I’m on Day 15 at Vermont Studio Center. The weather is unseasonably warm here, thanks, and no thanks, to Hurricane Sandy. Tucked away in a tiny valley, and what’s more, in a tiny town, Vermont Studio Center spans the reaches of Johnson, VT (population 2,000). I am writing this from my studio desk in a converted chapel, aptly named, Church Studios. Just inches away from the Gihon River and close enough to the hills to hear rifle shots (it’s open season), this place is rural. It’s supposed to be; that is the reason we (all forty of us) are here. 

Rural environments drive my work. I am interested in how humans relate to their environments and how they settle or make do, in said places. Expeditions, settlements, homesteads and crafts, are topics I generally take a closer look at or incorporate in my work.

During a tour of the grounds, one of the VSC directors suggested if any of us like to hike or go running (I do), that we should be advised to wear blaze orange, in any form; hat, hanky or vest. With several days until my supplies would arrive from Salt Lake (and still haven’t, no thanks, again to Sandy and the USPS), I immediately got to work using fabrics that played into my survival, or the idea of survival, in general: blaze orange and camouflage. A fitting transition, because my past work deals with craft and clothing tying humans to the landscape or being a marker of identity. Sticking out---being an individual, if you will---certainly helps you survive in many instances and in others, not so much. This space between being seen and invisible is one I’ve been investigating.

Here are some studio images:

My photographic work, as well, is largely a bank of landscape images where I have interjected my hand into the image, both literally and figuratively. I take photographs of historically important sites, but framed through my hand and usually of small, intimate views. This makes time a bit more subjective or less important for the viewer. It also obscures the method, a bit, as well. More importantly, the intimacy of its creation and how the viewer experiences the image, is the whole purpose. Another photographic series, I’ve been working on, again, are of historical sites where there is mostly empty land. No real indicator of an important event, once occurring. But, the emptiness implies that something was once there, that is no longer. Maybe there are a few bricks, an abandoned building, but without much investigation, it is just seems like vacant land. With these photos, I go back in with embroidery, to re-activate the empty space. I like embroidery because of its implied sentimentality and relationship to history, handicrafts and gender roles. It is contrary to digital photography and traversing the landscape for images, in many ways. Combining the traditionally masculine and feminine, has been an anchor for most of my work; making those opposites build something, together.

Studio images of photographic work:

I have about 10 days left of the residency, where I plan to shoot different sites in Johnson, VT and continue stitching up some fabric works. I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading and sketches, as well. Mostly, it’s been invaluable to have a pretty big studio space (4x as big as mine, back home) where I can write on the walls, stay up all night slashing out ideas and know that I’m not alone in the process; I’m book-ended with like-minded kids. One, rapturously and religiously covering large canvasses with splatters of oil paint, the other neatly sewing up well-endowed puppets, while streaming Howard Stern, well into the midnight hours. It’s a good crowd. I figure I’m the survivalist nut, camouflaged away in an imaginary bunker hidden inside my studio, sewing up warning signs and planning my next prey to “shoot”. 

Website: www.morgannewakefield.com

I’m also on Kickstarter, raising funds for my project at Vermont Studio Center. 10 more days left and already about halfway there! Stop by, check it out, pass it along to someone else. Thanks!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/277399150/morganne-wakefield-vermont-studio-center-residency

I have often walked through contemporary art galleries or sat through an avant guard version of, say, The Master and the Margarita and found myself saying "I don't get it."  And I have an undergraduate degree in Art History and a graduate degree in Arts in Education.  With all that education, I think I'm supposed to "get it."
 
What I have learned through my advanced studies and over time is that all art is a form of expression and a vehicle for sharing a thought, an idea or a message.  What makes art unique is the communication that happens during the experience of viewing art; it's an unspoken communication between artist and viewer.  Once the artwork is complete, the artist hands his/her interpretation over to us (the viewer) to connect to it however we may and draw our own conclusions. 
 
