as those who follow this blog will know, i have more than a passing interest in stuff. why do objects hold such value in our lives? and why do certain objects hold more value than others? why does that value shift from person to person? where is the line between collecting and hoarding? these questions have lead me all over the place and are borne of my earliest days and experiences.
for over a year now, i have been percolating awards for nothing, a button-based gallery project that addresses some of these concerns by illuminating scrappy detritus and converting it into markers of worth. but finding a venue for the project's initial outing has been a challenge. enter printshop forever, a milwaukee-based one-year project of monthly artist editions that matches awards for nothing so much in aches. what's more? cortney thought so, too!
initially, i had envisioned editions of 1000 unique awards for gallery installation, but since printshop forever is an mostly online project that number didn't make sense. at 100 awards, this first release is still going to be the largest release she will deal with this year (thank you, cortney!). 100 is probably a more reasonable edition to start with, anyway. and it's nice to have conditions that force me to be at least mildly reasonable from time to time.
so here i am in albuquerque with a month (and roughly 1500 miles) between me and the launch of the project. i will be driving to milwaukee (with plenty of stops in between) to hand deliver my edition. i am lucky enough to be piggy-backing on an opening at sky high gallery there to release the first awards into the real world. but more about that event soon. for now, i am armed with a porta file that is quickly filling with scraps from portland, arcata, eureka, berkeley, oakland, phoenix and my mother's home in vancouver and the first awards are seeing the light of day...
7 comments:
Love this project Becky. Beautiful.
Your questions about stuff remind me of a recent conversation I had with some fellow teachers. They were saying that we assign value to objects and that the actual object isn't what makes us happy. I tried to explain that objects do have intrinsic value... a scrap of paper can spark a memory or be symbolic, but it also has its own energy/value. They looked at me like I was crazy.
I have since wondered if this idea of intrinsic value of objects is common among creatives, collectors, and/or hoarders:)
shannah,
i know you live with some of the same issues i do and can't wait to chat about them. you are so smart when it comes to this stuff.
on the schedule for the next two days: nailing down the path from here to milwaukee. and guess who is right between those two places!
That word "nothing" seems to rub a lot of people the wrong way. It touches the angst profondo nerve, I imagine. To me, the word always has quotation marks around it, so I forget to write them in. But maybe they would help .
I hope you are doing well. I'd like to hear.
wow...this is awesome becky...can't wait to see more.
heart on fire!
wow becky, i love this project. it is also seems like a perfect incarnation of your medium, concerns & aesthetic. plus, i highly approve of your outfit in that first frame. (though those may not be your boobs? hard to tell.) p.s. security word = gut led.
yes, my boobs. minimized by the magic of a black cardi.
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