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A Rune Reading with Hannah Ruth Levi On Weaving and the Art of Meaningful Touch by Kimberly Trowbridge

This past Sunday I drove to Whidbey Island to visit artist Hannah Ruth Levi in her studio. The building is a large, open, cathedral-like garage. Her studio is in a separate, small, light-filled corner within. Her loom is there, and baskets of colored yarn and thread. On her loom is a bright pinkish string. I ask her about it. Hannah Ruth Levi: It’s nylon mason twine, it’s used in construction work. When I got out of college I started bleaching-out florescent pink mason twine for some of the first weavings I did. It’s really hard to bleach and it takes forever. But I found THIS at a thrift store the other day, and it was sun-bleached already AND it’s a florescent coral, which I’ve never seen before. So, I was really excited! 

While she worked on her loom I spoke with her about her process and her life. Towards the end of our session, I asked her to pull a Rune as a signifier of her current relationship to her practice, and to use as a guide for me in framing this piece. The Rune she pulled was the Blank Rune, The Unknowable, the Rune of Destiny. This is my favorite Rune. 

Kimberly Trowbridge: Before we ask our sweet Ralph Blum what he thinks about the Blank Rune, what does it immediately bring to mind for you? HRL: That I haven’t gotten it before. I have no idea! We both laugh. Exactly. KT: I think of it as the biggest possibility. It’s the blank canvas. The incredibly exciting but also scary acknowledgement of our own responsibility. You know? To make the image that’s on there, to create our life. […hums of agreement…] The Unknowable. This is the Rune of total trust and should be taken as exciting evidence of your most immediate contact with your own true destiny. Here in the blankness is held undiluted potential…what beckons is the creative power of the unknown. HRL: Every time the Runes tell me what’s on my mind. KT: Yes. That idea about total trust. Like you are weaving the architecture of what your life is gonna look like. And instead of focusing on oh what’s the job gonna be that’s right for me, it must rather be Well, the only thing I can do is start here, with my loom, with my practice, with my confidence, with my female role models- you know? To build the structure for a meaningful life for yourself.

She describes to me the difference between a warp-face fabric, or ikat, (where the vertical threads are visible), and a weft-face fabric, a tapestry, (where the horizontal strands are visible). She has recent examples of both, hanging next to her. The long, slender, smooth, silky, tightly woven one that’s a bright cold yellow, white, and lavender is a bleached warp-faced fabric called “Inverted Iris.” Next to this are 3 smaller, but heftier, tapestries. She says those are easier to build-as-you-go, by introducing different colors and textures throughout the process. It is less planned. There is a playful, but serious, quality to them. She notes, however, that the exquisite monotony of the more pre-planned, weft-face work is also a crucial part of her practice, a meditation for her. All of this strikes me as a very wise and balanced practice. Willingness and permitting are what this Rune requires, for how can you exercise control over what is not yet in form? I was flipping through some of her books: 

KT: So, this is not normal behavior, this working on a loom like this. How did you get interested in this? HRL: Well, my old studio was my mom’s sewing room when I was growing up, so that’s a pretty clear connection. I was never really good at sewing though, it bored me. But I’ve always loved fabric. Then at UW [University of Washington] I took Surface Design and Intro to Structure, which turned-out to be weaving! …It was the first time I’ve ever really felt challenged. I felt excited that I could actually study something that I was interested in. My teacher, Layne Goldsmith, is a gem. She was tough and scary. At the beginning of the quarter she told everyone that this was very time consuming and if you weren’t able to commit at least 10 hours a week outside of class, you should drop it. And I felt like: I’m gonna do this! And I did. 

The Blank Rune often calls for no less an act of courage than the empty-handed leap into the void. KT: I like this one! I like the weird element of this poof thing. It’s like it just had to come in, like you don’t get to choose, that if it wants to be there, you just have to let it be there. 

HRL: Well, and I really don’t like undoing weavings, so I don’t. KT: Meaning, once it’s there, it’s there? HRL: I could go back in and “erase” it, but I would rather just move forward and attempt to make it work. Nothing is predestined. The obstacles of your karma shift and evolve as you shift and evolve. The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings. Her hanging tapestries remind me of cell phones that could text our inner life, or an ancient tablature of the mind. KT: And look at those symbols!!! 

HRL: Yes! I have made that connection before. I have the annual Rune reading you did for me up on my wall, right next to some weavings. I’ve definitely thought of those shapes. The building we are in was formerly her dad’s glass-blowing studio. She pointed out some of the vessels he had made, how some of those interlocking forms had appeared in her weavings. But she doesn’t prescribe meaning to her shapes. She lets them appear. I move towards the DON’T CARE banner, hanging above her loom. 

Drawing the Blank Rune brings to the surface your deepest fears: Will I fail? Will I be abandoned? Will it all be taken away? And yet your highest good, your truest possibilities and all your fertile dreams are held within that blankness. KT: I feel like this piece has a connection to the title of your upcoming Two Shelves show,You Can Have It All. HRL: I made that right around graduation, when everyone was asking me what I was gonna do after school, and I was so tired of those questions and felt so burnt out. It actually took a long time. It’s not just something I whipped-up in an hour. And to spend so much time on a sentiment of I don’t care, I mean, clearly I did. KT: That relates to what you were saying about how every single piece of every string has been touched by you, multiple times. And how that by itself has a care. In some ways it’s like these pieces ask How is that not enough? HRL: That’s it. I spend all this time and I don’t even know what it means. I’m going to send you my favorite quote by Anni Albers. It has to do with touch. “We touch things to assure ourselves of reality. We touch the objects of our love. We touch the things we form. Our tactile experiences are elemental.” - Anni Albers KT: The tapestries feel like some kind of ancient or future language that we don’t know but that is some kind of proof of a life. HRL: I just watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and in that he sees aliens but then keeps drawing this mountain and sculpting it, and is ultimately drawn to that physical place. And it’s kind of like that. I just make these shapes over and over again, and then maybe someday they will make a map to aliens. [We cackle like witches.] 

You Can Have It All Hannah Ruth Levi Thursday, September 8th, 2016 7-10 pm Two Shelves Seattle, WA

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Click HERE for a conversation between artist and curator of Seattle’s SEASON gallery, Robert Yoder and Two Shelves artist William Erickson Shields about his upcoming show. Dummer : William Erickson Shields Opening Reception Thursday, August 11th 7 - 10 pm On view through August 30th by appointment. Please email [email protected]

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Max Kraushaar @ Two Shelves. 

