Carolyn Speranza: Site Specific Media Projects that Engage the Public in New Ways.

Loving the new web site: laughlinforpresident.org/default.aspx—
Laughlin Artz (@Laughlin_Artz) October 07, 2011

Artists’ Books on the Environment Closing Reception Join us on Tuesday, June 28 from 5-7 p.m. at Carnegie Mellon University, Arts Library and Special Collections, on the 4th floor of Hunt Library for a closing reception of the exhibition “Artists’ Books on the Environment.” This exhibition is currently being held in conjunction with “Too Shallow for Diving: the 21st Century is Treading Water” at the American Jewish Museum in Pittsburgh and includes books by artists in the AJM show. It features eighty works from miniature books to sculptural installations exploring every aspect of the human condition as influenced by our “natural” environment. Collectively the exhibition points to our ultimate remembering that human beings are inextricable forces within the ecological dynamic of our planet Earth and beyond. The artists’ books exhibition continues through July 1. Works in the exhibition cases can be viewed anytime during library hours and in the Fine and Rare Book Room by appointment from Monday through Friday. For more information contact Mo Dawley, Art and Drama Librarian, 412-268-6625. “Too Shallow for Diving: the 21st Century is Treading Water” with associated events continues at the Jewish Community Center through July 28 http://www.jccpgh.org/page/ajm

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WATER’S WAYS: A Presentation & Discussion of Local Water Issues and Public Health When: Monday, June 6, 7:00pm Where: Jewish Community Center, 5748 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh 15217 (Squirrel Hill near Murray Ave) Contact: Ann Rosenthal, Dargan Street Studios, 412-688-0417, atrart Web Site: http://www.jccpgh.org/page/ajm In conjunction with the exhibition Too Shallow for Diving: the 21st Century is Treading Water, participating artists Ann Rosenthal and Steffi Domike have organized a discussion of local water issues and public health with environmental and academic leaders: Dr. Patty DeMarco, Director of the Rachel Carson Institute, Chatham University will discuss water issues and choices for the 21st Century. Dr. Charles Christen, Director of Operations for the Center for Healthy Environments & Communities (CHEC) at University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health will address the public health implications of water and Marcellus Shale development. Dr. Christen worked closely with Dr. Conrad “Dan” Volz who recently resigned as Director of CHEC. This event is free and open to the public. Those attending will have the opportunity to ask questions of the speakers and artists, and will be able to view the exhibition. The exhibition Too Shallow for Diving: the 21st Century is Treading Water, guest curated by artist and educator Carolyn Speranza explores the environment, especially those issues surrounding water and its impact on our planet, human health and public welfare.

The dictionary tells us that a Requiem is a musical composition laying the souls of the dead to rest, presenting listeners with a remembrance of what has passed.  Requiem for the Netmakers honors the loss of a way of life given by the sea – to generations of people working in the fishing industry globally – and in particular, the Gulf of Mexico. Requiem germinated with the hearing of a news story on a family business where generations had learned the art of net-making and where the family business was decimated by the 2010 BP oil spill.  “For the last remaining net maker in St. Bernard Parish, Erwin Menesses Jr., that’s meant a 95 percent drop in business,” read the story.

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Deciphering the art installation-

The installation encompasses two walls in the Robinson building, intersecting at the doors to the Katz Performing Arts Center.  The set-up has an element of ritual, in reflection of my time spent in pre-Katrina New Orleans, seeing the visual remembrances and homegrown artwork that people put up around grave sites, and hung in the chapel of St. Jude, asking the saint for assistance in the face of disease and loss of life.  During the course of the exhibition the flowers will wilt and die and the ocean landscape, boat model and fishing lures may be added to with additional articles touching on the lives of fishing, shrimping and net-making people.

The repetition of the horizontal line, in the shelves, arrangement of digital frames, electrical outlets, landscape video monitor are intentionally stratified, visually making present landscape in our art historical catalog, landscape in our ocean’s horizon lines and the landscape of our ever-growing digital networks.  The use of wood, intended to harken back to a past life-style and to bring drift wood into the piece — transformed through Angelo Gatto’s contribution and his ease of use of large, heavy materials.

In light of my young artist years looking at Anselm Kieffer landscapes and the gutsiness of Baselitz paintings, these elements made perfect sense in forming a framing foundation for the 2-walled piece – and in keeping an earth awareness in an artwork using a sizable amount of electronics.

Digital still and video imagery reflects the past several years of my work with online archives, intensive political immersion and constant monitoring of the news.  Sources include the Associated Press Archive (media licensed for this exhibition), Library of Congress Archive, National Archives, Environmental Protection Agency Documerica project, photographs made available through Creative Commons licenses, Present Nixon’s 1970 State of the Union address, and the FEDERAL WATER POLLUTION CONTROL ACT, AS AMENDED BY THE CLEAN WATER ACT OF 1977. (on the transparency hanging on the short wall)

The lower tier of digital frames are a family album of the fishing industry, mostly in the Gulf, going back into our history– and even a time when small children shelled shrimp until that aspect of the industry was cut short by child labor laws.

The upper tier of digital frames presents a series of color permutations on an ocean wave impregnated by oil from the BP spill– giving us an opportunity to be fascinated and self-disgusted both by what human beings can do to the vast, beautiful and seemingly impenetrable ocean.

