I am always amazed at how this on-going project seems to come to a moment of closure, and very quickly is pulled to expand in new directions beyond what I even considered!  Mater Matrix Mother and Medium will be headed back this spring from NYC’s Cathedral St. John the Divine and evolving once again as part of the Next 50 program at the Seattle Center, as part of their Sustainable Futures focus area programing.  I’m very thrilled to be a part of the Next 50 and the enormous amount of cultural programing, not just culling from the region’s creative thinkers, but from around the country.  If you don’t already know about it,  “the Next Fifty, (is) six months of events and activities planned in 2012 at Seattle Center that celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, the legacy it left to the region, and the opportunities ahead during the next 50 years.”  ‘Events and Activities’ doesn’t begin to sum it up, with this line up of focus areas, it would be hard not to find something to engage with:

Thank you Flickr!!

When I walked into the Cathedral St. John the Divine earlier this September, I was there to install a giant installation for the exhibition “The Value of Water”, and had never been to the site before….quite nerve-wracking and almost a little absurd for an installation that is all about taking on the shape of its environment. And, I wouldn’t be able to install it myself.   I had been using measurements (some of them contradictory) cobbled together by several people, some dark low-res pictures, and a very simplified floor plan to try to create a plan for something that I usually created painstakingly with my own hands on-site to fit the exact shape of things.  Thank the heavens for the hundreds of tourist photos of the Cathedral on Flickr, it was only through pouring over those that I could even begin to grasp what was going on in all the soaring heights and gigantic arches and wings, bays and arches, and arches!

Armed with my little detailed plans, having worked them out with the crocheting in my studio back in Seattle, I was nervous — what if the measurements were wrong…there was no time or space or crocheting to recreate or adjust things as I usually did because the installation was going to be 65 feet off the ground and done by riggers; I couldn’t  just go up and tweak something.  But after a few minutes of talking over the plans with Daniel from Sapsis Rigging, I knew everything was going to be fine.  Like every other art installer/preparator I have ever met, he was nonchalantly unflappable, nothing dramatic….and just said “no problem”.

Once when we had some glitch, he said something like “that’s a little hard, but hard is no big deal” and then went on to talk about some crazy thing they had to do for Sting when he performed at the Cathedral!

It ended up being one of the easier installations I’ve ever put up, and very fun to get to climb up into the little spiraling staircase and tiny corredors the run up inside the Cathedral.  Paul got to do a lot of fun stuff, I am a bit afraid of heights, at least at 65 feet.

little staircase to the balconies, quite dark without the flash...

tiny little hallway in the dark...

Daniel in the Genie, 40 feet up

Paul beginning to stretch the crocheting open...

And we even had plenty of time to crank out more crocheted ropes during lunch at the Hungarian Pastry Shop across the street.  When you’re working hard, giant creme puffs count as lunch….

Now…time to go through and edit all the images of the final installation, and the beautiful images of the other work in the show….more to come documenting the MMMM installation in NYC.

And you can still support this project traveling to NYC through my Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds necessary to cover some of the shortfalls from time off from work, materials, shipping and travel expenses. Just 8 days left to raise $770 to fund this project, and every $5 helps!  Thank you so much, more images to come!

Filed under: Cathedral St. John the Divine - The Value of Water Tagged: Cathedral St. John the Divine, installation, process ]]> http://matermatrixmother.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/installing-mmmm-in-nyc/feed/ 2 matermatrixmother 5027347980_50c6945c0c_b FLOORPLAN_detail_2 DSC_0117 panel1_end1 DSC_0116 DSC_0115 DSC_0113 DSC_0138 dayone_2arms_MMMM DSC_0107 http://matermatrixmother.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/last-days-of-seattle-summer-recap-nepo-5k-walkerscrocheters-making-support-for-mmmm-in-nyc/ http://matermatrixmother.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/last-days-of-seattle-summer-recap-nepo-5k-walkerscrocheters-making-support-for-mmmm-in-nyc/#comments Wed, 05 Oct 2011 03:47:38 +0000 Mandy Greer http://matermatrixmother.wordpress.com/?p=772 Continue reading →]]> I’ve finally had a moment to digest and remember what great fun I had at the NEPO 5k on September 10th before we had to fly out to NYC to begin the newest installation of MMMM.  Paul, Hazel and I set up a Community Crochet station at the stunning turquoise and red Korean Pagoda in Daejon Park, with piles of shredded fabrics and yarn, tons of sun surrounding the pagoda, a strong breeze and just enough tree buffer to make I-90 sound like the ocean.  Like most of the art stops on the route -  a 5K-long stretch of art events, installations, performance, happenings and galleries — we spent about 2 hours alone, then a deluge of people as they all made their way to us, all seemed happy to take a rest out of the sun and have some water and crochet a bit.

