Kate Garman and her fabulous, globetrotting, collector-of-images-and-objects Aunt Allie
This month (January 2015), Craft House welcomed Kate Garman as our very first Artist Occupant. Kate kicked off her stay with a curatorial project titled Aunt Allie Goes to Africa; a presentation of souvenirs, photographs, projected slides, and postcards gathered over a lifetime of travel around the world by Kate’s very own (great) aunt Allie.
Highlights include Kodachrome-color-rich slides projected on a living-room-sized portable screen of Allie in Africa, Italy, and Germany. She rides a gondola and photographs her view from a seat on the boat looking up at the pilot who wears a white linen Venetian-style shirt with a traditional gondolier hat complete with white trim to match. She climbs the Great Wall of China and brings back an official certificate as proof. These images and trinkets are alive and vivid in the white-cube gallery space, they are accompanied by Kate’s instructions to handle the photo albums and flip through the slides. Viewer may explore the evidence of Allie’s travels at their own pace, they can spend time with what they choose and skip over other things. There is a sense of novelty to these objects and a great deal of mystery as well. Allie is almost always posed in the photographs, when she’s in the photos, and dressed in stylish, travel-appropriate attire. We know very little about her life outside of these images and objects. In her statement, Kate tells us that Allie worked for General Motors in Germany after WWII as a high-level secretary. She chose to travel extensively in lieu of settling down with a husband and family, purchasing a washing machine and raising children. The souvenirs do not carry much indication of her personality, the photographs she took tell us where she visited, and the photographs of her give us an idea of what she looked like but there is very little to tell us what she was thinking. There are, however, a handful of features captured in particular photographs that illuminate her personality and there are a few handwritten notes that provide intimate responses to the places she visited. These take the form of original notes, authored by Allie or her travel agent, about her itinerary, the locations she visited, the hotels where she stayed, and the flights she took. In one such note, Allie gives her opinion of the food at a particular restaurant in the Netherlands with the phrase “gaw-dah,” scribbled next to the type-written entry for September 1st. Similarly, my favorite image in this exhibition is a photograph of Allie, probably in her late 40s or 50s, helping to pour a bottle of champagne over the top of a pyramid of crystal classes. She’s got a huge smile on her face and is obviously thrilled by the experience.
Kate, a graduate of Grand Valley State University’s BFA program, typically works with concepts relating to family relationships, gender norms, and social conventions. In past exhibitions, much like this one, she replies on the expectations associated with exhibiting objects in the white-cube environment and presents found-object sculptures. In her BFA Thesis exhibition, sandbags, ladders, bedframes, ropes, and wheelbarrows simultaneously represent individual family members as well as the burden of family history and the tensions that exist between generations. These sculptures reference Kate’s own experiences and observations, yet a specific storyline is absent. In Aunt Allie Goes to Africa, however, she takes us one step closer to her personal story while maintaining an arms length distance by using Allie as the main character. In addition, Kate addresses specific issues relating to family structures and expectations. Given this glimpse into Allie’s life with the knowledge that she never married, possibly had a drinking problem, and generally broke out of the conventional gender norm for her generation we are left asking questions that cannot possibly be answered, questions like, “Why did she choose this life? Was she struggling with her own sexuality?” and “How did her life choices affect her family relationships?” Kate has no relatives alive today who are old enough to remember Allie’s vacation slide shows or who could view her from an adult perspective. In Kate’s mind, and ours, she remains a legend… Aunt Allie who went to Africa.
-Amanda
Kate will finish her Occupancy with Craft House on February 6th, 2015 with a brand new exhibition for the Avenue for the Art's First Friday event that night, 6pm-9pm.
You can also see Kate's curatorial work at (SCENE) Metrospace in East Lansing, MI in the Beyond Material exhibition, on view through February 22, 2015.
The Occupancy opportunity is available to individual artists and/or artist groups who want to utilize the regular gallery space for one, two, or three month durations, depending on the proposed project, during the months of June-August and January-March. The Occupancy might take the form of a pop-up shop, an artist’s studio, or an exhibition or performance. For more information check out crafthousegr.com.
