MMMM @ BAM until September 15th!

 

 

The largest installation of the Mater Matrix Mother and Medium project is currently up at The Bellevue Arts Museum in Bellevue, Washington, until September 15th.    Beginning at the colonnade of lampposts and trees in front of the museum, it continues west for another two city blocks, with some of the largest panels swirling around an old oak tree past 106th Ave.

For myself and creative partner Paul Margolis, installing the installation this time was one of the most enjoyable and interactive times we’ve done it.  The streets we were working on for about 100 hours, crocheting up on ladders, are major walking thoroughfares, and -once we began to count- we would get about 5 to 10 complements on the installation an hour.  It is a a very strenuous process, so this kept our morale high.

Immediately following the installation, I had to throw myself into completing another installation headed to Italy, so I don’t feel like I’ve had a chance to fully process what great feedback we got, all of the support from the museum and museum visitors, as well as people who have followed and contributed to the MMMM project since its beginning in 2009.  I am so grateful for the embracing experience!  For the time being, here are many images from the installation and the part of it that functioned as the opening to the BAM ARTSfair.

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“Saltus Chori Aevum” Film by Rodrigo Valenzuela, premiers July 3rd, The Rendezvous, Seattle

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.

MMMM in 2012

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:

• Arts Culture and Design
• Sustainable Futures
• Science and Technology
• Global Health
• Learning
• Commerce and the Innovation Economy
• Civic Action
• History

And Engage is what I hope to continue to do with several Community Crochet workshops on the campus during April and May, teaching anyone and everyone to crochet and adding all the stitches and contributions into the ever-growing fiber river.  I’m also in the planning and development stage of some evocative new additions to this experiential public art work, that will once again allow me to explore a visceral response to site, history and probing our contemporary longing to re-connect with water in the way that all of our ancestors did; with a sense of reverence and respect.  Stay tuned for the new MMMM program of events by connecting on Facebook or Twitter.  I can’t wait!  This feels like a full circle for this artwork, which began in Seattle in 2009 with a series of more that 30 community events and has since visited four other communities around the country.

As for the beginning of 2012, Mater Matrix Mother and Medium still winds its way through the Cathedral St. John the Divine in NYC as part of their exhibition and symposium “The Value of Water: Sustaining a Green Planet”,  until March 25, 2012.

And please check out the new little MMMM book, which shares a sampling of the myriad of moments, hands and places that make this on-going process-based public art installation.

MMMM River comes down in Atlanta tomorrow….

Bye-bye Agnes Scott College….

Curator Lisa Alembik is a saint for taking down my installation without  me…..

Next, it returns home to Seattle for a little urban installation at Ohge Ltd. Gallery here in Seattle, which I believe opens on January 23rd…..and I just realized I’ll need to make more ropes, oh my!  Watch out for a crochet party coming soon!!

More images from the fun in Atlanta here

Clip from Mater Matrix Mother and Medium Short Film on Flickr….

A film still from the short film that Ian Lucero is working on based on the MMMM performance.  I have seen about 3 minutes of a promo, and am so thrilled, and so truly truly grateful to have had the chance to work with such incredible artists, Ian, Morgan and Zoe (and Juniper Shuey and Paul Margolis).  All so generous and humble and so full of vision….

The film will premier at Ohge Ltd. Gallery in Seattle in January 2010….stay tuned….

The 3 minute promo will be showing at Dalton Gallery at Agnes Scott College….I am here in Atlanta installing the river as part of “Still Water”….

Clip from Mater Matrix Mother and Medium Short Film on Flickr – Photo Sharing!.

MMMM Performance gets a mention on “Pacific Standard” blog

A great mention on Pacific Standard

Pacific Standard: Rivers Arms.

The Performance is upon us! 7/16/09 at 6:30 pm

rehearsing

Thursday July 16th, 2009 at 6:30 pm  Mater Matrix Mother and Medium will reach its performative culmination with a site-specific performance by Seattle-based and internationally-recognized choreographer/dancer Zoe Scofield, with music for clarinet and megaphone created and performed by musician/composer Morgan Henderson .

 

Come join in this one-time experience at the Pond at Camp Long in West Seattle, 5200 35th Ave. SW.  

 

The Performance, created by collaboration between myself, Zoe Scofield and Morgan Henderson is a hushed reflection on the subtle dynamics of the Forest embedded in the urban environment, at once organic as it is artificial.  All three artists, in our own way, having responded to the quirky overgrown tranquility of Camp Long’s little pond, invite you to sit for a short time in quiet observation of the rhythms of this unusual site, heightening your focus through sound, movement, breath and site-responsive installation.

 

Mater Matrix Mother and Medium began with the creation of a 200 ft.- long fiber river, created in part through a series of over 30 community events all over Seattle, where I taught anyone willing to learn, how to crochet.  I then took the fiber “pools” into the forest of Camp Long and spent nearly six weeks on a ladder crocheting the river into the trees, flowing from 25 feet up in the tree canopy to nearly touching the forest floor.

