CUENTO: 1. (narrative) a. story b. tale c. fabrication

El Cuento : PRELUDIOS Y PARTIDAS

To celebrate it's grand opening, the Mint Museum of Craft + Design launched Project Ten Ten Ten by which it commissioned 10 artists to create works especially for the new facility installed between 2010 and 2012. The artists included in this project were  Danny Lane, Ted Noten, Joseph Walsh, Hildur Bjarnadóttir, Tetsunori Kawana, Kate Malone, Ayala Serfaty, Susan Point, Tom Joyce and myself. This opportunity offered the rare chance to design a site specific installation that could perform through an ongoing presence as opposed to the up and down of retail exhibitions. The process images above show the gradual unfolding of this piece from wet work to it's final installation.

There is a research period in every work cycle were thousand threads of experience and influence are gradually distilled into one core idea. Many things came into play for this project but two significant influences were  Butoh dance (below) and the work of the Chinese fashion designer Make Wuyong (above). Butoh sparked the notion of the wall as a stage and opened me to a broader range of human gesture,primal and untethered. Make's poetic and monochromatic pieces inspired the desire to turn clay into fabric and develop a cohesion  across all elements through a build up of soft pigmentation. 

The piece has two versions, one on the wall above and one in it's final site ( below) at the Mint Museum of Craft and Design. The wall above was the result of an arson fire that took place in the town of Spruce Pine, North Carolina  in 2007. There was a sense of devastation and incredulity that anyone would conceive of such destruction in our small community. The large open space that was left was flanked by these walls that told the story of what had once stood there and what had transpired. I was taken by the diversity of colors and materials exposed and the painterly markings that held the worn geometry of ghostly structures.With permission from the owner, we set the work up for a couple of hours before delivering it to the Mint. I am glad to say this space has been rehabilitated and it is now a lovely community and information center in lower street. 

PRELUDIOS Y PARTIDAS  

 This metaphorical landscape is one of transition where figures are in veering states (PRELUDIOS) before a great action (PARTIDAS). Common to the human experience are profound shifts where the ground gives way and one is thrust into powerful periods of self-reflection, growth, and renewed vision; this is how this space looks in my mind , a place of open possibilities and regeneration. "Preludios y partidas" is  currently installed at the Mint Museum of Craft and Design in Charlotte, North Carolina as part of their permanent collection.

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