Giving Tree Self Reflection

Self Reflection
Giving Tree has been a very rewarding experience. I had no idea what to expect when I started
the project and have been pleasantly surprised thus far. I did not expect people to interact with it
as much as they have and I definitely did not expect people to approach me
about it while I was working on it. I
have found that when I install yarn works in public, or work with yarn in
public I am effectively ignored. I had
someone cross the street he was walking on then cross back so as to not walk by
me sewing something to a tree and I expected this reaction from the
project. I was thrilled to have a
stranger waiting to meet me last Tuesday to talk about what crafting means to
her. We ended up talking for over an
hour and I also taught one of my friends how to knit that night. I have had 5 people ask me tech problems
since the project started. I’ve been
asked how to begin and end knitting, end crocheting, switch colours in knitting
and what yo (yarn over) means in a pattern.
(yo) means to flip the yarn to the front when making knit stitch instead
of behind making two loops instead of one.
This usually is called for right before a button hole for example.
The people that have approached me have surprised me. I had a gentleman I had never met before sit
beside me for hours on the night of the initial install. We talked philosophy, politics, and music and
would stop talking at times and he would play his guitar while I was
sewing. I appreciated his company very
much to help me stay awake. I had the
pleasure of having an informal artist talk with half of the members of the
heavy metal band 3 inches of Blood. I
was installing just after their performance in the multipurpose room. They came up to me and asked me to tell them
about the ‘giant kitty post’. I used to
be a ‘metal head’ and was very thrilled to be talking yarn with these
guys. They were all really, really sweet
and genuinely interested. I appreciated
it very much, a great deal of people still ignore me when I am working on the
tree during peak traffic times. I was
extra delighted to have anyone come up and talk to me about it, let alone these
guys. I tried to get them to add
something but they declined.

I have had more contributions from friends and strangers
than I imagined I would receive. Giving
Tree has received two scarves from strangers and the development of a chain on
one of the strings. It also includes a
piece of knitting my friend learned on last week. One person for sure has been using the Giving
Tree as a wishing well and I was very touched by this gesture. I have received numerous yarn donations from
friends and family. I put a shout out
for yarn in Jan/Feb and was touched by the response. So many people raided their stashes and had a
little bit they were not using or gave me a little bit of money to help throw
resources together. For those that do
not buy yarn regularly it can add up very fast.
Next time I would do up even more for the tree before the
install so it was more interesting on a daily basis. I would have liked to be able to pour more
effort in to it every single day. So
ideally I would be camped out by the piece constantly to add things. Bringing a domestic craft in to a public
space has been very interactive and successful.

Giving Tree - artist statement

Giving Tree

Giving
Tree is hand made with extra care.
Yarn is deliberate. Every warm,
cozy, loving, friendly feeling associated with something hand made especially
for you, is a part of Giving Tree. Giving
Tree has sprung up from countless hours of manual labour. Giving
Tree will continue to grow every single day during its installation. Creating is a daily meditative ritual. I am exploring this ritual in a public space
and invite you to participate. I will be
adding to the work every single day for a month. Some days a couple of leaves will appear,
others a branch throughout the duration of the installation.

I invite you to participate and add
to Giving Tree. You can do this during the day when people
are looking, or at night when no one is around.
Feel free to add to it in the spirit of yarn bombing and add to Giving Tree ninja style. I will be documenting the tree every single
day and create a video of it growing upon its completion. I have received permission to incorporate the
bench beside Giving Tree. There is also room for the tree to grow so
tall it curls up the stair rails like vines.
Giving Tree is exploring juxtaposition. It is domestic in a public space, and craft
as art through site specific installation.
Participants can receive their contributions back if they wish at the
end of the project. You can contact me
at alpinegreenjen@gmail.com. I have also created a public facebook event
for Giving Tree which you are more
than welcome to follow for daily pictures and to see the end video. It should show up when you search Giving Tree.

