Today in the shipping container, I had a photo shoot for some upcoming press about the residency. I hung some freshly waxed papers for the backdrop, and fired up some wax to lay down the final layers on my Morning Meditation panel. Many thanks to Anthony Bolante for snapping some extra pics on my cell phone 🙂
For 40 years, journal writing has been my key to unlocking my story. I write to explore the stories I’ve inherited about who I am and where I come from, and to examine the stories I am passing down to my kid.
This journal writing has also served as my gateway to art. When stories surface in my pages, I figure out the best medium to express these emerging stories, I immerse myself in learning a new creative language — film to explore Dad’s side of the family, encaustic mixed media for Mom’s side.
So today, I pulled out 40 years of journals, and then took a stencil and paper cutter to the pages to carve out the letters for my title banner…
Technically, this is Day 3 of my Residency.
Day 1 was the key hand off/orientation day.
Day 2 was a crazy shopping spree–Harbor Freight, Lowes, Michaels, BedBathBeyond, DanielSmith, DickBlicks.
Today is moving day. Relocating to a shipping container downtown is hard when you have a cozy home studio. It’s not plush, or decked out for comfort. It is an actual shipping container, complete with dust and cobwebs. I have the combo for the Honey Bucket on the fenced in premises, should the need arise. Otherwise, everything you see here in the photo–this is it. But I am excited to have the time and the space to really push myself creatively. The final installation will visually combine my film, music, art and activism — for the first time ever.
By the end of the day, I waxed and fused my first round of decorative papers. I wanted to see how the encaustic medium would affect the translucency of the paper, and how delicate/sturdy the papers would be, since they would be hanging on their own (not backed by wooden panel.)
I have some exciting news to share!! The Center on Contemporary Art Gallery and Shunpike have invited me to participate in their new Storefronts (UN)Contained Residency, designed to support socially engaged artists from a variety of disciplines for whom art and activism are inextricably linked. I am so honored to be in the company of such accomplished artists!!
Anastacia-Renee Tolbert is Seattle’s Civic Poet. Her literary and immersive installation “Do you see what you steal?” is a visual and literary response to gentrification, appropriation, and the multilayered and systemic death of the black woman.
Juliana Kang‘s work explores power dynamics in society. Their work “Han San,” which is Korean for “One Mountain”, is a site-specific installation composed of small, colorful fabric pieces and scaffolding in the formation of a large mound.
Artists Reception (one day only!)Date: Saturday, Oct 21st 2017
Time: 11:30am-3:30pm
Free Admission
Location: Three shipping containers across from Seattle Center3rd Ave N between Mercer and Roy St.