EXHIBITS: 3 chances to see my artwork this winter

1.
"Four Corners" is currently up at World Cafe Live in Philly as part of a staff art show (my new office is there, so I sort of count). It probably won't be up for too much longer, so swing by and visit the mezzanine to see it. [WCL website]

2. 
Another oldie-but-goodie "Aubade: Mnemosyne Sings" is going up in the Icebox space at the Crane Arts Building in Philly as part of FiberPhiladelphia's "Outside/Inside the Box" exhibit. I've been dreaming of showing "Aubade" in that space ever since I made it, so I'm thrilled it was selected for the show. There's an opening reception on Saturday, March 3. Show runs March 2 through April 15, 2012. [show website]

3.
I'm putting up a works-in-progress show that I'm tentatively calling "Rudimentary." It will be at The Music School of Delaware's Wilmington Branch from February 27 through April 25, 2012, so swing by to see some of my new ideas. [Music School website]

IDEA: Lygia Pape's "Livro do Tempo"

Highly relevant to my current brainstorming. Highly inspiring.

100 words – Katie Murken: Continua

When a system constantly replicates even a simple set of variables, the result quickly becomes organic, seemingly uncontained. By rolling dice to move around the color wheel using mathematical probabilities, Murken dissolves the familiar spectrum into variegated columns of haphazard hues. Towering chroma without regard to art-school theory nonetheless impose beauty on the gallery-white walls. There are the beginnings of excess, of sheer visceral reaction to brilliant abstraction. Phonebooks as the medium could add extra layers to themes of extreme systemization and the disruption of order, but instead are almost ignored, used as a meaningless ground to inexpensively house so much color.

("Continua" at Gallery 2J, 319 N. 11th Street, September 2-October 7, 2011)

RSVP 2011

I'm pleased to have work included in the New Wilmington Art Association's upcoming exhibition RSVP. The show runs September 9 through October 20, with an opening reception on Friday, September 9th from 6:00-9:00pm. More details here.

Come see Three Thousand Daughters in person!

Now on Twitter!

Taking the Twitter plunge. Follow @MelindaSteffy for regular updates and art-related tidbits.

Work in Progress, August 2011

As I mentioned before, I'm in the beginning stages of a new series of work connecting handicraft with language, particularly using visual constructions as an actual language or code in themselves.

One piece in the works is a series of one-page, map-fold copper books. Each book is tarnished with a different quilt block pattern and will have a used sandpaper cover. Industrial material meets book arts meets textiles.

Taping the first few blocks to prepare them for tarnishing

Tarnishing the copper

So far I have 40-some tarnished. Since the fold pattern naturally divides each page into quarters, I'm only using 4x4 quilt patterns, and I would like the final result, if I were to display them in a grid, to also be divisible by 4. Which means I'm either making 64 of these suckers (8x8 grid) or 144 (12x12). 144 would fit nicely with my numerological inclinations, so that's what I'm leaning toward, but it will take a while to get there. Fortunately, "5500 Quilt Block Designs," which I am using as a reference, has ample patterns to choose from.

The pages. The surface will be antiqued and then each page will be folded into a small book form.

The language possibilities still seem wide open, but I'm leaning toward using the names of the blocks (since each one is different) to construct a story or poem that would accompany the artwork as an over-sized caption of sorts. Working title: "Impossible Narrative"

100 words - Sheila Hicks: May I Have this Dance?

While containing all of the gentle tactility and delicate detail you might expect from a textile-work, Sheila Hicks’s two-story cascade blows the whole definition apart. Monumental, visceral – you feel the tangled coils twine through your own gut. It dwarfs you, shrinks you to the size of a pin head next to a spool of thread. You have no chance to passively observe, but must conquer the simultaneous desire to dive in and to run away screaming. Like standing at the base of a thousand-year-old tree, you feel the looming presence of time and the constant but unpredictable workings of nature itself.

 ("50 Years" at the Institute of Contemporary Art, March 24-August 7, 2011)