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Exit Through The Glory Hole: A Two Shelves Interview With Max Kraushaar

Max Kraushaar is a Northwestern artist pursuing answers to his own questions through unique experiences that hopefully will benefit others. He was born and raised in Seattle and currently lives in Twisp, WA. Kim Selling lives in Seattle with her many complexes. She likes Chile Lime Cholula, all dogs, and unnatural dye-jobs. Writing stresses her out.

KS: Please pronounce your last name for our readers: MK: It’s Krao-sahr. Krao-sahr. As my mother likes to say, there’s no SH in Kraushaar.

KS: Because y’all are fuckin loud?

MK: We are a real loud family, and you should meet my father.

KS: How much of your ego comes from being able to build things?

MK: A lot, but not all. And I’m trying … I try on a daily basis to mitigate that because I don’t think that building things is something that you can do for your whole life. Its phase-specific, so I recognize that it’s definitely this part of my life that I’m in – and it is something I’ll do for my whole life in some scale or another, but I’m not the world’s best contractor. I’m not building homes anymore, so I can’t, like, claim that I’m…

KS: … constructing a landscape?

MK: Constructing a landscape – I’m not a full-time construction worker anymore, so that’s not the identity I can have.

KS: So you also can no longer have that blue-collar sex appeal.

MK: Right? It’s all gone. I just washed that all away. Construction work, professionally, is inherently an ego game, and every bit of the construction process becomes a dick-measuring contest. But then you get into it, and you watch these guys talk about failures and successes, and it all just relates to doing it better or whatever; but really, there’s only one way to do it, which is the right way. You can look at something and go, oh, that’s right. And if that’s it, then it’s it. It’s a very fluid term. So, it’s a pointless thing to have your ego bound up in. But I do believe in having a healthy ego.

From the “Ladder Takedown” series.  KS: How does consent play into your work? How is consent relayed as a concept versus the reality of its use?

MK: So, I’ve always made work that was moderately participatory. One of the first things that I made after graduating college was a set of two massage chairs that faced each other; they were angled so you could lay in them and your faces could look at each other and they had tubes you could stick your arms through so as to touch each other’s hands. With stuff like that, you have to choose to sit in the thing, so consent is built into the object. But as I started getting more experiential, and as Graham [Downing] and I started making more work that was more experiential, consent becomes a difficult thing because…

KS: … sometimes it’s more than just a choice?

MK: Sometimes it’s more than just a choice. Consent is absolutely 100% percent necessary in everything I do moving forward. In the past it wasn’t so much a conversation topic in my work. And so, Graham and I were doing stuff like installing work in Seattle public parks, where there’s …

KS: … which isn’t consensual.

MK: … which isn’t consensual, first of all. There is something to be said for stumbling upon something that isn’t requiring you to interact with it.

Max Kraushaar’s public performance and installation at NEPO 5k, 2014.  KS: Right, but physical installation is inherently non-consensual.

MK: Exactly. So, consent is ultra important. And I think when you create a situation that requires consent, which is a more nuanced interaction – if you just have something that somebody can stumble upon, that’s not nuanced. You’re just walking upon it, and it’s there, and you have a chance encounter, and that’s beautiful. But when you have something that’s a chance encounter, and then somebody gets to look at it, judge it, and then give it some amount of trust – then you’re benefitting from a give-and-go. Like with this piece, there’s a big hole, and what I’m asking people to do is trust. Any time you’re talking about a glory hole, that’s a trust situation.

KS: Or just any unknown landscape. MK: Any time you’re inserting your body part – any body part – into a hole of any kind where you can’t see the other side, that’s a trust issue. Ideally, when you challenge people to give you trust, then you have more options for reward because they made a choice, and can also be rewarded, and feel like they had a say in what happened. And that’s all consent is, it’s trust-giving. I trust you enough to give you control over my body part.

KS: How do you include consent in your work without giving away the theme of your intentions too early?

MK: I think that mystery, surprises, and treats are ultra important, and the whole point is to give somebody a fresh experience. And the more time that somebody has with the full scope of the experience, the less special the experience is. So if you can get somebody to give you consent and almost immediately start rewarding them for it, then they can start exploring that reward. But if you tell somebody two weeks in advance that you’re going to ask for their consent so that they can experience this thing, they’ll have too much time to mull it over – so that, by the time you get to the activity, you’ve already walked all the ground, and there’s no surprise, and it’s all played out.

KS: They’ve already made a decision about the experience. MK: Right. I’ve spent so much time thinking about what’s going into this work, that if anyone were to spend the same amount of time thinking about these experiences as I have, it wouldn’t be fresh or interesting for them anymore.

Max and Graham’s New Beach, an artificial beach-in-a-box experience at Hedreen Gallery (Seattle) in 2015. 

KS: Where is the power in creating a sensory exhibit without visually existing in your own show?

MK: I’ve been debating this a lot in the process of doing this. I’ve been living off of tile working right now, and in the last six months, the majority of my lifeblood has come from laying tile. In the process of designing this exhibit, there are questions of … because I’m a talented tile layer, should I be pushing boundaries or should I experiment? Tile laying is a system of rules. This is my grid, this is my layout, this is where things end and begin – and you simply execute the rules. I like tile work because there’s not a lot of creativity once you make the initial decisions – if we’re doing a grid, then it’s a grid. You don’t get to – halfway down – skip the grid. You have to trust in the path. So by giving people a sensory exhibit that I myself am bodily doing, the physical action I’m engaging people in is my voice in show. A lot of my work has had me in it because it’s me performing and doing a thing. So I’m curious to see what happens when I remove the physical aspects of myself from my work. Because this is a thing I’ve been trying to figure out: how do I address my own privilege in my work? So removing myself physically from the piece and just interacting with people literally hand-on-hand is a bit of that. My voice is what I’m doing with my hands. The tile façade of the piece is skill execution, and I’m trying to separate the skill execution from my own ego voice.

From Max and Graham’s 100% Humidity, 2014. KS: Do you have a preferred moisturizing agent?

MK: Coconut oil, without hesitation.

KSL Why do you equate sensitivity with femininity, and how much would you have to change your personal landscape to feel like your hands have been fully shaped by your work?

MK: So, I guess you caught me since I don’t feel comfortable equating sensitivity with femininity. That’s the problem I’m trying to address.

KS: I bring it up because I’ve heard you say that.

