February

This month we are happy to welcome Andrew Salmon and Maggie Stein to the Shuckster space!

Andrew Salmon

Fascinated by the removal of mountains, the emergence of new fungi, and what happens when the wild has come to an end, I create to catalogue such events as well as imagine potential futures. I roam the myth of the landscape in mourning and jubilation. These sculptures archive my most recent wanderings.

Maggie Stein

First, let's discuss the different steps involved in making a quilt.

1. PIECING - Sewing small pieces of cloth together to make a quilt top. Sometimes there are blocks with a repeating pattern. Sometimes pieces are separated by long strips called sashing.

2. LAYERING - Stacking the quilt back (usually a solid piece of cotton cloth), the batting (fluffy center of a quilt, made of wool/cotton/bamboo), and the quilt top (perhaps with a border added) - this is sometimes called a quilt sandwich.

3. QUILTING - Stitching through all three layers of the quilt. This serves three purposes (thanks, Wikipedia):

- to secure the layers to each other

- to add to the beauty and design of the finished quilt, and

- to trap air within the quilted sections.

4. FINISHING - A final border, called binding, encloses the unfinished edges along the perimeter of the quilt. After this, a quilt is usually washed, an slight shrinkage in the cloth creates the wrinkles often associated with a handmade quilt.

I promise this will be useful in a moment.

The hexagon chip quilt was hand-pieced, then machine-quilted. Yes, this means that every single hexagon was hand-stitched to the hexagons surrounding it. The quilt is unfinished on purpose -so that you can look inside and see the stitches between hexagons.

I love hand-piecing a quilt because, until the final stages, the work is portable. For over a year, I would stitch hexagons during meetings, while watching television, and on public transportation. Once you learn the rhythm of the stitches, it takes very little attention.

The paint chip quilt was machine-pieced, then hand-quilted. Assembling this quilt top was much more about playing with color than learning a new technique, and I believe it took less than a week to assemble.

At this time, a friend offered to teach me how to hand-quilt, and I thought the uneven stitches and chaotic lines of my first attempt would add some close-up visual interest to this piece.

These are my first and third attempts at full-size quilts - the second lives in Kentucky with my nephew.

Also on display at the Shuckster this month:

- a visual tutorial for hand-piecing hexagons;

- a small piece representing one late night's foray into color and pattern; and

- one section from my latest endeavor, a cathedral window pattern, which not only combines piecing and quilting into one step, but includes a significant amount of what I'd call origami.

More Photos to come!

January Photos

Rachel Singel

(detail)

Brendan Fitzgerald

 

"Viewing Instructions:

1. Select a doorbox, and point it towards a light.

2. Peer through the peephole.

3. Return the doorbox to its original place.

4. Select a new doorbox, and repeat 1-3."

visual experience simulated for above 6 images

Link to Brendan and Rachel's artist statements: here

January

This month we welcome Rachel Singel and Brendan Fitzgerald to the Shuckster space!

Rachel Singel

     I look up. The sun is rising, the colors of the clouds are changing with each passing moment. I look down at the ground. The fallen branches press tightly to the cement, like fossils. I think about them both: something moving and something frozen. They face each other, a fleeting moment and one waiting to be eternalized. I am interested in this relationship between what exists before me for an instant, and what might last.

     I used to go out into the woods and look for voids in trees and in the riverbanks. I was drawn in by circles that seemed too perfect to exist, and would stare into them, wondering what might be inside. I think about Georgia O'Keeffe's work, and how she once said: "When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else." I also remember the words of Paul Klee: "An artist does not reproduce what he sees, he makes us see." I want to focus in on a single object or moment and spend time adding detail to that drawing, all the while remembering the encounter. In the end, all I want is to share that moment. 

     I make etchings on handmade paper and bind their remnants into artist's books. I enjoy the relationship between these processes and how they intertwine. Andy Goldsworthy, another artist I look to, invests immense patience and time to realizing his vision. While there are setbacks along the way, he moves forward and finds a way to compromise with his materials and celebrate a subtle and ephemeral instant. This is also my hope.

Brendan Fitzgerald

     Picher, Oklahoma, is one of America's most toxic towns. Miners built the town in 1918, and extracted more than $20 billion in lead and zinc - much of it used to create the bullets fired in the first and second World Wars. By 1967, Picher's mines had closed. However, mining left hollow tunnels beneath the town's surface and toxic residue piled high above. A 1993 study found that one in every three Picher children had enough lead in his or her blood to damage his brain or nerves. In 2006, engineers found that more than 80 percent of the town's buildings, including the high school, were in danger of collapse.

     The country's once-vital mining site is now, essentially, a ghost town. The 2010 census counted 20 Picher residentsl reports from last year counted only six homes and a pharmacy in the town.

     Using images sourced through Google Maps' "Street View" function, these doorways offer glimpses at a disintegrating community from the perspectives of those residents that stayed behind. They allow ground-level access without crossing the town's toxic threshold. 

     To view: Pick a door, hold it towards a light, and look through the peephole.

     Brendan Fitzgerald lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he works as news editor at C-VILLE Weekly. His reporting has been cited by multiple news sources, including The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and highlighted by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. He also runs the FitzHerald-Tribune, and lives in the Shuckster house. This is his first exhibit.  

                                                                   More pictures to come!