Project Space Gallery, Montalvo Art Center
Photo, Fishing Line, Pastel, Paper, Map
155" x 41" x 46"
2012
The triptych represents the bridge between the immediate
experience of a place, and its representation in narrative and character.
When a person is gone--out of place--what is left behind? This project is based on my archival research into the letters, journals and photographs of three pioneering women: Alice Phelan Sullivan (1860-1912), Alice Iola Hare (1850-1942), and Clara Shortridge Foltz (1849-1934). The artifacts of a life are inert, but they have a story to convey. I absorbed from the daily lives of these women what it takes to persist in the face of alienation and challenges, and even beyond the limits of life, to form a legacy. The installations are kinesthetic translations of their characters, holding the fragments of their narratives. The women's presence shaped the forms I made and the patterns of the words on the walls, both printed (my voice, distant and abstract) and hand-written (the other's voice, through my hand). The space in between the forms makes room for connection, conjunctions; it opens up experience so the viewer can enter in.
Ink, Fishing Line, Pastel, Paper
Alice Phelan Sullivan, 155" x 41" x 46"
Alice Iola Hare, 155" x 87" x 34"
The shapes of the sculptures convey both the characters of
the women and the dynamic spaces between them.
Ink, Fishing Line, Pastel, Paper
155" x 41" x 46"
2012
Alice Phelan Sullivan gave herself over to hold the discord
of others, and through her, everyone was connected.
Ink, Fishing Line, Pastel, Paper
Alice Iola Hare, 155" x 87" x 39"
2012
Alice Iola Hare was a documentary photographer who took herself out of the picture. I represented her not with images but with titles from her collection of photographs.
Ink, Fishing Line, Pastel, Paper
Alice Phelan Sullivan, 155" x 41" x 46"
Alice Iola Hare, 155" x 87" x 39"
2012
Sullivan was contained and containing; Hare was a
transparent, wide, swath of productive activity.
Ink, Fishing Line, Pastel, Paper
Clara Shortridge Foltz, 116" x 143" x 42"
2012
Clara Shortridge Foltz was the first woman admitted to the California Bar. Her sculpture directs you toward her accomplishments (on the left) and her assertions (on the right).
Foltz was grounded not to the earth but to her ideals and her intellect, pointed in a singular direction.