MK: I’ve said in the past that I have but now you’ve caught me – and you’re right, I don’t. So, to answer that, I’ve always said that artists make great construction workers because artists have … Attention to detail is nothing more than sensitivity to materials and spatial relations. And sensitivity to spatial relations and the physical world is radically different from sensitivity to another human being. And what I’m trying to change is that in the past I certainly have felt like I have equated sensitivity with femininity, when what I’m trying to say now is that sensitivity is something we should all be exhibiting a little more of. And that’s not to say I’ve had any trouble saying I’m embracing my feminine side, which I think is a loaded phrase to begin with, but I’m certainly trying to figure out how to exist in less of such a stark masculine condition. I live in a place where discourse isn’t a common everyday occurrence, so a lot of my information comes from the internet or from talking to you. So with me saying you’ve caught me, and I was wrong, do you want to follow up this admission?

KS: How would you describe your transition from the masculine to the feminine?

MK: Well, four years ago now was when I started working in construction, it was the first time I fully engaged in a period of life. Working full-time in construction – it was my whole life, and I wasn’t really making any real solo work aside from working with Graham on some co-op stuff, and it was so wildly fascinating to watch how it shaped my hands. So, to point out a reason for this show -- the hand shapes the work, the work shapes the hand – it’s some quote from some guy, it’s a philosopher, you can Google it [Ed. Note: it’s Engels]. So now, I’ve exited this period of my life, where every day I was wrist deep in grout and dirt and sawdust and fucking up my hands and cutting my hands. Societally we equate this with masculinity; having these rough gnarled hands that are callused, thick, indelicate and imprecise – this is considered to be such a masculine trait. I have a problem with that because a year and a half ago I started moisturizing and trying to keep my hands supple. I didn’t like that I felt less, through my calluses. I remember there was a time when I was looking down at my hands after tiling for an entire day, and I thought: “I can’t feel very well”. And it caused so many problems in my romantic relationship, my friendships, and my business relationships. Literally, the phrase, “I can’t feel very well,” perfectly describes it. And I hit my breaking point over this last summer where I was like: “I want to feel better.” This works in a lot of ways because I do feel better when I’m connected with other people – and it’s hard because this shouldn’t be considered a necessarily feminine trait. This is that problem that I have. I just think that it would be so boring to only exhibit masculine traits for the rest of my life. My sexuality is fairly linear, but I don’t think your sexuality has to have any specific ties to how you exhibit, carry, perform, act. For me, it all stems from new learning.

Max Kraushaar’s Carson City at NEPO 5K in 2015.  KS: If, as an earth sign, you’ve previously focused on more earth-based work, why have you been transitioning to water as a context and medium?

MK: Contrast, man. And I’ve always had a problem with the fact that Capricorn is considered an earth sign. Over the summer I was living in Twisp and our well was broken. I lived for nine months in Twisp and three to six months before that on Whidbey with no running water. My saving grace while working construction was going home immediately after work and taking a shower. I became such a stickler for it. My bathroom hygiene became such a ritual: shave every other day, wash with chandrika (ayurvedic soap), scrub down in a specific pattern every single time, coconut oil at the end. It became this healing thing I had to do. To lose that for six months was so damaging, and my only respite out in Twisp was to go swimming in the lake after work. Having comfortable access to water taken away from me made me interested in what water is, because all of my work before this point was so soil-oriented.

KS: Where’s the thrill in a smaller exhibition like Two Shelves when you’ve had an entire countryside at your recent disposal?

MK: Working with Joe and Kelly is such a gift because I know that they will allow me any extravagance. The space is so small that anything you do is a real maneuver, and I’m really interested in how attention plays out in a room. Combining theatre with my construction history, I care about where the eye is drawn in a room and how people gravitate toward stuff.  So having such a small space with relatively low stakes – and Kelly and Joe are so flexible – using the fact that we are friends, knowing that they trust me, it makes a very logical starting point for the new direction I’m trying to take. It’s the perfect spot for a baby step.

KS: What’s your expectation for your own abilities to impact someone with your work – either within a cultural and emotional expanse, or physically with your own two hands?

MK: Physically is the simplest aspect to answer. I legitimately hope to give people a healing power – the blunt stated objective of the piece is to give people a good feeling, through physical contact, through unique bodily experience. From the physical side of things, it’s just about pure comfort. I want people to walk away from interacting with the piece and think, “my one hand feels really good.” That, for me, ties into the mental side of things because then, all of a sudden, I’ve given people this weird experience wherein one of their arms is different from their other arm. Because everyone only gets to stick their dominant hand in the hole – one hand has been changed, and one has not, so then you have contrast. You can see the before and after in yourself. The dream is that people take home whatever occurs in the space, and it becomes leverage for their own thinking. Surely, Temple : Max Kraushaar Opening Reception Friday, March 25th 7 - 10 pm On view through April 30th by appointment [email protected]

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Between the Shelves : Chelsea Werner-Jatzke w/ Sara Long

Sara Long works and lives in Seattle, Washington. She was born and raised deep in the Redwood forest of Humboldt County. She received her BFA in Painting and Drawing from the UW in 2008 and later opened Blindfold Gallery with Laura Hamje and Scott Burk. She is currently working on a series of narrative self portraiture. When not working, Sara enjoys Seinfeld, magic mushrooms, and walk-talks with friends.   Chelsea Werner-Jatzke is the author of the chapbooks, Thunder Lizard (H_NGM_N, 2016) and Adventures in Property Management (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017). She is managing fiction editor at Pacifica Literary Review, editorial director at Conium Review, and co-founder of Till, an annual writing retreat. She lives in Seattle and works at the Frye Art Museum.  CWJ: It feels like a lot of your paintings are self-portraits, is that right? SL: Yes, they are. I’ve been doing self-portraiture for a while now, maybe 10 years. After I graduated from the UW I worked on a series of self-portraits to apply to graduate school with. That was when I made my first video to use as a painting reference. 

Sara Long, Self Portrait, 2015. Oil on paper. 5″ x 8″. CWJ: Is that similar to what you’ve been doing for this series? SL: That’s exactly what I’ve been doing. CWJ: So you only use video for the self-portraits? SL: Yes, it’s the most direct and simple way to tell my story. I’ve also noticed that I am working out some body issues too. Like, using myself as a model has helped with thinking of my body as a body for work, not just in a sexual way, which I think, as a woman it’s easy to feel all the time. But I need this body to work and those stomach rolls are way more fun to paint than a tight flat stomach. My floppy boobs are way more fun to paint than perfect little b-cups. I’m more interested in the aging meat body. I’m not as critical of it. I’m not clinging to it as my identity. 