Debbie Stoller has defined knitting
and crocheting, all ‘domestic’ arts as being radical. I full heartedly embrace this. These practices are radical because they are
not necessary any more in our consumer society.
Why spend 20 hours, and significantly more money on a scarf you could go
buy for less? Creating in this way is a
celebration of skill, time, and imagination.
In several current movements inspired by Debbie Stoller, Betsy Greer,
yarn bombers and comradery at local yarn shops, people are reconnecting over yarn. I want to explore the capacity for knitting
and crocheting to be social and community building with this installation. I will be offering knitting and crocheting
lessons once a week by the tree. I will
be here from 7-8 every single Tuesday night while it is installed. If you already have some crafty skills and
would love to have some company I would love you to stop by too. Thank you very much for taking the time to
stop and admire Giving Tree as it grows.

Events I have attended

This image if from Diane Morin's exhibition capteurs d'ombres

I had the pleasure of attending two drag shows this semester. They were both at GLCR downtown. The first drag show of the two, and the first one I had ever been to had a politically incorrect theme. I went to the show with one of my friends from work, and she had failed to mention to me that it was politically incorrect because she thought I already knew. It actually took me awhile once the show started to figure out the theme was on purpose. The thematics were pretty shocking without the foreknowledge to mentally prepare for it. One of the drag queen's performances especially stuck out. Jenny Talia's number was a series of songs blended together about slavery. The performance started with Jenny in a KuKluxKlan outfit and went from there. The effort Jenny put in to the performance was incredible. Jenny manipulated various medias from music, to costume, to lights, to audience reactions. The result was very artistic, and deliberately politically incorrect. The show started in a KKK outfit and ended with one of the servers wearing a toga wrapped in chains.

I attended another a month later in the same building. This one was a fundraiser for the GLCR community. I really admire the work and effort that goes in to performing as a Queen. Every single one of the performers took advantage of their intermedia environment to express themselves. This show had a much more glamorous and done up feel. It was very interesting to compare the two.

I have also attended several galleries. I really enjoyed the BFA/MFA show Hendeca 11 sides currently at the MacKenzie. There are many intermedia components to this exhibition. Joel Kovach's Homo Monstrous is especially interactive. The viewer listens a distorted voice giving them directions on how to interact with the piece. Homo Monstrous invites you to watch a series of filed DVDs of homo monstrous stories and recollections. The viewer is also encouraged to take away a cd that includes all of the stories on it making it even more interactive. Sydney Henrickson's piece also stood out to me on an intermedia level. Sydney takes casts of herself, which are very sculptural and projects a life like naked image of herself on top of one of them. The layers of media, and interpretations are quite interesting.

I checked out Neutral Ground over reading week and was enamoured with Diane Morin's work. I love work that plays with light, reflections, and shadows. Ed Pien is one of my all time favourite artists. I have had the pleasure of seeing Ed Pien's work multiple times in Saskatoon and Regina and love his work every single time. Diane's work reminded me of Pien's a bit. Whereas Pien's is so atmospheric and invites you to walk around in the space, Diane's does the opposite. You have to walk up and peer in these meticulous and fascinating shadow/light shows. I really engaged with her work, especially the one that used the mechanized knitting machine. The machine looked almost evil with its shadowy hooks going up and down so fast.

I had the pleasure of checking out Critical Faculties at the FNUC gallery. I had never been in the FNUC building and the experience was incredible. I loved the white rounded walls, the amount of light pouring in and the peaceful flow of the architecture. The gallery was smaller than I expected but this was by no means detrimental. It was very interesting to see what various faculty members have created. I identified the most with Sean Whalley's work. The photographic prints Willow and Sugar Maple are stunning. The way they are displayed wrapped around the gallery support poles added extra impact. The photo is seen in the round, wrapped around a white pillar that stands in for a tree. It powerfully makes the viewer consider their impact on the environment and mourn the loss of older trees that live to be as wide as the pillar or wider. Each of these photos was paired with tree sculptures. These tree sculptures were covered in wall paper like material and the limbs were held up with wooden crutches. I found them fascinating and engaging.

Events I have attended

The Science Center

I truly feel that the science center is an incredible intermedia space. The exhibits are engaging on multiple levels with a variety of media. They come alive with the interaction of the public. The hands on learning is executed perfectly. I really love how the science center has geared itself towards younger children. Despite the exhibits being geared towards children of varying ages I learn something every time I go. I decided to post Loki using binoculars, and driving a tractor.