All seemed enthused and engaged by the long walk and comradery of the blend of art makers, art viewers, neighbors, friends, bands of performers and the ever-shifting site and cityscape.

Map of NEPO 5K through the city

My lovely first guest and I talked about her visceral reaction to the female crusifix hung at Cathedral St. John the Divine she has seen in the 80′s. And then with the crush of people arriving, it was non-stop teaching and crocheting!

Unlike most of MMMM crochet events over the past few years — where production is relaxed and process-oriented — this time I really needed to crank out the crocheted ropes to accommodate the scale of the Cathedral, with some of the columns 40 feet in diameter.  At the end of the day, I thought we had enough crocheted ropes but Paul and I still had to crank out more our first two days in New York, using up every last bit of fabric I had.

But there were still a few skeins of yarn left in my suitcase to spend an afternoon crocheting on the grounds of the Cathedral with some New Yorkers…….more pictures of that to come.

The connection between making the actual supports for the installation and the way Seattle has continued to support this evolving project is not lost on me.  So thank you for the send-off Seattle and  NEPO 5K-ers!

You can also still support this project traveling to NYC through my Kickstarter campaign to raise the funds necessary to cover some of the shortfalls from time off from work, materials, shipping and travel expenses.  I have 9 days left to raise 40% of my fund-raising goal …it’s getting very close but not there yet.  If you don’t know how Kickstarter works, you must meet your financial goal or receive none of the money…yikes.  Deep thanks to the 34 backers who have already pledged, you don’t know how heartening your support is in this uneasy time for my family.  Seriously, thank you!

And thank you Klara Glosova for a triumphant event to celebrate the community-driven art activity blossoming in our time.

Two of my favorite people in the world , Vis-a-Vis Society!

Check out the slideshow for more images of the day and the James Harris after-party Bavarian Beer Garden.  There should be Polka at every art event!

ALSO:  I’ll be at The Cathedral St. John the Divine this Sunday September 18th, 2011, crocheting on the grounds just behind the Peace Fountain.  If you just happen to be in NYC, I would love it if you could join me to crochet little pools for the next incarnation of MMMM.  I’ll be there from 12-3pm, and will have all materials and hooks, and can teach anyone to crochet.  If you have extra scrap blue yarn, I would gladly accept that too!  Or just drop by and say hello, and take a peak at the installation in the Cathedral.  Here’s the Facebook invite!

Thank you!

shot by Ian Lucero for MMMM film

My installation ‘Mater Matrix Mother and Medium’ has been dormant for about a year, but is about to return in yet another form, this time winding its way 65 feet above the ground through the massive and dramatic stone canyon of columns of the Gothic Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in NYC, as part of their exhibition and symposium “The Value of Water: Sustaining a Green Planet”, from September 2011 – March 2012.

This might seem a bit of a departure from an installation primarily about engaging in an intimate way with small parcels of the natural landscape.  I usually spend about 100 hours with my husband, artist Paul Margolis, painstakingly and patiently discovering the negative space in and among trees, our faces pressed to bark and knuckles scraping as we reshape, mend and add to the every-changing fiber river, now sometimes reaching 300 feet long.

Installing at Herbert Bayer Earthworks, 2010

I’ve taken it to Atlanta and to several Northwest locations with 4Culture SITE SPECIFIC program, each time feeling like it’s a new installation and that we have really gotten to know a few trees very well.  This time the installation will be hung by a team of riggers using bucket lifts (that go who knows how high…the Cathedral is 200 feet high!), and will meander among carved stone columns, some as big as 40 feet in diameter. The painstaking process this time took place in my studio, pouring over little pieces of paper that are meant to somehow translate and make me understand two football fields of space.  I unwrapped the crochet panels inside invisible columns taped out on my floor, crocheting about 350 feet of seams together, widening the entire installation so it can have a presence in the massive space.  Have I said massive enough? It is massive, the largest cathedral in the United States.