Sara Long, Self Portrait, 2015. Oil on paper. 6.5″ x 8″. CWJ: Do you think it’s challenging for people to look at a painting of someone crying or masturbating? I don’t agree with this sentiment, but masturbation, like crying, can be considered this sad or lonely activity, and so can be a hard thing to witness. SL: I think the paintings could be challenging to look at. There is an idea that someone can't be sexual without a partner, which is bogus.  But when you have a regular lover, you probably do masturbate less, because well, you can only do that so much in one day. Although I read somewhere that Patti Smith masturbated 10 times a day, which is pretty rad. She’d just be writing and get bored and go rub one out and go back to her desk. She’s my Icon. CWJ: How long are the videos? How long do you film for? SL: How long does it take me to cum, is what you’re asking. Ha, anywhere from 5 minutes to 10 minutes.  CWJ: Are you masturbating in all of them? SL: No, some I am crying, taking a bath, basking in the light. The masturbating ones are interesting though, there are so many gestures that are never seen that I’m able to really explore with the video. There’s one of me after the fact, just laying in the quietness. It’s not like, I jump out of the bed right when I’m done, and hit stop on the recorder.  CWJ: Though I have had sessions like that. Where it’s like, OK just had to get that out of the way. I’ve had times where I left the house and realized I didn’t wash my hands. SL: Oh yeah, I do that all the time. All the time.

Sara Long, Self Portrait, 2015. Oil on paper. 6″ x 8″. CWJ: I don’t think that men understand how women masturbate. There’s so much imagery out there of women masturbating in porn that is just not how it actually goes down. Even when masturbating with someone in bed, it’s still a performative thing. Whereas when you’re alone, the act is very different. There’s just a serious lack of realistic imagery of what masturbation is for women. SL: I think for men it’s a given. Like duh they masturbate, like they have to. ‘I got to get one in per day or else I’m not me.’ I’m like, ‘me too, motherfucker!’

Sara Long, Self Portrait, 2015. Oil on paper. 6″ x 8″. CWJ: Filming yourself, do you feel at all disembodied from the activity? SL: I read an article about Sally Mann, the photographer, and she photographs her kids a lot. They were interviewed and said that nothing ever felt sincere because the camera could come out any minute and capture that intimate moment. I can relate, with masturbation, crying, or taking a bath, it can feel like a job at times. I don’t want to miss an opportunity to capture something that I could use later in my studio. There’s a consequence to what’s going to happen, so it has a different feel to it.  CWJ: Masturbation with consequences. They’re all small paintings right? SL: Yeah they’re 5 x 7 inches. CWJ: I had assumed they were bigger because the brush strokes are so heavy and thick. How do you condense or decide to use the space in that way? There’s a lot of information in each brush stroke but also with a big heavy brush stroke, that’s space where other information could go. SL: It’s almost an exercise of the least amount of information I can get into this small space to get across what I want to get across. They’re timed, usually take an hour. I feel pretty anxious when I am painting these small ones. I have taken so many steps to get the image and it’s, like, the last step to finish the process. When I’m painting it feels like I’m vomiting out all this information.  CWJ: So, how did you select which pieces to put in the show? SL: The palette and the narrative. I think they tell a nice little story of my existence in my apartment. I got this pretty great bed frame that’s just the best thing to paint, so I really lucked out. That bed frame has saved my life, I think. I’ve painted it so many times and am just starting to feel like I understand the gesture of the frame. It has this little warp in the top part of it and I can finally understand how it moves and it’s just crazy to have this relationship with this object, you know? It’s just so important in all these paintings.

Sara Long, Self Portrait, 2015. Oil on paper. 6″ x 8″. CWJ: It’s also a great object to have that relationship with thinking about how much time we spend in bed and how important that space is, to know how to fill it. SL: I can’t really sleep next to people. I find it difficult. So I’m happy with my bed how it is. I bought a hundred and fifty dollar vibrator, so I’m good to go.  CWJ: Is it the rabbit? No, that one’s only like $90. SL: It’s a classed up version of the Rabbit. You know how the Rabbit looks so 90s? This one is French, called Je Joue. It’s the same concept as the Rabbit but nicer. It’s named Fifi. I didn’t name it. CWJ: They named it for you? SL: Uh-huh, yeah. CWJ: Well, if you’re going to masturbate 10 times today, you better get busy. Preparations for a Dance Thursday, Feb 11th 7 - 10 pm On view by appointment through Feb 29th

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Between the Shelves : David Strand w/ Margie Livingston

Margie Livingston received her M.F.A. in painting from the University of Washington. Her awards include a residency at the Shenzhen Fine Art Institute in Shenzhen, China, in 2008; a Fulbright Scholarship in 2001; the Arts Innovator Award in 2010; the Neddy Fellowship in Painting in 2010; and the Betty Bowen Annual Memorial Award in 2006. Her work was featured at the Portland Art Museum in 2015. She is represented by Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle and Luis De Jesus Los Angeles. Livingston’s work resides in the permanent collections of the Shenzhen Fine Art Institute, the Seattle Art Museum, the City of Seattle, King County, the Portland Art Museum, and the Henry Art Gallery.

David Strand is an organizer, writer, and artist. A recent graduate of Seattle University, he currently works at the Frye Art Museum.

David Strand: While the primary focus of your practice has been the materiality of acrylic paint, for your upcoming exhibition at Two Shelves, you choose to work with a brand-new material. How did you come across this material and what do you find compelling about it? Margie Livingston: I found this big bag of black, polyester-nylon fabric in the dumpster behind my studio a few months ago, discarded by another tenant in the building. The fabric felt similar to paint in many ways, but was more practical than paint. I am not sure why I find this material so compelling, but I don’t feel the need to answer that question at this point. It was a gut feeling that I trusted, and it has proven to be a rich, if unknown, territory for me. The first piece I made with the black fabric was Big Black Grommet Drawing, which was a very gratifying and intuitive process. I brought the bag of scraps from the dumpster into my studio and immediately began sorting through them—keeping the shapes I liked and pinning them onto the bulletin board, allowing the composition to evolve organically. It was a very fluid process, composed of rapid decision-making and kind of exhilarating. As soon as I began using it, the material gave so much to me. Also, since I found it in a dumpster, it has a built-in critique of our consumer-driven culture. I’m saving it from the landfill, at least for now. So it’s kind of assuaging my guilt because my practice is pretty hard on the environment, given all the petroleum-based acrylic paint I use. I’m not ready to let go of making objects because it would be good for the environment in the same way that I am not ready to give up my car because it would be good for the environment. But I’m taking the bus, when I can, and just feeling good about this one little corner of my practice.