Laura Vickerson - Rose Red Curtain

This piece was in the show human/nature. I had the pleasure of seeing it at the Kenderdine. The smell is incredible. She moisturizes all the rose petals individually so they last longer. I was reminded of her today when talking about my own work. This series of hers is very much about manual labour, she pins every single rose to the fabric and the result is stunning.

Lyn Carter

Lyn Carter. Through the Black 2009

I had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with Lyn Carter's work when it was at the Kenderdine gallery in Saskatoon. I was recently reminded of it at school and I adore how she manipulates fabric and found objects. http://www.ccca.ca/artists/artist_info.html?languagePref=en&link_id=1616&artist=Lyn+Carter

Betsy Greer

Goodmorning, I wanted to share some links to super art craftiness. The first is www.craftivism.com which was started by Betsy Greer. Betsy Greer has her MA in sociology with her masters dissertation being on knitting, DIY culture and community development. She is really fascinating and her work is very political. She has inspired a great deal of fiber artists and using the medium for social awareness and change.

Self Reflection - You are invited

My project did not turn out at all the way I had originally planned. It ended up being much better. My original idea to make a video and project it on to myself did not work out and instead I had a really good experience with my class instead.

I feel that my intent to activiate the time the class spent waiting to set up was really successful. I gave everyone a handmade invitation to a tea party and asked them to put on something warm and fuzzy I had made before they entered the room. I feel like I set up a sense of anticipation and a dialogue about what was coming next. I set up a kind of picnic space in the classroom with a really bright afghan surrounded in a circle of yarn balls. I had a table set up with a crochet table runner at the entrance with cups of tea and I had a plate of cookies in the middle of the blanket. I chose 'Forever Nuts' tea from DAVIDsTEA and homeade vegan sugar cookies with caramel icing. I had soft fairy music tinkling in the background.

I was actually terrified to open the door and let people in, not only is my flying squirrel costume very bright and garish, but I was really nervous about how people would interact with the space.

The reception the class had to the space was better than anything I could have imagined. Everyone had tea, got cozy, ate cookies and engaged in a really interesting and fun dialogue about various aspects of craft, and my craft/art practise. What I had not thought about, but was incredibly pleased took place was almost everyone interacted with the yarn! People picked it up, twirled it, bounced it, threw it, explored the texture, made a crochet chain with their fingers, it was wonderful. The project was about my percieved relationship/identity with yarn and I had the audience interacting with it in a very natural way.

I was really worried that I would have to 'act' and it ended up being very successful just being myself with a hyper focus on one of my favourite interests. I was surprised and delighted by the direction of the conversation. My class had lots of wonderful questions about crochet, knitting, yarn bombing, how long things take me, if members of my family knit/crochet, how much yarn I have, feminism, domesticity and more. I felt a little put on the spot, and I always feel like I can answer questions better after the fact; however I really enjoyed the questions. It was a really great experiece.

If this was in a gallery space I would bring even more yarn and cover even more of the space in crochet. I would not run out of hot water and I would bring more cookies. I brought a great deal of props to the class and I feel like I could have brought a lot more. The amount I brought was successful in conveying what I wanted to, the performance would be a lot of fun on a warmer and fuzzier scale in the future. Next time I would include more variety of items for people to try on while they are waiting. I almost brought a couple of sweaters, a wrap, and a poncho but I thought that was a little overboard. I wish I would have brought them. I would have finished the pair of mittens that I have almost done and included them too.

Thank you everyone for participating in the performance.

database imaginary

Database Imaginary is a really interesting collection of intermedia pieces. I had the pleasure of attending the ones in the Dunlop some time ago and really wish I could have experienced all of them. The website takes a bit to navigate but the works are so intriguing it is worth it. The most memorable ones to me are Swipe and Mobile Scout. Swipe consisted of an exhausting amount of research and collection of random personal information done by the artists. You stepped up to a counter reminiscent of a martini bar and had your id swiped. The artists then had a machine that printed off all the easily accessed information they had found out about you. It gave everybody goosebumps. Some participants they had no information on, most participants they had a wealth of general info, and some even had a map of where they lived! Mobile Scout is an imaginary space where you phone in where you are and what it is like, and you can make up every single detail to create this new landscape. Others have access to the information you submit, making the reinvented and imaginary spaces very interesting. Please take a bit of time to cruise these artists, it is very inspiring.

www.databaseimaginary.org

Knitted genius

A knitted skeleton — by Ben Cuevas. Currently at the Knit Culture Studio in Los Angeles, CA.

