I’m eager to announce Mater Matrix Mother and Medium’s most ambitious iteration to date, and get as many people possible around the country (and the globe) involved! This summer MMMM will flow down the streets of Bellevue, Washington, and create a striking gateway to The Bellevue Art Museum’s 60th anniversary of the BAM ARTSfair this July 26th, 27th and 28th, 2013.
Crocheting at Cathedral St. John the Divine NYC
The on-going MMMM community-created fiber river project will move through the trees and civic structures around the museum, and I’ll be leading a series of community crochet workshops at the museum before and during the fair.
But I want to get anyone involved who would like to participate, not just those people able to attend in the community. Every time I have created a new version of MMMM in a different community, I have been contacted by folks through my blog wishing they could participate and wanting to send blue crocheted pieces to be added in to the river. I love the idea but never really had the time during the project to facilitate this.
This time I want to make that happen! If you are part of a knitting/crocheting or crafting group or just as an individual, and would like to join in the MMMM project and don’t live in Bellevue, Washington area (or even if you do but want to work remotely!), contact me at matermmm@gmail.com!
Crocheting at Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland
I will give you all the information and strategies you need to facilitate your own Community Crochet Event to contribute to the MMMM project. I’ll have an informational packet about how to facilitate story-telling through handwork about our shared, rich and meaningful experiences and deeply-held beliefs about water and community. I’ll ask that someone in your group (however large or small) be a documenter and journaler for these conversations, and that we share your words and photographs on the Mater Matrix Mother and Medium blog and social media. You can feel free to interpret this documentation however much or little your group is comfortable with.
And your group’s crocheted pieces will be integrated into this project that included work from people around Seattle and the Northwest, NYC, Atlanta, Portland and Boston!
So if you want to join in, contact me today at matermmm@gmail.com. We have until July 1st for this community participation leg of this largest and most ambitious adaptation of this project!
Crocheting in Seattle’s urban forest
Crocheting at Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Georgia
Crocheting in Seattle’s Summer Streets
This past May, the ‘Mater Matrix Mother and Medium’ project premiered a 2-day multi-disciplinary performance called “Saltus Chori Aevum”, created by collaboration with Mandy Greer, Jessica Jobaris, Saskia Delores, Monica Schley and Andrea Ives,
During the course of the development of the performance, filmmaker Rodrigo Valenzuela worked closely with the artists, filming improvisation sessions, ritualized cleansings and an intimate view of the performances themselves. Capturing more than just a performance documentation, Valenzuela integrated his own vision into the narrative, creating revealing portraits of the labor and relationships of the performers.
Join us July 3rd for a reception and screening of his film, from 5pm-8pm at The Rendezvous Jewel Box Theater. 2322 2nd Ave. Seattle, WA 98121 U.S.A (206) 441-5823
Presented by The Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs and Commissioned by Seattle Public Utilities 1% for Art. MMMM celebrates and interprets the splendor of Seattle’s urban watersheds and encourages stewardship, especially as it connects to SPU’s work.
This gallery contains 8 photos.
The MMMM project was lucky enough to get to work with filmmaker and photographer Rodrigo Valenzuela this spring on “Saltus Chori Aevum”. He not only captured some incredible images of the 2-night public art performance, but also worked with all … Continue reading
‘Saltus Chori Aevum’, the MMMM 2012 performance happened more than a month ago; it’s difficult for me to believe. I usually drop off the planet right after finishing a huge project, and this one was no different, except for the sense of moving the action and motivation of themes of the project into the recesses of my private life; cleansing, scouring, stripping down to a rawness and starting fresh, renewing. I have been cleaning my house like I have never done before; moving into my own home with a baby 7 years ago, I have never taken enough time out from working to really even move in, or upkeep much of anything. There is always a new project, more work. But this has created mental blockages for me that have grown difficult to overcome, it seems silly but very real. So, it seems small, ordinary, menial, unimportant to even mention; giving away piles of things, removing old patterns, and cleaning layers of real and psychological dirt….but it feels very much like the process of creating this performance is the impetus for this private excavation, and will hopefully un-block my way to re-newed making.