Margie Livingston, Big Black Grommet Drawing, 2015. Polyester/nylon fabric, grommets, tacks. Photo: Richard Nicol. DS : Have you worked with other materials besides paint in the past? ML : Not for many years. When I first started painting, before I went to graduate school at the University of Washington, over a decade ago, I made a series of objects from various materials that I set-up as still-lives to paint from. However, people would come into my studio and ask why I was painting from these objects rather than just presenting the object by itself. During a residency at the Vermont Studio Center, one of the visiting critics wanted me to ditch the paintings and just make objects because they were more compelling than the paintings. Another critic showed me how to make the paintings stronger. At that point, I wanted to be a painter, so I kept using the objects as part of my process. DS : Now that your practice has moved beyond the limitations of the canvas, what are your thoughts on two-dimensions versus three-dimensions? ML : That is a good question. It’s not that I have anything against 2-D work, it’s just that after all those years of repressing the 3-D in my practice and after finally giving myself permission to explore paint outside the confines of the canvas, I feel that I have found this very rich territory in between the two. It’s neither wholly in the realm of sculpture and nor entirely in the illusional realm of painting. Pouring paint into sheets literalizes this in-between space and is very fertile ground for me DS : Do you consider your piece for Two Shelves a painting then? Does it occupy a similar space? ML : To Knot is a painting-sculpture hybrid. It acts like a painting and uses the language of painting but it’s three-dimensional and not made of paint. I also make objects that act like objects, but are made of paint. I’m interested in confusing the boundaries. DS : Nearly all the work you produced in 2015, with Big Black Grommet Drawing being the sole exception, was white. Why the absence of color? ML : A couple of years ago, I was using very dramatic, psychedelic colors, adopting the seventeen-color palette of an Emilio Pucci dress or using purple, my mother’s favorite color and so forth. Then in 2014, I had a small exhibition at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, California where the curator, Sinead Finnerty-Pyne, described my work as “paint as canvas.” Before this, I had been thinking of paint as the support and made fake wood, the traditional material for stretcher bars. The phrase: “paint as canvas,” shifted my thinking. I started stretching paint as if it were canvas, tacking the paint skin directly onto stretcher bars. I experimented with color but the color was distracting. Playing the role of the canvas, the paint needed to be white—like canvas. I’ve also enjoy working with white in this way because aesthetically, it is so luscious.

Margie Livingston, Draped Painting, 2014. Acrylic paint. Photo: Richard Nicol

Margie Livingston, Falling Grid with Prussian Blue and Raw Sienna, 2015. Acrylic paint on string. Photo: Richard Nicol. DS : I am also interested in your draped paintings and the paint grids. While they operate differently in visual and conceptual terms I was wondering if they might originate from a similar place, or if you see any links between the obscured folds of the drape versus the open, systematized nature of the grid? 

ML : Everything we do as humans is informed by the grid, it’s in music, in writing, in sculpture, in architecture. I make the grids by hand as a way to contrast the implied mechanism of the grid with the body. Having a body make the grid, and then having the grid respond to gravity the way that bodies do, starts a conversation about entropy. Entropy is the link between the grid paintings and the draped paintings. Paint skins are like flesh. The process of making a draped painting is similar to a caress. Like the sensual work of Lynda Benglis and Eve Hesse, the relationship is body to body and feels kind of erotic. Paint skins respond to their environment and are marked by life as they age. They sag and if they aren’t treated carefully, they scar. If they are dropped or leaned against something sharp, the paint will be embossed. Just like the scar on my thumb records a dog bite, the draped paintings accumulate a story of their existence. DS : Joe and Kelly’s home is this really wonderful, warm, cozy space that feels very different from the institutional, white-cube format of a museum or traditional gallery. Did the atmosphere of Two Shelves impact how you approached this exhibition, say in contrast to how you approached and prepared for your APEX exhibition at the Portland Art Museum last year? ML : I wish you had asked me that two months ago because that is such a great description of Joe and Kelly’s apartment, and it might have influenced me. But I saw this as an opportunity to make something unexpected. It allowed me to be more experimental, and try something out that I hadn’t done before. It’s such a gift, to have an excuse to make this piece. Maybe it's a one-off, maybe it’s not, and maybe it will spawn a whole new direction. I don’t know. I am wandering, taking risks, nurturing a choice to surrender to unknowingness, and that is very exciting for me right now. To Knot  Thursday, Jan 14th 7 - 10 pm Courtesy Greg Kucera Gallery On view by appointment through Jan 31st. 

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Francesca Lohmann @ Two Shelves

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Two Shelves presents ‘TIME, SPACE AND TAFFY’, new works by Seattle-based artist Francesca Lohmann.  Opening Reception Thursday, Nov 12th 7 - 10 pm changes, was changed, placed, misplaced, contained or uncontained “The present never is; what we experience as present always contains the memory of what has just been present. […] Indeed, because the subsequent moment always builds on the previous one, each becomes something past before it can be grasped. It then appears as a memory that has the freedom to expand. […] every moment of life that is observed, no matter how much the flow is concentrated on, is a remembered moment and no longer a flow; it is arrested by attention, which fixes what is essentially fluid. Thus we cannot grasp the essence of this life.” - From Drafts for a Critique by Wilhelm Dilthey

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Forrest Perrine @ Two Shelves

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Drew Miller @ Two Shelves

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John Keppelman @ Two Shelves Interference Paintings, 2015. Acrylic on canvas, on aluminum. 

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Between the Shelves : Jim Demetre w/ John Keppelman

Recently, at the request of Two Shelves curators Kelly Bjork and Joe Rudko, I drove to Bellingham, WA to visit painter, sculptor, and long-time Western Washington University School of Art faculty member John Keppelman, whose series Interference Paintings will be on view at Two Shelves the evening of June 11.

I am always delighted to be introduced to an artist whose work compels and engages me. Most often, such newly-met artists are young men and women at the beginning of their careers, full of talent, promise, and ideas. What is more rare and exciting, however, is to encounter an artist who is a grandfather and esteemed art professor who possesses the same inquisitive mind and keen powers of observation as his former students.