I saw a picture of this piece awhile ago and had meant to post it for some time. This skeleton was painstakingly made to scale. Anyone who has drawn a skeleton to scale and has gone back and forth with calipers a million times can appreciate how intense this piece is. I think it is fascinating how craft becomes traditional high academy art, as so many classically trained artists take anatomy. I love it.

Adrian Stimson

http://www.prairiedogmag.com/archive/?id=817

The above is a link that I really hope works. It is connected to an article about what kind of current work that Adrian Stimson is up to. I say kind of current because he is a very busy, and creative artist. I have had the great pleasure of being a student in several of his classes while he was finishing up his masters at the U of S. Who doesn't want to take a class about burning man? It was incredible, he is very passionate, and talented. What I admire the most about his older works is through his use of humor he created a lot of very important dialogues about very heavy and personal subjects. His Buffalo Boy persona created a great deal of talk around colonialism, the residential school system, the past, present and future or aboriginal culture, misperceptions of LBGTQ community just to list the tip of the iceberg. His new work intrigues me just as much.

Candy Tree

I wanted to share a yarn bombing inspired art piece I did two summers ago. The sask craft council organized a really fun art exhibition in Cathedral Village where the whole area got bombed for a month. I got connected with using the space in front of Dessart Sweets after describing a yarn bombing project I wanted to do during a conversation with the lovely Amanda Bosiak. I hope some of you saw this very interesting and interdisciplinary show when it was up. There were artists who are part of the sask craft council, graffiti artists and the incredible talent from the Golden Willow yarn shop to name a bit of the variety. My piece got to stay up after the show was over by popular request. I was really flattered. It was a very, very fun venue. I really wanted to give everyone in class an idea of the kinds of things I like to create.

May I introduce the flying squirrel lady.

Hi, sorry this post is a bit late. I have mixed feelings about what I decided to do for my performance piece and have been mulling it over.

My original plan for my proposal is to take an alter ego my family created of me and bring it to fruition. I adore working with yarn. I think there is great symbolism and art in it. My family has made fun of it at times. Quite a bit. My family came up with a version of me in my old age where instead of a crazy old cat lady, I am a crazy flying squirrel lady. I am not quite sure what my mania is, I do have a pretty awesome homeade suit however. The crazy flying squirrel lady has a crocheted suit that looks kind of 'afghan-y'. The flying squirrel shape was chosen for comic effect; to see me shuffling with homeade fabric between my limbs, add some ears and a tail and the whole table is laughing at the mental picture. I have spent the last couple of weeks asking people who know about this crazy flying squirrel lady what they think she would do on a day to day basis. She hands out cookies, throws lemons, wraps people in scarves, flys squirrels like kites, throws cats, jumps out of trees at people, and jumps out of bushes too.

For my performance I am going to make the suit. This is something I have been thinking about for weeks trying to figure out the dynamics and technicalities. It may look something like a bizarre romper when I am done. I plan on using up my yarn stash. I am a bit of a yarn hoarder. I come from a family of yarn hoarders. I am a third gen crafter at least. I only have one closet of yarn. I think I have one of the smallest stashes in the family, as it will not last beyond my life expectancy.

Once I have made the suit I plan on creating all the scenarios with whomever I can get to help. I have put a shout out at work, and I have some great people lined up to help. I am going to record all these interactions and do my very best for them to look as natural as possible. I think I am going to have no audio in this video and edit it non narratively. I plan on doing most of it outside, I think a great deal of the filming will be in Wascana park. Wascana park works really well for me because I live right beside it. I plan on using the same camera I used for the first project. I think I am going to avoid using a tripod, the less static the footage looks the better.