Yet, it doesn’t feel incongruous with the notion of engaging with something grown rather than built.  Incongruity has been a natural state of this installation from the beginning anyhow, with putting fiber outside in the environment, while fiber is most often seen as something fragile to be treated with white gloves out of the sunlight.  Especially with my newest project ‘Solstenen’ and my fixation on the body turning to living stone — becoming part of the larger cycle of geologic time — having this work supported by massive bits of the earth, carved by skilled hands, is quite nice.  Cathedrals and stone churches have always seemed to me to blend architecture and landscape anyhow because of the very qualities of water the stone retains,  the visceral sense of coming out of the earth, the cool brisk sense of wicking water from the air and ground.

I love what The Reverend Canon Tom Miller has to say about the Cathedral in his essay for Water Matters: Why We Need to Act Now to Save our Most Critical Resource. 

The simple answer is that there’s water, water everywhere, as the imagination might fashion it, since none of the stone, wood or glass would exist without the presence and power of water over geological time. As biblical tradition has it, human beings bear the image of their Creator. Perhaps in like manner, all the materials in the Cathedral bear the mark of water, that first element of Creation from which all things were made.

He also make reference to the many wells, springs and underground streams that dot the land the Cathedral is built upon, even pointing out the use of one spring for years as the source of water for the Baptismal Font.  This speaks so directly to why I began this installation in the beginning.   Ancient holy wells have always been centers of community, and then became centers of reverence.  The way that water works, part of one large cycle, there really isn’t a division between something sacred and something not.  Inspired by over and over and over references of the mythology of the sacred quality of water in nearly every culture, I question where it has gone in ours, with water treated as a commodity, valued for its ability to make money, and yet our careless and privileged sense to waste it and spoil it.  MMMM was inspired mostly by the Clooty Well tradition of Celtic regions – bits of cloth are tied to trees around sacred wells after dipping them in the water, to bind intention into action, to heal.   Can we heal our disjointed relationship to the water we are born from?  When I engage with making this work, and asking people to join me, I feel it is a commitment to try.

Clootie well

The intimacy with site that has usually been so important to me as a maker of this site-responsive installation was replaced  by an intimacy with the history of the piece as I slowly went over every section of it, with remembering individual people who helped make this installation by once more working on their bits that began as far back as March 2009.

I have a very good memory for the crocheting, who made what, what fabrics things are made of.   Coming across the  shredded bits of a Brookes Brothers shirt someone gave me who has now become a dear friend was really special.  Without the trees there as I made the piece this time, I seemed to go back over all the time I spent engaging with the people who worked on this and the transformative quality that period of time has had for me.  The beginning process of making MMMM really put me in the flux of my city, going to places and events and sites that where outside of my daily patterns.

I had the opportunity to talk to a huge range of people, many not really interested in art at all just going about their daily lives.  Sometimes awkward, sometimes so wonderfully surprising, being pulled out of my studio private space and talking about ideas with anyone has had a lasting effect on my practice as an artist.  I feel buoyed by all those who stepped towards the ideas I was trying to share, many trying something new, sitting and talking awhile with perfect strangers about whatever seemed to come up.

I’m excited to once more share all of these thousands of thousands of moments recorded in knotted fiber, and add to them.  I don’t know where yet….but a Community Crochet event will pop up in NY while I’m there, the 13th – 26th….stay tuned, or stay connected on my mailing list or twitter or Facebook. 

Meanwhile, in Seattle on Sept. 10th from 2-6pm, I’ll be participating in the giant community art event NEPO 5K, once more asking Seattlites to support this project by literally asking them to help me make the giant support ropes that will hold MMMM up in the Cathedral.  With 40 foot diameter columns I’ll need a heck more rope than I have ever had to make before.  I’ll be in the Korean Pagoda along the route once it gets to Beacon Hill on the I-90 bike trail….just follow everyone else.  Stop in the pagoda, relax a bit and crochet before continuing on your way.  I’ll have some water for you.

Please consider supporting the traveling of this installation through a small donation on Kickstarter: “MMMM community crochet installation heads to NYC”

4 Culture’s SITE SPECIFIC Network is really pulling no punches this summer with surprising and innovative temporary public art.  Look at Celeste Cooning’s lovely installation….

Celebration and Fanfare | Site Specific.

Mater Matrix Mother & Medium from Ian Lucero on Vimeo.