During this communication between what the artist presents and what the viewer sees, the work inspires a reaction: small, big, intense or soft.  It is the voice and we are the ears and eyes that receive that message.  However art is a bit of a puzzle and in order to piece it together, it requires us to take time noticing all the details from the piece, to spend a moment digesting what we've seen, and to ask ourselves questions about the work.  So it requires a little bit of work on our part to "get" that message, and it will be slightly different for every viewer.
 
To give an example of this process, recently there was a huge controversy in Boston over a mural painted by Os Gemeos (twin brothers Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo from Brazil) who recently finished a colorful mural on the side of a ventilation building in Dewey Square, a location in downtown Boston. I had the pleasure of performing on the opposite side of the building one weekend and watched a bit as the mural took shape.  Several days later, I read about a huge reaction from members of my community about the work.  I'll post that picture now, so that you can see the mural and begin to formulate some ideas about the work:

During the local Fox 25 coverage of the newest mural in downtown Boston, one particular observer voiced an opinion that it looked "like a terrorist."  Fox went on to post the image to their Facebook site asking what its viewers thought it looked like. Additionally the posting included an image with a large mechanical crane in front of the mural, leading people to make assumptions that it was a gun. With a few more Facebook postings about a the mural looking like a terrorist, it caused a conflagration on their page from commenter agreeing, disagreeing, commenting and arguing with each other.
 
I stated already, art inspires a reaction.  And that every person bring their own background into forming an opinion about what they see.  Since September 11th, America is understandably weary of terrorist groups that may potential bring more harm to our shores.  And we have every right to be.  And artists have every right to create works that highlight injustices that they believe should be changed.  Art gets us talking and that it is what makes it such a powerful medium.  But we have the responsibility to truly look at what is being shared, to spend a moment trying to puzzle over what the artist is trying to say and what it triggers in us.  

In order to understand how to read art,  I'll use this "controversial" image and ask to name one thing you see (feel free to post comments on the blog of what you see).  No assumptions, just take a moment and what do you see? 

To me, and to many others, this mural has nothing to do with terrorism.  The bright colors and patterns are more indicative of a boy in his pajamas who happens to be covering his head with a red shirt (you can see the sleeve of that shirt hanging down his chest), perhaps pretending to be a Luchador fighter or any other masked crusader often featured in many American blockbuster films.  Much of the art we see require us to think; it is not really a passive experience.  My hope is that by each of us learning to really look, to take a moment and collectively see, we can begin to puzzle together a new image for this work, to create a new understanding and a new voice for this work of art.

Anne Wright
Co-Founder

Jendar Marie Morales, co-founder of The Art Haus SLC, discusses in 25 seconds how TAHSLC hopes to influence the Salt Lake City community through their arts programs. How do you personally hope The Art Haus SLC will influence the Salt Lake City community? Share your thoughts with us. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRG7eCrBcG0&feature=share

In several of our previous blogs, TAHSLC staff and our guest blogger talked a little about the communities and homes from which they came.  Inherently when we speak about those places, we're also talking about the culture of those communities and the people within them.  I grew up just outside of Salt Lake City and you can be sure that there are a lot of cultural norms that exist there!  Religion of course is one of the largest cultural influences in my life growing up in Utah, but I also had a small slice of Latin culture provided by my Puerto Rican born mother.  Sometimes for Christmas dinner, instead of having a traditional American turkey and stuffing, we had Lechon (Roast Pork) and Arroz con Habichuelas (Rice and Beans).   As small as that Latin culture was, living in a predominantly white neighborhood, it created a different lens in which I viewed the world. 

Food and art are two of the simplest ways to connect to other cultures and get a taste (pun intended) of what they're like.  For me, art creates an experience where not only do I feel that the artist is communicating something to me through their chosen medium, but also expressing some of their cultural ideologies within that expression.  As Sara asked in her post, "what do you get when you put an installation artist from LA in a room with a Japanese choreographer and a painter from Utah?", I say you get a collaborative work that reflects elements from each artist's own culture and community.

But art isn't one sided, there is an audience.  (Although one might argue, like the old adage about a tree falling in a forest, if art is created and no one is there to see it, is it really art? But perhaps that is an entirely different blog post).  If I were viewing our theoretical collaborative work by those three artists, my religious, Latin, feminine roots would color my experience as well.  And I would have a very different experience from the next person in the room who may come from Russia with no particular religious background. 