The pulse and heart of Requiem is the musical composition sculpted by Frank Ferraro in response to our conversations and back-forth dialog over what seemed like a short, intense period of time, beginning with my question, “What does oil sludge sound like?” In response to my queries, the initial dark ambient music was re-written as a 7 minute Requiem with the larger-than-life roles of the Global Corporate Gangsters, the Big Ocean, the fisher people, ghosts of oil drillers, a mermaid chorus and a very few oil covered animals all playing their parts. In re-viewing the edited video just now, I can hear the overall sadness, the plaintive piano and see the inevitable future we are headed in – unless we alter the course of human behavior on our planet.

Carolyn Speranza

May 20, 2011

May 14th at 7:00pm Too Shallow for Diving: the 21st Century is Treading Water opens to the public at the American Jewish Museum at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill. I will be speaking at 7:30 to introduce the project and to talk with you about creating new communities; the role of the artist; and issues on water and the environment. Please join me for an evening of engagement and celebration until 9:00 pm.

Throughout the course of the exhibition, environmental organizations will host citizen action workshops at the JCC, including Clean Water Action, Penn Environment and Penn Future. Green Drinks, a networking event for people working to make Pittsburgh greener in the areas of business, policy, new technologies and activism will be hosted by the AJM. Former professor Conrad “Dan” Volz, Jr., who recently resigned from his position at the University of Pittsburgh this April over his public health advocacy on water and natural gas drilling will give a presentation. Too Shallow for Diving artists will host workshops throughout the course of the exhibition which concludes July 28. All events are free and open to the public.

Too Shallow for Diving: the 21st Century is Treading Water has received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, The Buhl Foundation and The Sprout Fund. All of the exhibition’s artists have received honorariums to support the creation of new and provocative work.

TOO SHALLOW FOR DIVING: THE 21ST CENTURY IS TREADING WATER
AMERICAN JEWISH MUSEUM OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF GREATER PITTSBURGH MAY 16 – JULY 28, 2011
OPENING SATURDAY, MAY 14TH, 7 – 9 P.M.
CURATOR’S TALK: CAROLYN SPERANZA at 7:30 P.M.
PERFORMANCE: VANESSA GERMAN at 8:00 P.M.

THE ARTISTS:
Tim Collins and Reiko Goto
Jim Denney
Vanessa German
Prudence Gill
Jamie Gruzska
Richard Harned
Roger Laib
Lisa Link
Maritza Mosquera
Wendy Osher
Ann T. Rosenthal and Steffi Domike
Carolyn Speranza and Frank Ferraro
David Stairs

Additional information can be found at: http://www.jccpgh.org/page/ajm

Tonight I went searching for examples of online support structures for artists and authors; initially looking for something my “Dawn of the Deadened” concept.  The Artist’s Way, is pretty close, although the focus is on writing (understandably so).  Here’s a short list of my findings:

http://theartistsway.com/forums/ Forums where people use the book as a take off point for discussion and supporting each other’s process of creating and re-creating.

http://chicagoartistsresource.org/ A practical resource for artists mostly in chi-town, but applicable to other artists.  The artist stories section is revealing.

http://www.artquest.org.uk An even more practical and (I think) much better resource than the chicago art list.  Some of the information is understandably UK skewed, but much of it is very helpful for all artists.

Yahoo Answers:  How do I get rid of artist’s block?     http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080106192534AADh1hq Great discussion.

About.com  Tips from Painters on Overcoming a Creative Block    http://painting.about.com/cs/inspiration/a/artistsblock2.htm Another one – had no idea these Q&A sites could be so rich.

And this provoking piece, linked to from Rizome http://rhizome.org/discuss/view/46414 was closest in tenor to my own point of view when I stopped making art.

Trajectories: How to Reconcile the Careerist Mentality with Our Impending Doom:  http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=394 Addresses the ethical implications of continuing to choose the career of an artist in the twenty-first century. It is a manifesto of sorts, written from the personal perspective of a young UK-based artist looking to identify worthwhile reasons for continuing down this ‘self-interested’ path, given that the future we are likely to face as a result of climate change, is so different from how we dreamt our careers might pan out whilst growing up under Thatcher and New Labour. It explores how we should aim to evolve our roles as artists, in light of this, and what form a new ‘reconciled practice’ might take.

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My most recent experience in re-inventing my artistic practice, awakening the deadened tendrils of expression – was a foray into glass painting this past week at the Pittsburgh Glass Center, in a week-long intensive. For a number of years I worked in layered transparencies, painted, printed, colored gels – using frosted, colored and clear plastics, all backlit with lightboxes – or neon. But in terms of public art and getting commissions I did not have a permanent approach to working with materials. So I thought glass painting and the application of printed material onto glass would be a perfect match! How arrogant of me, thinking I could learn such a complex approach easily, having developed the former methods over a period of years.

Now where I’m left is in an inquiry. Clearly what there is to do is keep drawing as illuminated brush work, combined with mechanically/digitally made imagery, is where my expression lies. I’m working on not making any decisions too quickly (as I often love to).

Nothing like an intensive workshop for a quick (and sometimes brutal) start-up!