Issaquah, Washington is hosting MMMM this summer, with the river going up again beginning August 16th at the Pickering Barn.  Until then, I’ll be working with the community during two Community Crochet events.  The first one is coming up.

Date/Time: Thursday, July 29, 2010     12:30 – 4:30 pm

Location: Issaquah Senior Center
75 NE Creek Way (it shares a parking lot with city hall)

Here’s the Facebook invite….

The next Community Crochet will happen at the Issaquah Farmers Market on August 22nd 21st, from 10 am – 2 pm, right next to the beginnings of the river installation.  The Farmers market is held in the parking lot of the historic Pickering Barn.

As usual, beginners welcome and all supplies are supplied!

Mater Matrix Mother and Medium is once again on  the move this summer, as part of 4Culture’s SITE SPECIFIC network, this time to Issaquah Washington.  The Issaquah Arts Commission has invited myself and artist Paul Margolis to be artists in-residence at the beautiful park at the historic 19^th-century Pickering Barn, as we reinvision MMMM from August 17^th – 26^th, right adjacent to one of the widest and most pristine sections of Issaquah Creek.

In support of this ever-changing artwork, the Arts Commission will host me at three community crochet events throughout this summer at various locations around Issaquah.  Please come to the first Community Crochet event on July 2^nd during ArtWalk Issaquah, from 5-9pm, at the old Lewis Hardware in Historic Downtown Issaquah, the future site of the artEAST Art Center.

This free crochet workshop is for anyone and everyone to join in the continued creation of this large 225-foot community project. All skill levels welcome, especially beginners, I’ve even taught four year olds to crochet! All materials provided. Drop in or stay for a while.

Each time this giant fiber river is installed, the installation is reinvigorated — new pieces are added, old ones transformed, with the river taking on the shape of the landscape it is contained within, just as water does.  Please join in!

Sponsored by the Issaquah Arts Commission and 4 Culture SITE SPECIFIC.  Special thanks to artEAST.

WORKSHOP

DATE: July 2^nd, 2010

TIME: 5-9pm

LOCATION: Lewis Hardware (artEAST’s future Art Center)

95 Front Street North

Issaquah, Washington 98027

If you’d like to keep abreast of the movements of MMMM, join the Facebook page!

boxed up, under 200 lbs.

I’ve really always wanted this for this project, and it’s beginning to happen.  MMMM is hooked up with 4Culture’s SITE SPECIFIC program, and is starting to travel.  Since the issues and questions behind this work aren’t really just bound to Seattle, it only makes sense for me to try to bind as many people together as possible, from art curators, administrators and artists  to a seniors knitting club from Georgia, to preschoolers to art bloggers .

at Agnes Scott College, Atlanta

Issues such as  what makes community happen, what has happened to the “sacredness” of water that ALL of our human ancestors felt, what happens when you sit and talk with people you don’t know, what happens when you try to do something you’ve never done before and what happens when you just go with the process rather than product….I’d like to see what happens when I put these questions to as many different people as choose to jump into this.

I also want to see what happens when the piece ages.  One of my main conceptual influences was, afterall, the Clootie Well, where the very magic was in the rotting of the cloth, the knot unbinding.   What will it look like when some parts of the river are a few years old while others are new?  The piece came back from Atlanta with a slight but beautiful sun-bleached feel (please someone help me find a way to put this up in the desert!).   It also had the invigorating smell of laundry dried on the line when it returned from Atlanta, while the Seattle woods left it with the musky smell of moss and fire.  What will it smell like after Issaquah, Wa. and NYC (it’s going to both places!)

But first it’s going to interact with another artwork bound to the earth, Herbert Bayer’s Earthworks in Mill Creek Canyon in Kent, Wa., and part of Kent Arts Commission’s Earth Day celebration.  I’ll be installing it in the park from April 17th until Earth Day.  But before that, on Sat. April 10th, the Kent Senior Center, across the street from Earthworks Park, will be hosting me for a community crochet event.

So, please Kentians, come add your knots and loops to this growing piece!!

-Workshop Date: April 10, 2010

-Workshop Location:

Senior Activity Center , ROOM 6

600 East Smith Street, Kent, WA 98031

253-856-5150

-Time:      12 noon – 4pm

As always, all skill levels welcome, all genders, all ages, all backgrounds!  If you take a few deep breaths with me, anyone can crochet.  And thank you Renaissance Yarns, in Kent,  for posting about the event!!