Yesterday, Bill and I hung my Plexiglass artwork in the restroom at Fair Grinds Coffeehouse on Ponce De Leon, off Esplanade Avenue. It was a monumental step for me, to hang my new art form in a public place. But it's not a new thing for me altogether. Another piece of my paper collage series hangs in the administration building of La Casa de Maria, a retreat center in Santa Barbara, California. I made that piece around 1992, 18 years ago, and I must stop by there on my next trip to California and see how it's lasting. When I was highly involved with paper collage, I took great care to use acid--free, museum-quality paper and archival-quality glue.
With this piece, I used Plexiglass panels covered with tissue paper painted with water-based urethane. I wired those pieces together and embellished them with translucent Mardi Gras beads and other New Orleans symbols. In the center panel, I glued Scrabble pieces behind the panel to spell out Fair Grinds. That represents the Scrabble games held every Monday night at Fair Grinds.
This piece was custom made for this window well. It has to work both at night, when light is shining on it from within, and during the day, when light will flood through from outside. It needs to allow both privacy and natural light.
Here's how it came about: I held my previous Artist's Way workshop upstairs at Fair Grinds and I wanted to do something to contribute to the coffeehouse. The manager had posted an ad on Craigslist looking for an artist to paint something on this window to provide privacy. It's a fixed window, meaning it doesn't open, and consists of just one large pane of glass. To create the project, several of us from my Artist's Way workshop set out to make a Plexiglass hanging. Through a series of twists and turns, I ended up tasked with making the artwork on my own.
What I found out is how much I love working with translucent panels. It is my new material of choice. I got these panels by posting wanted ads on Freecycle.com. I got them from two separate women in town. One is named Audrey Evans, and she is an energy rater who lives along Bayou St. John. The other batch came from a Tulane art student who lives across the lake. I met her outside her Tulane art studio and she handed off the panels.
With my new art form, I'm finding that I want to use mostly castoff materials that would otherwise end up in landfills. I want to stay away from buying new materials whenever possible.
In this piece, I'm not sure about the longevity of the Mardi Gras beads. The translucent beads look like some kind of resin, which will probably last a long time. But I did use a couple of strands of metallic-looking beads and those may blacken over time. As this is a new art form, I will need to research and make sure I'm using museum-quality materials.
The one thing I know is how much I love, love, loved the process of working with these panels. I've just acquired several large and expensive panels from a Craigslist ad (which I will blog about soon) and I will launch soon into my next artwork.
For me, hanging this first piece in my new art form in a public place is a case of really stepping out there. I have no idea if anyone will like it (I haven't gotten any correspondence from the coffeehouse yet). But I'm beginning to realize more fully that not everyone is going to like everything I do. Maybe no one will like anything I do. But if I like it, if I'm fulfilled in the process, that is all that matters. It is how I feel about my art that is most critical. What if great artists like Helen Frankenthaler and Mark Rothko and Frank Stella waited around until everyone gave their approval? There would never be any art. So, I stepped out and I'm proud of myself for that.
Great Piece. People line up to see it, though some may have full bladders! Everyone has been commenting on it favorably, functional and attractive, a great solution and exceptionally nice contribution to our community coffeehouse. Thank you.
Posted by: Robert Thompson | 03/16/2010 at 05:15 PM