The Windows on Cedar project is coming together. The windows are tentatively scheduled through next fall. They will be filled, soon, by the work of Sarah Claire Ahlers, a local photographer who has taken portraits around the Corcoran Neighborhood of South Minneapolis and will be posting them around the neighborhood starting here, soon. What she is doing is similar to the INSIDE OUT PROJECT.

In March and April, in honor of Reader's Art 12, I will show Northfield artist Sharol Nau.

A conversation, but not a closing

Tonight we had a conversation, wide ranging, fun, about the return to physicality in art . Jeff Rathermel, Paulette Myers -Rich and Marianne Combs led the discussion with much response from the audience.

Perhaps Jeff looks like he is pontificating and perhaps Marianne looks a bit incredulousBut, really, we were having a great discussion that ranged across history and media.

The show continues next week, through Friday, November 18. The gallery is open Monday, 10-5 . Other days, you should call ahead to set a time. I have a few appointments off site, but would love to have you in to see the show.