In the former farm house where he lives, we discussed his current body of work and touched on some farther-reaching matters.

(detail) Interference Red, 2015. Acrylic on canvas on aluminum.

Jim Demetre: The Interference Paintings, while small in scale, bring to mind the work that Larry Bell and Robert Irwin were doing in the late sixties, with their translucence, reflective properties, color field vocabulary, and use of metal surfaces. At that time, such work seemed to radically challenge the way people thought about art and perception, but today this kind of abstraction feels more grounded in ancient traditions of asceticism. Is there a spiritual dimension to this series of paintings? How would you describe it?

John Keppelman: These pieces started out as a rational process for me. I deliberately chose the format, dimensions, the box structure, the rigid surface to allow blading, the areas into black and white whose equal division wouldn’t suggest a horizon line. Because they come so readily and lock onto familiar associations in the brain I wanted to avoid any pictorial references. I chose the pearl paints because they have little inherent color as we think of it but surprising, dramatic highlight properties. Color as an aspect of only reflected light. So there was a kind of austerity, unknowing, in the concept at the outset. I really had a limited sense of what the possibilities were, and my first efforts were pretty constrained. With this group of 6 pieces I let the bladed black and white basecoats run wild at the edges and that encouraged a new playfulness in the application of the interference colors. Working them, I began to look into and behind the surfaces rather than just at them. That was startling. You mention Larry Bell. Morris Louis comes to mind too where on a much grander scale there is sometimes a void. The unknowing thing. If there is a spiritual dimension, it’s new to me and I’m wary of dwelling on it verbally because I don’t understand it. It is the number one question for me about the pieces though.

Untitled 2. Acrylic on canvas  11 x 9 x 2.5" JD: Your diverse body of work includes figure painting and large-scale abstract sculpture as well as these narrow, upright panels with their juxtaposition of white and black essences. But the longer I look at them all, the more I see a similar energy at work. The swirling movement and elusive forms that surround your poised and static human figures remind me of the sublimated fire beneath the surface of the Interference Paintings and the force that emanates from the vortices of your metal sculpture. Is there a larger cosmology that holds forth in all of your chosen genres and mediums?

JK: Very interesting question. When I went to art school we really weren’t taught anything. Artist teachers stood around with their hands in their jeans and glowered, as I remember it, while we tried like crazy to get their attention. It was called creative discovery and it worked pretty well actually. One day I was coming out of a classroom and Elmer Bischoff was standing with someone in the hall. He said to me, “Keppelman, you need to get off your motorcycle and into your painting.” He was a rider too and I knew exactly what he meant. Passion, feeling.  I think the general answer to your question is the energetic enjoyment of making visual art. I‘m thinking about all the tricksof the art making game, some from before Cezanne, some after, especially the balance of 2D and 3D perception of space. Pictures since Cezanne are always simultaneously saying “look, I’m an illusion and look, I’m a flat design.” That’s exhilarating. To work, both have to be inferred enough to be convincing. So I try in painting to be articulate formally at the same time that I stir the image up to allude to the flat picture plane. My sculpture is the same because its orientation is pictorial; it tells you to get in front of it like a sign. At best, in my case, there is something haptic or kinetic, maybe ecstatic, a pressing expressive motive or urgency that you may be referring to.

Untitled 12. Acrylic on canvas. 11 x 13.5 x 2.5 inches. JD: For many years you were on the faculty of the art department at Western Washington University. How has teaching and interacting with new students over the years influenced your artistic practice? How important is it for mid-career artists to gain an understanding of the sensibilities of younger, aspiring artists like your students?

JK: Western’s students in studio and design are good and many are eager to figure out who they are as artists. I taught mostly the foundation classes which I enjoyed because those skills are essential and very teachable and students clearly enjoy their successes with them. The process was very useful to me because teaching something, perspective systems, for instance, brought all of that up for me and made it fresh and useful again. I taught one visualization class where the available required texts were unbelievably dull so I wrote a bunch of little lectures, 15 or 18, with lots of slides to cover all the basics of picture making. “Description is revelation,” as Stevens says. Doing that was great fun because I relearned much that I’d forgotten and had an excuse to look at closely at new art concepts that might interest students particularly.

As to your question about what we can learn from student sensibilities, I find them very tech oriented. Image seeking is internet first, camera second and rarely observational. So, optical rather than kinetic and the peculiarities of point and shoot seeing are taken as real. Internet media sampling has a peculiar timeless, placeless impersonality that doesn’t relate to here and now. I focus in classes on direct, playful experimentation with picture making media, charcoal, gouache, airbrush, etc., as sensuous and compelling, motives in themselves. Gesture drawing is key too.

Glad, 2014. Oil on Canvas, 11 x 18 x 2 inches.  JD: Kelly and Joe are two of my favorite people in Seattle's art scene. Both were students of yours at Western and speak of you with an affectionate reverence. What are your thoughts about participating as an artist in their Two Shelves exhibition program?

JK: Well, the tables are turned! I am the peddling rogue artist (think Gulley Jimson in The Horse’s Mouth) and they run an innovative residence gallery that has good shows, cheekily named Two Shelves. I am flattered and pleased to be invited! Both Kelly and Joe are successful artists in their own right now, of course. Interference Thursday June 11th 7 - 10 pm

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Interference John Keppelman Thursday, June 11 7 - 10 pm

Two Shelves is honored to present 'Interference', an installation of paintings by Bellingham-based artist John Keppelman. "In these six little paintings I am interested in the essence of captured light, making visual weavings of color from light reflected, transmitted and absorbed simultaneously. In terms of affect there is some unexpected turbulence and depth in these pieces, of seeing into and behind the brilliant surface veil of reflected light into clouds or darkness." johnkeppelman.com

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Between the Shelves: Amanda Manitach w/ Timothy Cross

Timothy Cross is an artist, curator at the Sea-Tac Airport, who lives and works in Seattle, WA. He received a B.A. from The Evergreen State College and an MFA from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. He commonly works with xerox prints, which he cuts, transfers, and reassembles onto silk, paper, and aluminum. For his current exhibition at Two Shelves, Cross uses found objects, small cast sculptures, and magnetized components to create a deeply layered web of objects that simultaneously feel familiar and alien.

