Wrapping Trees

photos by James Pellegrino

Language

Trees and Type

So this is a rough draft of the installation I am working on right now. I am doing everything backward and it is taking way longer than it needs to which is why this picture is taken in the dark. Eventually it should read as one line of text.
This was my attempt to figure out what size text each tree needed to make the words appear to be the same size from one viewing spot. The "was" is a test.
Having a studio has inspired an obsession with tacking things on the wall and I am a little enamoured with it as a collage.
I am enamoured with other people's studios as well. This is Erica Warren's.
And this is Erica painting, she has to wear headphones or I will talk her ear off.

Webs

So after many experiments and many failures I finally settled on Acetate for my outdoor installation. I am going to do several more in this grove. I wish I could get a better picture of how they all look together because its pretty cool. My classmates mentioned that they look like webs from far away or soap bubbles that got caught. I like that but I prefer them when I am at an angle where there is no glare and there is just text floating through the trees.

Did I mention that I really like working outside?

Negative Space

So, I am trying to fill the negative space between branches and trees with paper and text. It is a fairly ridiculous venture and nothing has quite worked out yet but I am really enjoying working outside instead of being a passive observer of nature.

These are just experiments, once I find a technique I really like I will do larger areas wither in one tree or a group of trees. Did I mention that I love working outside? I feel a little strange making work out where people are not necessarily expecting it, I feel like I am being intrusive and I feel weird putting art in trees. I don't think they need to be any more artistic than they already are but it is important to me to have the opportunity to talk about how beautiful they are to draw attention to how profoundly they affect us whether we know it or not.

As part of this project I have been working on a creative writing piece about a woman who was raised by trees.

Sipon at Art Sauce

Here is the finished version of Siphon at the end-of-quarter show. It was a lot of fun to watch people walk through it. Everyone had a different experience some more akin to what I had in mind than others. . One visitor left me a note with phrases they had gleaned from the piece, it is a pretty amazingly composed poem on their part and made my day.







My parents and my brother came up to see the show, it was great to see them and my brother took some great photographs of the show and of the brief tour I gave them of the art studios. Here's the link to his album:



http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=JTSchaefers&target=ALBUM&id=5321317969499297457&authkey=Gv1sRgCIn1tbG904jbwgE&authkey=Gv1sRgCIn1tbG904jbwgE&feat=email

Inside Siphon

I have a lot of work left on this installation but I like where its going. It is hanging in the studio in what used to be a walkway. My studio mates walk through it all the time and report to me on how cool it is to be in the installation when an outside door opens and the wind blows through or how people touring the campus walk through it and enjoy it or are bewildered by it. I am so happy with the fact that people can interact with this piece that I have no ability to really process it in any formalist sense. I don't know if it is beautiful or profound or adequately crafted I just know it is incredibly fun to make and incredibly fun to experience. I can't really imagine making flat art again.