In class I am planning on having the video projected on to my person. I will be knitting, I will have the projector screen up to add to the importance of the video being projected on to me. It is important that I knit, as this whole alter ego came to fruition from others judging my love of it. I am going to continue working on a wrap I should have finished ages ago but have not been able to work on. I used to craft every day. I had to. Otherwise I would self destruct from fidgitiness. This wrap was started at a very important funeral in December, and I worked at it a bit when I came home and lately have abandoned all craftiness. When I made the lungs for the last project it was the first project I had made in over a month. The piece is very much about my personal identity, and the identity that others project upon me.

I feel that using people who are aware of the project in the video works out theoretically. These are the people connected the creation of the crazy squirrel lady, and people who will be dealing with her. I am going to go to great lengths to get at least one of my brothers involved, they have a pretty big role in the creation of her.

I did not realize how uncomfortable actually doing this would make me. Hence the delay posting this, I've been trying to come up with another idea all day. On the one hand making this gives power to the jokes and the criticisms my family and friends have of my love of making things. It feels degrading at times to think about. On the other hand I am taking it and making it my own. Despite my having very little input on the actions suggested I perform I still choose how I carry them out. I do feel that if I actually make the suit the joke will be manifested in reality and I am a little afraid of that, I do not know what will become of it.

I will be doing the bulk of the project over reading week. I will bring my crocheting to break up my essay writing, and to occupy my breaks at work. Have a good week off everyone.

Personal Reflection of I wish I could fix you

I feel that my first attempt at video editing was a pretty successful experience. I debunked a great deal of my personal fears of technology and making video art with the time I spent in the digital media lab. I used imovie a little bit, then moved to final cut pro to edit my piece. I gave myself plenty of time to make mistakes and deal with obstacles I could not have planned for. (like my key not giving me access to the lab!) With this success I am going to use video in my next piece as well.

I really appreciated the comments from my classmates and the discussion that the work generated. I feel that one of the greatest successes of this piece is that it is a deeply personal work and the back story to the piece is not important in understanding and experiencing the finished product. It is referenced, but paired down in a way that allows others to relate to it successfully. I initially wanted to reduce the time of the video even more with the a minimalism mindset drilled in to me by previous painting instructors. The idea presented in class about making it longer to emphasize the sense of waiting/anxiousness is a very interesting one; one I would not have thought of on my own. I would definitely make the video longer if it was presented in a gallery space. I would also reconsider the warmth of the light if I was to go back and fix anything. The warmth from the existing light does not lend to the institution feel I was going for. I felt a little apprehnsive about my lack of a proper tripod but the odd shake and tremor of the handheld led to anxious feel of the work.

The themes of anxiousness, helplessness, and waiting/passing of time were identified successfully by the class. I am really glad that my conventions were readily understood. I believe because the class understood and interacted with it that a broader gallery audience would understand the themes as well.

I would change the lighting, I would make it cold and incandescent. I would make the video very, very long, and would increase the anxiousness a bit more with the editing. I would make the shots shorter and a bit more disorienting at times. I would also include more camera angles to jump back and forth from. I would consider Soviet montage editing, not the rhythmic mathematical aspect of it, but the rapid succession of some of the scenes. I would also consider the performance aspect of Faye Heavyshield's art.

This project was a very rewarding learning experience.

I wish I could fix you

Crocheting on campus

I wanted to share a little bit of the process of making I wish I could fix you. I actually got the footage for the video by making the lungs in the Riddell stairway during not so busy hours. I sat in that stairway and crocheted for 5 hours. I did not anticipate that this would end up being a kind of performance in a public space. The interactions I had with people who used the stairway were quite humorous and interesting. I sat in a creepy chair I borrowed from food services and camped out, crocheted, tried to get phone reception, paced, and really, really wished these lungs could actually help my subject.

I had never used editing software before and editing the video was very time consuming and fascinating. I know I only hit the tip of the iceberg as far as what the software can do. I had a lot of fun with the whole process.

The work deals with anxiousness, waiting for things beyond your control, making an object that is useful in comfort/but useless in function, and the interaction of creating craft in an academic/institutional space.