Amanda Manitach is an artist, curator at Seattle University's Hedreen Gallery, visual arts editor at CityArts magazine, and co-founder of The Factory a studio in the Pike/Pine corridor of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Love Letters, 2015.  Amanda Manitach : What does "shelf" mean to you?

Timothy Cross : What I love about shelves is that they can be so many things. I see them as a type of container that can be filled with whatever we wish. They’re functional and very simple but can also be aesthetic and exalting. Shelves are a little bit of architecture that help us defy gravity, keeping our various materials organized and protected. I’d also like to give a mention to ice shelves, but that’s for another conversation.

Kelly and Joe’s shelves are an intimate place. I like to think of Two Shelves as their modest offering to the art gods, opening up a bit of their most personal space for others to share their personal creations. It’s just one interpretation, but I like seeing it this way.

These shelves aren’t particularly better than any other shelves but they carry the attitudes that Kelly and Joe have bestowed on them: curiosity, openness, sensitivity and more. It’s the perfect place to respond to as an artist.  

AM : Look around right now, wherever you are: what is on the nearest shelf? Don't cheat and lie.

TC: I never cheat or lie! But I do exaggerate sometimes. There are many shelves around me. My studio is full of shelves. I’m a big fan. But the nearest shelf is me at the moment—my cat pretty much thinks I’m his personal portable shelving unit. The second nearest shelf holds the aftermath of my recent show at Two Shelves. It’s pretty much a junk yard full of half-finished thoughts and tidbits that didn’t make it onto the shelves.

There are approximately 12 shelves or shelving units in my immediate vicinity, no exaggerating.    

AM : Are the things on your self objects of value?

TC : Besides my cat and I which I would consider moderately valuable I would say I’m not sure. Mostly it’s full of my art, supplies, books and tools. They’re very valuable to me.  

AM : Send me a photo of every shelf in your home.

TC : Good god.

AM : Send me a photo of every shelf in your studio.

TC : Heh. Done.

AM : Why do you think you can bring a fresh perspective to a "shelf"?

TC : I think that just like everyone else I am unique. We all bring a certain mix of perspective and experience to the table, uh, shelf. I think I tend to grab onto something, some way of working or some idea and dig deep. I go back and forth looking for differences and connections between all kinds of things. I look for qualities that tie everything together, while allowing elements to assert their own identity. And all the while I’m sort of just laughing, having fun. What’s fresh to me is what’s alive and active, not just saying one thing well, but saying many things at once- it’s a similar way to how we go through the world experiencing many things simultaneously.    

AM : Does curating an airport have any impact on your use of or approach to space?

TC : I think is has. It would be hard to say how; some of the lessons to learn with showing art are subtle. I’d say the biggest impact is how the airport has continued my obsession with nodes. It’s some fixed point that allows other various things to flow through it. The airport is a vastly complicated filter for people, light and air. I get to go play with art in that flow, which has shaped some of my attitudes about people and art.  

AM : Why aren't there more shelves in airports?

TC : That is an excellent question. I will ask airport ops. Actually, I just installed a beautifully turned wooden bowl on a shelf at the airport last week. And now that I think about it, Claire Cowie and I installed some her work on shelves last week too. They’re everywhere!    

AM : Do you like flying?

TC : Love it, as long as I’m not stuck in the middle seat.  

AM : Have you ever placed an installation on a "shelf" in an airplane?

TC : No but I would LOVE to. Heck I would love to install any art in an airplane and then go for a ride.

AM : Did you at any time ever find 120 inches inadequate?

TC: Naw. At one point I imagined recreating a series of new shelves in the same place, I thought it would be fun. But then I remembered that the fun isn’t dominating or recreating a space according to my will but in honoring it and teasing out what’s vital in the space that’s already there. Love Letters opening reception Thursday, May 14th 7 - 10 pm at Two Shelves.

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love letters Opening Reception Thursday, May 14th 7 - 10 pm Two Shelves is pleased to present 'love letters', an installation of small sculptural works by Seattle-based artist Timothy Cross. "As I process and document these new works it strikes me how rich and fertile a living room can be and how much potential a couple of shelves can hold, simple parts arranged with purpose. It’s so simple and so common yet elegant and dynamic. Two shelves become a house, a street, a city. The love is for the place and all the bits that make up the whole. The letters are for the people around me who have influenced and encouraged me along the way."

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Colleen RJC Bratton @ Two Shelves Not a Void, 2015 Repurposed Fibers. 

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Between the Shelves : Jessica Powers w/ Colleen RJC Bratton

Colleen RJC Bratton is a conceptual artist living and working in Seattle, Washington. She graduated from Seattle University with a degree in visual art and philosophy. Bratton works with repurposed cloth to create soft structures that explore the relationship between self and space. With her installation "Not a Void" Bratton fills the distance between the two shelves in an attempt to graph the dynamic relationship between two entities over time. Jessica Powers is an organizer/administrator who works at The New Foundation Seattle. She has independently curated art exhibitions in the US and Canada and is a founding member of the curatorial collective TARL. Jessica was curator of Seattle University’s Hedreen Gallery from 2010-12, and communications director at Listen and Talk from 2011-2014. Her prior experience includes program and outreach positions at the Museum of Glass, Path with Art, and Western Bridge.

Covenant. Repurposed fibers, 2014 Jessica Powers: I first met you when you were an energetic and promising student at Seattle University. What did you do in the year after graduating from undergrad? How did you start and develop your studio practice? Colleen RJC Bratton: I got engaged ten days after graduating so for the first six months of my post-college life I was planning my wedding day. It felt much like an art project itself as I handmade most of the decorations. My senior show was emotionally heavy and exhausting so planning the wedding was a good break for my psyche. After Chase and I got hitched I started slowly getting back into the groove of working on art projects. To stay disciplined I set up a work schedule for myself, devoting at least two full days a week to creating or researching. Much of my free time was spent experimenting in the studio, reading, curating shows at Gage Academy of Art, going to shows around town, and meeting new artists. I decided early on that I wanted to be careful about what kind of work I put out into the public eye. I would start new projects and then quickly abandon them if I couldn't see myself devoting at least a few years to it. It was frustrating but humbling. Not many artists find their shtick at twenty-three and I was definitely not one of them. After about two years of working out of my apartment I subleased my first studio workspace. This changed everything for me. Surrounded by hard-working artists was inspiring and motivating. Six months later I woke up and realized that I needed to make art full-time. I quit my jobs, found a permanent space, and now currently work making art 10am-5pm four days a week.

