Endless Columns detail

Endless Columns

Endless Columns in my studio

Also on view this month at 626 S. Michigan Ave, Chicago in Columbia College Bookstore window

ENDLESS COLUMNS

I am working with trash – stuff that can’t be or isn’t recycled, mostly because it is not financially profitable.  “Endless Columns” (a take-off on Constantin Brancusi’s iconic modernist sculpture) are made of plastic jar lids and bottle caps.  The colors are beautiful, but the trash is ugly – and endless.  I hope to make people aware of just how much garbage we are throwing onto the earth, especially plastics.  Worse, they are made from petroleum, exactly what we are fighting wars for.  People are dying so we can have disposable bottles and bags.

Meanwhile,  I hope to take things that would otherwise go into a garbage dump and make beautiful environments from them.

view more of her work at:

www.maryellencroteau.net

Working - Dec 3 Installation & performance

mop heads, braided and combed

"Working" window installation

“WORKING”

In this installation, artist Jessica Vaughn presents a common, disposable working-class object for closer inspection and care.  500 mop heads create a backdrop for a live performance on Saturday, December 3 from 9am to 5pm, the length of one standard working day.  Contracted laborers comb through the mop strands, collecting fibers and generally cleaning this window space, both inside and out.

With this art installation and performance, Vaughn asks us to think about the value of work, the art of work, and issues of class, labor, and the exchange of goods.

to contact this artist:
jessvaughn.com

performance Dec 3 2011

Sister and Brother

Squabs 1960

Louisville Slugger

Sister and Brother

These watercolor paintings of my older brother and me were inspired by the family photo album compiled by my mother in the 1960s and 1970s in New Jersey.  In those old photos, we were regarding the adult behind the camera. Now that my brother and I are in our fifties, the photos seem to be looking into the future at us.
But there’s also a lot that photos can’t show. By re-interpreting the original pictures in watercolor, a child’s art material, I can bring out what I know is under the surface: what it felt to be that age in that time and place.
Sue Sommers
Pinedale, Wyoming

www.suesommers.com

Chairs are utilized as a structure for painting. In conjunction I have developed a paint that fuses into plexiglass. This enables me to replace original chair components with painted panels. Narrative situations are achieved by extending panels beyond the chair frame when mounted on the wall. Juxtaposed free standing pieces become sculptures unto themselves. When all elements are combined an installation results, this one entitled “Emotional Venues”.

to contact this artist:
fydryck@yahoo.com