 

The River, made up of thousands upon thousands of tiny moments and movements of individual citizens, integrated, linked together and interwoven into the natural environment, will itself embed Zoe Scofield in an exploration of how we ourselves are both literal and metaphoric manifestations of the living essence of water.  Our experience of water is both one of ultimate intimacy and also of civic structure.  This artwork, a unique blend of community engagement and personal inquiry, site-embedded installation and performance, embodies the ancient human practice of acknowledging our own physicality rooted in the cycles of water and how this forms the very foundation of human community.  Water, both mundane and miraculous, mirrors the everyday meeting of strangers and the tiny moments that begin to bond us together.

 

Please consider bringing a blanket to sit on during the performance but lawn chairs will obstruct others’ view.  Come enjoy some tranquility! 

 

This project is part of three temporary public art projects in the Water Calling series, and are commissioned by the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs with Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) 1% for Art funds. The projects reflect SPU’s management of the complete cycle of hydrology for Seattle’s water resources from drinking water through drainage, and Restore Our Waters, the city’s initiative to protect and restore Seattle’s urban waterways.

 

Crocheting on a ladder…

I haven’t really been able to keep up with the blog while installing the river in the park, but have lots and lots of pictures…

Crocheting into the Woods!

I have been chomping at the bit to begin the process of installing this giant river form into the woods at Camp Long, so am excited to say I have started.  It’s a slow laborious process, like putting together a giant puzzle….but it’s really fun!

  And going to take me the full month with my hands full time in the woods.  I have so much I wish I could post on this blog, but it will actually have to wait until I get the majority of the river into the trees.  Like, I saw a giant owl the other day in Camp Long.  A Giant, chilling, mythology-making creature staring at me with dark black eyes like she could eat me if she felt like it…..it was amazing!

Mark your calendars for the MMMM performance and residency at Camp Long, this summer

After much planning, The Performance…..

Mater Matrix Mother and Medium will culminate with a site-specific performance by Seattle-based and internationally-recognized choreographer and dancer Zoe Scofield.  Come join in this one-time experience on July 16th, 2009 at 6:30 pm at the pond at Camp Long in West Seattle, 5200 35th Ave. SW.  

This River, made up of thousands upon thousands of tiny moments and movements of individual citizens, integrated, linked together and interwoven into the natural environment, will itself embed Scofield in an exploration of how we ourselves are both literal and metaphoric manifestations of the living essence of water.  Our experience of water is both one of ultimate intimacy and also of civic structure.  This artwork, a unique blend of community engagement and personal inquiry, site-embedded installation and performance, embodies the ancient human practice of acknowledging our own physicality rooted in the cycles of water and how this forms the very foundation of human community.  Water, both mundane and miraculous, mirrors the everyday meeting of strangers and the tiny moments that begin to bond us together.

An outdoor studio for myself, Artist-in-Residence at Camp Long….

 

deep in the urban forest

The River of Mater Matrix Mother and Medium will be created on site at Camp Long, as I integrate all  the fiber parts created over these many months into one form based on the topography and structure of the trees of the park.  Please join me, from June 15 – July 9th, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 am – 2 pm, and watch as this brilliant blue line begins to accumulate and grow in this tiny patch of urban forest.  You can watch me work, join in with more crocheting and also explore the trails of this hidden gem of a park in the Longfellow Creek watershed.

 

 

A few more new events! and something to feast your eyes upon

 

 

I’m still adding more events where you can come join in the creation of  Mater Matrix Mother and Medium.  Here are some new ones just added………

 

You can see all the events here.

-18th of May, Mon, 11 am – 2 pm, 4Culture Conference Room, 101 Prefontaine Place S. contact: tina.hoggatt@4culture.org

-24th of May, Sun, 12:30 pm – 4:45 pm, Beacon Hill Library meeting room, 2821 Beacon Ave. S.  206-684-4711, directions

-30th of May, Sat, 11am – 4:45pm, “Delridge Day”, Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, 4408 Delridge Way S.W., 206-935-2917

-10th of May, Sun, 10 am – 4 pm, “Festival of Trees” with Camp Long, Sandpoint Magnuson Park, 7400 Sandpoint Way NE, Seattle

-7th of June, Sun, 10 am – 2 pm, West Seattle Farmers Market with Camp Long, the “Junction” at California Ave SW and SW Alaska

-13th of June, Sat, 11 am – 5 pm, Morgan Junction Community Festival with Camp Long, 6401 California Ave. S.W.

Zoe Scofield, Jennifer Zwick and the amazing postcard collaboration

I’ll continue to add more of the stunning images that artist/designer Jennifer Zwick shot for my postcard and blog and general publicity.  And of course, our subject Zoe Scofield, is a natural at conjuring up an elemental mystery.  Please check out the sites of these two endlessly talented Seattle-based artists.  

 

 

Zoe Scofield