Morning Doorway. Repurposed fibers, 2015. JP: Tell me a bit about your site specific work for Two Shelves. Does "gradient" stand as metaphor for energy, sentimentality, or social process? CRB: Yes, I see the gradient as a metaphor and a graph that speaks to the progression of sentimentality over time. The start of the gradient in this case is white. White symbolizes that first introduction within the social process; it's stark with no background information. Over time and with increased experience, that relationship tends to warm up and become enriched with information and emotional attachment. White no longer suffices to represent that relationship and so the colors change. The work ends with a rich and shimmering brown. The color and fabric is complex and alluring. I wanted to think about how Kelly and Joe must feel about their apartment. When they first moved into their new space it was just that: an empty space. They've lived there for quite some time now and have shared many memories with it. It no longer is just a space, it's become a home. It's evident when you walk into their home that they love it: there's all these little details they've added, plants that have grown, a kitty who has claimed it as her own, and an energy that feels very Joe and Kelly. It feels very warm and inviting just like the end of the gradient. 

Perpendicular Walls. Repurposed fibers, 2014 JP: You went from making work about the Hanford Site, a mostly decommissioned nuclear production complex near your hometown, to this current project which is about a very different kind of energy. How did your current work evolve out of the Hanford series? CRB: The Hanford series was one of the projects I abandoned after realizing I couldn't see myself devoting years of research, thought, and work into it. Through the project I developed my love for working with fabric and for sewing. It also revealed something about my character that transfers into much of my work: I tend to look on the bright side of life. Hanford produced plutonium for the Fat Man bomb. It's an ugly and awful history of secrecy and murder but without it my grandpa would never have moved to Washington state and met my grandmother and in turn, I never would have come into existence. That's a strange fact to live with. Soft Structures came out of many hours thinking about the negative attitude many people have towards art and the museum and gallery space. I gave tours at the Frye Art Museum for about five years and heard many different viewpoints on the subject. People perceive a kind of hierarchy that tends to put them off. I took the stark, blunt white walls of the museum and turned them into these soft objects that are warm and inviting. This project has many off shoots that explore an optimistic viewpoint on spatial relationships.

Entrance from the Inside. Repurposed fibers, 2014. JP: What does it mean to pack negative space full of stuff, in addition to filling it with this gradient? CRB: Packing this negative space with hundreds of layers of fabric calls attention to its existence. This may sound obvious but, without a visible marker of an invisible thing people don't really acknowledge it. It's like a drawing explaining the universal law of gravitation, there's arrows representing the force between the two objects. "Not a Void" will drastically change the visual dynamic of the two shelves. It will represent the invisible force between the two shelves. JP: Tell me about role cloth plays in your practice at this time? CRB: All of the fabric I work with has a previous life. It either comes from a friend or from a thrift store. This unknown history makes the material very personal to me and gives it more dimension. Fabric is extremely visceral and tactile for me. It makes sense since I'm in contact with it everyday in the form of clothing. With all of this complexity in mind, I transform cloth into architectural and spatial representations. These works aim to speak softly yet deeply about the relationship between space and self.

Vitrine. Repurposed fibers, 2014.  JP: Do you see any conflict between work/craft and sociality? Particularly as it pertains to the uniquely isolated studio work? CRB: I do see conflict between the two. As an artist who aims to make work that is accessible to the everyday person and not just other artists, it's important that I remember to create familiar entry points within my work. Otherwise viewers can't access the work and attempt to relate to what it's communicating. When someone goes into a gallery and looks at a work of art a dialogue begins and hopefully the work speaks a language the viewer can understand. My work's entry points are: fabric and space. Humans are in contact with fabric everyday as well as space. To find these entry points I have to be social. It takes a lot of effort especially when a lot of my work happens alone. It means posting photos of pieces and seeing how social media reacts, choosing a work environment where other people are working and keeping the door open, having a critique group, and knowing what's going on in the world on the macro and micro level. Without these relationships and the empirical knowledge that comes from them communication becomes much more difficult.

Cased Opening II. Repurposed fibers, 2014. JP: Can you expand a little more on your interest in interpersonal sociality? CRB: To put it simply: the more I understand the dynamics of a relationship the more I come to appreciate it. And to expand: this appreciation in turn affects my respect for that person or thing. I believe it positively affects the environment. This is why I don't like the term "void" or "negative space" because I don't see it as such. It has a bad connotation in my mind. Without that space I couldn't fully come to recognize what I see and where I begin and the other thing ends. I learn about myself and I learn about the other. I see the complexity and mystery of a creation. The space between can intensify and the gratitude builds. It's one reason why lovers come together. They bridge the gap to show admiration. Having a relationship (my marriage) that I've dedicated the rest of my worldly existence to is a profound thing. This person will change over time because of all of his relationships. The ones he has with people, his God, the spaces he lives in, and with me. Understanding the dynamics of relationships will help prepare me for changes, appreciate growth, look fondly on the past, and treat the present with more respect. Each layer that forms adds depth and reveals the richness of that person's identity. JP: Let's dig a bit further into why the terms "void" and "negative space" are problematic for you. CRB: These terms are problematic because they direct attention away. They tend to "undescribe" what they're attached to. I look at the white space around an image within a frame and see it as holding the image and giving the eye breathing room. The title of the work "Not a Void" is a play on words: I see the space between the two shelves not as a void that's empty of everything but as filled with this energy and because there is something to understand there the mind should not "avoid" giving it attention. The whole should be considered: the two shelves, the space around it and the space between.  JP: In a deeply cynical (art)world, you manage to maintain an uncanny optimism in your demeanor and in your work. How do you do it? CRB: It's not easy. It helps to have a good sense of humor and to not take myself too seriously. I have a thirst for knowledge and experience and thankfully this complex world is full of more knowledge and experiences than I could ever take in in my lifetime. Art has the ability to open people's eyes in new and incredible ways. I would love to make art that inspires people and makes the world a better place. People tell me I'm naive but I always think about the seventeen-year-old girl who saw Rauschenberg's Bed for the first time and cried (me). I didn't cry because I understood the whole history behind the work, I wept simply because it struck a chord with me. It was more than the aesthetics, there was an energy reverberating from the piece that I couldn't explain. That mystery didn't frustrate me but instead motivated me into a humble exploration. That was the day I decided to become an artist.  Not a Void - Colleen RJC Bratton Thursday, March 12th 7 - 10 pm