What interests me most as an arts educator and a co-founder of TAHSLC is what happens when you get those who viewed the exhibit to talk about their experience together and share what they saw and how the work affected them personally.  This is why I sincerely hope we get the opportunity exhibit TIMEless, where multiple artists express their interest in kinetic composition, and impart a little of themselves in their work.  And when we do, what cultural influence will you bring to that experience and who in the room do you want to talk to about it? 

If you're interested in supporting TAHSLC in putting on the TIMEless exhibit, go here and donate!

By: Anne Wright
Co-founder of The Art Haus SLC

Let's take a minute to talk about Community. Isn't Abed insightful? And Jeff's speeches! Annie's hair. The pure genius of that one episode where they rolled the dice a whole ton. Let's also talk about those communities where there are no magical (racist) trampolines. Just regular trampolines and soft undertones of racism that usually have nothing to do with trampolines.

I grew up with a community that made me the person I am today (and if you are wondering, the person I am today can be summed up in one word: awesome).  This place was in Amarillo and the community was the local theatre, Amarillo Little Theater.  This was the place where I learned what it was to accept and be accepted because you're unique and your ideas are crazy and potentially awesome. It was a place where I learned that there was such a thing as Beauty with a capital B and it could be shared and sought after by a group of people.  It's also where I learned about love, the kind you give to people because they are desperate for it, because they'd do anything for you, because you've lived in empty spaces together dreaming things into the world that didn't exist before. 

This is my first and most personal experience with community.  We are everywhere now, LA, Chicago, New York, to name a few and we are still defined and driven by that small town in Texas that made our hearts and heads go BA-boom.  Now the world is our community.  I've been around the world and crossed continents and I've seen people all searching for the same things, I would call the search one for God while others might say Beauty, Truth, or Story but we all mean the same thing.

My own community was based in a small town but the world is much more open now. We can build a community from Texas to New York.  From Utah to London.  From Los Angeles to Eastern Europe.  You might ask why even bother doing this?  (and how can we do this?) And to you I would say, "Because it's stinking awesome! That's why."  But also because I think we are all hungry for each other in some way and we all have a little piece of the puzzle in what we are searching for.  I might call it joy and find it in jumping through the air but maybe in Cambodia they'd call it faith and find it through their feet hitting the floor.  Let's blow the world up a little by making it a smaller place.  We have the technology to do it, so why not give it a go already?

Now why art?  Because the earth without art is just 'eh' (that's a popular poster I like to quote when I can feel the need to really rile up a crowd).  I think we all want to create and we are all creative people.  Think about your day- did you make something exist today that didn't exist yesterday? A piece of text, a thought in someone's head? Well hello fellow artist, nice to meet you.  What are we supposed to do in the course of a day other than create? The end product might be different for "artists" but we are all guilty of the creative process.  But what can artists do when they are able to bring their communities together from around the world?  What kind of new community can we create? What stories, truth, and holiness can we find in this newly expanded and yet accessible space?  Aren't you curious?  Think of it like this: what do you get when you put an installation artist from LA in a digital space with a choreographer from Japan and a painter from Utah?  Well, hell, I don't know but I'm dying to find out.

By: Sara Moncivais
Go here to make this crazy/awesome rant a reality.

**Sara would also like to mention the overuse of the word "awesome" in this post.  She would like you to know that dictionary.com defines awesome as "very impressive."  Now if you can think of a better word to use, Sara would like to know.  Cause very impressive just doesn't cut it and her other alternative is "dynamo."

We are officially kicking off The Art Haus SLC this week by activating our website, registering as a 501(c) and getting set up on all several different social media websites.  

We want to get the word out about our plans to create a space in downtown Salt Lake City next year that will bring exciting and new contemporary arts to the community members.  

Please help us by getting the word out and checking out our events page to see what you can do to be a part of the movement.

We will also set up our kickstarter infomation shortly so you can help The Art Haus SLC bring programming and events to everyone in the downtown community.