It brings me to a feeling of gratitude for choreographer/dancer Jessica Jobaris, for helping all of us involved to dig around in our heads and bodies for the movements to say what we needed to see. Through meditation and improvisation workshops, she helped us all create a score, and I always found myself on the floor scrubbing, pushing and pulling imagined waters. More than just creating what you might have seen at Dupen Fountain in May, she helped me unlock a new quiet vocabulary in my own body, and I’m nervous and excited to see how it will influence my new work.
I owe huge thank you’s and deep gratitude to all my collaborators on this project. All of them, as well as Jessica, Monica Schley, Saskia Delores, Andrea Ivesand Rodrigo Valenzuela approached this project with a sense of nurture and working from a place of intuition and experimentation. There was a rawness in the piece that I really loved that reminded me of community gatherings and ritual; intent takes priority over perfection. And this is what I found compelling about the flood of cell-phone pictures that I found on the internet after this public piece opened; they’re like tiny moments of the individual’s perception. The images in this post are just a few of those:
I also am so thankful for the guidance and support of this project from Marcia Iwasaki at the Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs and Layne Cubell from The Seattle Center Foundation/Next 50. This project wouldn’t have been possible with their sharp management and dedication.
I also am grateful to the kind volunteering efforts of the friends and acquaintances who came out to assist us with putting this on: Mary Lee Drake, Rebecca Bloom, Wyly Astley, Kristie Metcalf , Glenn Billard, Ellen Eades, Barb Matthews, Renata Almeida. I know I have forgotten a few names – I’m so sorry – but I am so grateful for the support!
More images taken by Photographer/Filmmaker Rodrigo Valenzuela
COMMUNITY CROCHET WORKSHOPS: May 25 – 28, 2012, 1-4pm everyday, Northwest Folklife Festival at the Seattle Center, Next Fifty Plaza Activity Tent ( HUGE white tent just west of the EMP)
Catch me this last weekend to participate in my on-going project Mater Matrix Mother and Medium as it returns to Seattle Center for more Community Crochet Workshops and the final weekend to see the re-envisioned installation!
‘Saltus Chori Aevum’ performance for the MMMM Project, by Rodrigo Valenzuela
Participate! Fri. 5/25 – Mon. 5/28, 1-4pm
Help create the artwork at Seattle Center at several crochet workshops during Folklife in the Next 50 Plaza Activity tent, just west of the EMP. I will teach beginners how to crochet chains and add onto the ever-evolving artwork. Expert crocheters welcome, too! All materials provided, but contributions of recycled fibers and yarns welcome, in any shade of blue!
TONIGHT! ‘Saltus Chori Aevum’ at the Seattle Center, 7pm,
The final performance! The responses I got from yesterday’s performance were incredible! Thank you everyone from coming out and enjoying what we’ve been working on since February. Don’t miss the final performance tonight!
by Ellen Eades
Meet at one of three places to begin the performance, at the Kobe Bell, The Poetry Garden or the northwest corner of the Key Arena. See the map, with the pink stars!
And here is The Seattle Channel’s profile on my work from a week ago!
http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?file=1&ID=4011228
Mater Matrix Mother and Medium’s new multi-media performance “Saltus Chori Aevum” is almost here, and I am awash in realizing what a great pleasure it has been the past few months of collaborating with some very generous, humble and talents artists: choreographer/dancer Jessica Jobaris, performance artist/vocalist Saskia Delores, harpist/poet Monica Schley and filmaker Rodrigo Valenzuela. My initial seed for this project was to bring several people together who don’t work together, haven’t worked together, but all of whose work I feel incredibly drawn into, like I am disappearing into a well of deep water. So it has been an experiment, throwing people together and seeing what happens. There is rawness, and refinement and some intense crystalline moments of people making work that they wouldn’t be making on their own. It has been a feast of influences to be a part of the creation of performance, and I believe it will be a feast of sensations to experience as a viewer. The creation of MMMM, the entire project, has always been about celebrating process over end-product; the crocheting has a life of its own as it grows and is impacted upon by the environment. And I see this performance blooming out of that same process.
Also, please take a moment to watch Rodrigo’s film Diamond Box, which is up for the Vimeo documentary awards, and Vote for it here! Voting ends tomorrow April 30th.