Craft in Art - an extension of the High/Low art discussion

I use craft techniques in my art practice purposefully. I am dedicated to taking the art of craft and weaving a place for it in the high art sphere. I experiment with it as guerrilla art, traditional sculpture, and site specific installation.

I am reading a collection of essays edited by Gloria Hickney that really illuminate the subject. It is called Making a Metaphor: A discussion of meaning in Contemporary Craft.

A quote from one of the essays which I love (sorry I don't have the page number, I was scribbling personal notes in my sketchbook) says:

Making something with your hands goes beyond the merely rational, and we are also becoming wary about living all in our heads. We have learned that our famous modern individualism can in fact be narcissistic, greedy, unheeding of other people's needs. In making things by hand, firmly going beyond necessity to do so, we are in fact practising the individualism we so much and so rightly admire, but in a manner that will actually add to the richness and beauty in the world without harming anybody else in the process.

I have found that some of the primary biases of craft vs art are:
1) The crafter is rarely seperated from the process, and that the process is often viewed in a non intellectual way and from a 'high art' perspective.
2)The crafted object is appraised on its function first and foremost, before its consideration as an art piece

A lovely quote from Michelle Hardy explains these a bit better:

(unfortunately)
Craft remains tied to necessity and to the maker's hand, as opposed to the maker's intellect. The artist is credible because he transcends the particularities of materiality and discovers truth within himself. The craftsperson cannot claim the same transcendance and is therefore denied the same status.

I would love to point out how gender is used in this quote to illustrate another major bias I constantly bump in to. Where as art is viewed as academic, intelligent, masculine - excluding the feminine in the sentence, the word craftperson is more gender inclusive. Suggesting that the craftperson does not sit down to create with the same intellect and their activities are relagated to the catagory of hobby, past time, or low art.

I definitely feel that craft is art, and has the potential to be high art. I use the word potential in the sense that not every painting is amazing high art, and not every mitten is amazing either. Denying the creativity, imagination and grossly over looked intensive labour involved in craft saddens me. I will post some incredible art that is also craft in the near future.

I wish I could fix you.

Video Proposal

　
　
My first video work I want to create deals with themes of anxiousness, and waiting with a sense of indefiniteness. I want to have shots of all the physical manifestations of anxiousness and edit them all together, so they weave in and out. Things like wringing hands, pacing, rocking back and forth, fidgetting, looking at a clock that isn’t there, knitting. I want the video to also have a medical feel to it. I don’t want to over do it, rather imply it allegorically with a hanging sheet that could be a curtain in a medical facility.

I will need a tri pod or stacks of objects to put my camera on. I will need something that I can use as a curtain, probably in a hallway type space and have an awful generic chair to interact with. I think this will be a silent film, and I want to be dressed plainly. I was thinking of stark, plain light, nothing over dramatic or interesting.

I was considering using paint in the work, I think I have decided against it. I was considering having an ambiguous person paint the shape of lungs on my shirt at one point. I would make the film so it would convey that this is in the middle of the waiting process not the end. Having a diagnosis, just means more waiting. I was thinking paint, I feel that making lungs with my nervous gestures would work better? Or if I was given a pair that I try to fix? I worry that this is too specific and may take away from the strict anxiousness I want to convey. The root of the anxiousness is medical, do I need to include this? I really think if I could find a way to incorporate making a pair of lungs this is what I want to do. I will crochet them, and I have yarn and hooks, so I won’t need any more supplies. I could have overlapping frames of my making something and pacing or other anxious gestures. I would have the yarn be the only serious colour in the film.

This is a picture of Janet Morton's site specific installation femme bomb. I love this piece and I am personally really inspired by this work and by ones like it. My own work deals with gender, craft practices in the art sphere, intense labour, and site specifity. Yarn bombed trees have been popping up everywhere and people still react to them, I would have loved to have seen the reaction to a whole building being covered in such a traditionally viewed as domestic light. So much work went in to this, it's fantastic and awe inspiring.

Jeremy Blake, Winchester 2000

I love Jeremy Blake. His work fascinates me. I had an opportunity to explore his work, and the architectural perks of the Winchester mansion previously. He has some other really interesting works including the incredible art scenes in 'Punch Drunk Love.' I hope you like it.