A different kind of Apple Pie
I delivered and installed Apple Pie at the Downtown Initiative For The Visual Arts in Eugene on Sunday.
I fit all nineteen paintings of this showing into my Zipcar—and that includes the four by four foot Indian which made packing everything else so complicated. It took me the better part of an hour to get all the portraits tucked into their places and secured. Usually my sweetheart takes care of the three-dimensional puzzle that is loading all of my work safely into a car, but he is away this week so I was on my own. I’m quite proud of myself for making it work!
Happily, I wasn’t on my own when I got to Eugene: the DIVA staff and volunteers were so very helpful in putting up the show. Leonie and Sara had the genius idea of hanging my Letter From The American Cousin as if it were floating!
I’d originally conceived the piece to be displayed like an oversized pile of mail tossed carelessly onto a pedestal, and that’s just how I showed it at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center last September (as seen in the photo above). But I was never fully satisfied with the way the audience interacted with this piece at the Firehouse. I worried that people missed the work since it was invisible from across the room.
When I arrived in Eugene on Sunday, I had a vague idea of displaying the canvas envelopes on the wall using mirror clips. I never would have had the idea to make them fly with fishing wire. In a very real way, Leonie and Sara completed my Letter!
It’s exciting to see most of the series together again and in a new space. It’s clear to me now how much a venue affects the work—and in more ways than I might have imagined!
Apple Pie opens at the Downtown Initiative For The Visual Arts in Eugene on Friday evening.
Friday 1 May from 5 to 8.30
DIVA
110 W Broadway
Eugene, OR 97401
541.344.3482
It’ll be a proper party with yums and lots of fun people. DIVA also has a number of galleries besides the one I’m showing in and 1 May is the monthly art walk in Eugene, so there’s plenty of art to see if you do come out!
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- An oversized pile of letters
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