Thursday, March 6, 2014

Still At Your Service

In early February Niki Johnson (my curatorial collaborator), and I both flew to Seattle and settled into a busy week. After months of working together via email and Skype (with Niki in Milwaukee and me first in New York and then in Thailand), it was a welcome change to spend time together in real life--instead of virtual internet space. Despite a few hiccups, which included an unfortunate couple of days being really sick (I blame all that airplane air), and a few broken plates, all went well and we are extremely proud of the exhibition. Plus, we also met some super great people and connected with friends we hadn't seen in awhile. So, um, yes, I would say that we had a pretty great time.

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We had scheduled two days to install the exhibition and spent the rest of our week in the Northwest promoting and giving presentations about the show. We first made our way south to Portland, Oregon to give a presentation about AYS at the Oregon College of Art and Craft. While there we met with Dylan Beck, who heads the ceramics program, and his lovely crew of ceramics students. Then I headed solo to The University of Oregon at Eugene where I met with the BFA Metals students and presented on my work in the evening. The day was wonderfully inspiring and I am grateful that I was able to spend some time with both Lyndsay Rice, who is currently running the Metals Department, and Anya Kivarkis, who heads the program at U of O, but is on sabbatical.

... And then we drove back up to Bellevue for a docent tour Friday afternoon, and a curator talk on Saturday. One of the artists in the exhibition, Giselle Hicks, was able to make it out to Bellevue to join us on Saturday and present on her work. It was so great to get to know Giselle and to finally put a face and personality to her artwork.

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When Niki and I first showed At Your Service back in 2012, we knew from the beginning that we wanted the exhibition to grow. There was just too much wonderful work out there that we kept seeing and that we wanted to include. So when the Bellevue Art Museum responded with interest in At Your Service we were thrilled. The larger space and longer timeframe made it possible for us to reach out to a wider group of artists. We were able to maintain the original group of six but also include the work of four additional artists.

The final line up includes Ariel Brice, Gesine Hackenberg, Molly Hatch, Giselle Hicks, Garth Johnson, Sue Johnson, Emily Loehle, Caroline Slotte and of course myself and Niki.

At Your Service will be on view at the Bellevue Art Museum through September 21st.

Take a look at the updated At Your Service website to see images of the work in the show and to read about the artists.

Here are some snapshots of the final layout at BAM. Unfortunately all I had was the camera on my phone, which was not too happy with the lighting conditions. We are planning to have the exhibition professionally documented before it comes down so I will be sure to post new images.















And now we are in the process of coordinating with the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft to bring AYS there in 2015. We are really happy to see the exhibition continue to travel and excited to watch it further evolve a new space.