Blog
May 18th, 2010
I’ve had volcanoes on the brain for nearly two years. Littering my studio are volumes of sketches, nearly 6,000 photographs, reference books, stacks of maps, and a brand new, functional prototype of the artist book about Mt. Rainier I’m working on—all evidence of my attempts at capturing a series of fleeting moments and freezing them in time and on paper. (Rainier is hiding there in the clouds, at the bottom of the above photo—but what I love most is that the cone looks like an erupting volcano! And speaking of which…)
Photo by the U.S. Geological Survey
And then there’s the little corked bottle of volcanic ash on my desk, inscribed with the date of the last major eruption of Mount St. Helens: exactly thirty years ago today.
I’ve been staring at that bottle on and off, all day, reminded of why I’m doing all of this (and why I can’t wait until I have something to show you!).
This project began as a tribute to Katsushika Hokusai, the Japanese printmaker and illustrator who created his famous Views of Mount Fuji woodblock series over 150 years ago.
Hokusai wanted to demonstrate the unchanging immortality of Fuji amidst the transient nature of everyday life. To him, Fuji was forever, an unshakable icon of Japan and one of the foundations of his culture.
The trouble is, Fuji is a volcano—just like Rainier and St. Helens—that by its very nature is constantly changing right along with the lives being lived in its shadow. That knowledge is where I found the root of my own project, and since then I’ve tried to document the fire mountain in my own back yard—to be there for every change and permutation.
Today’s date lit a bit of a fire under me, and prompted me to get on with the business of finishing this artist book. Because one day this is all going to happen again. Mount Saint Helens will be first, I’d wager; being the most active and youngest volcano in the Cascades, it may only be a matter of a few years. And some day, even if it’s a hundred or a thousand years from now, Rainier is going to have its turn, too.
For now, though, I’m just doing my best to pay attention to the present moment, because one day I may need help remembering how things used to be.
April 12th, 2010
The sun came out yesterday afternoon, and Mt. Rainier peeked out from behind the clouds. On a whim I tossed my camera into the car and bolted to Paradise, where I had been hoping for one more research shot for my book: Rainier in the snow.
Well, I certainly got my wish.
An hour and a half later I was standing in the cold, at the highest point on the southern park road, and the furthest one can go before the snow melts at the end of June and the rest of the park opens.
I looked over at one of the few cars around me, and was absurdly reminded of all those winters I spent in North Dakota (minus the mountains, of course).
It was nice to think that if I wanted snow, I could come and get it whenever I wanted—without having to shovel my way out of it.
March 8th, 2010
If you ever wanted to find out once and for all what the heck an artist book is, take a little field trip to Burien, WA. The group show Page Turner: Contemporary Artist Books is up this month at the Burien Arts Gallery, a tiny half-Cape house converted into a charming exhibition space.
Kelda Martensen did a stand-up job of curating the show—and artist books aren’t easy to display, believe me. She’s represented a wide variety of work, from prints to traditional bindings to kinetic sculptures, featuring the work of artists nationwide, including Inge Bruggeman, Ken Botnick, Regin Ingloria, Jana Harper, Diana Guerrero-Macía, and many others.
The gallery is open noon to four, Thursday through Sunday, and on Thursday, March 18, at 7 pm, Kelda will be giving a curator’s talk about the work in the show, sponsored by the Book Arts Guild. Free admission, always.
I’ve got a couple of pieces in the show, as well. Above is From Concentrate,
and this is The Faery Gardener.
Here’s the rub, though: the recession has hit all galleries where it hurts, but since the Burien Arts Gallery is run by the city, times have been especially tough there. This will be the last exhibit in the Cape Cod house; and possibly the last ever for Burien Arts, unless they can find public support, funding and a new space. So come check it out before they have to close their doors on March 19 (the website says they’re already closed, but you can still see the show).
Speaking of artist books, if you missed Mnemonic Sampler at PLU, there’s another chance to catch the series in a new venue, closer to home: the Tempest Lounge, here in Tacoma.
My friend Denise is the owner of the place, and when she asked if I was interested in showing there, I jumped at the chance. Although I love the clean beauty of a traditional gallery space, my favorite exhibition venues are the offbeat ones—restaurants, coffee shops, libraries, and now classy retro bars! I love these spaces because they bring art into real life, and invite folks to feast their eyes wherever they are. Most people (including myself, I must admit) are more likely to step into an eatery or a library than a gallery, and a coffee shop doesn’t have the same intimidating associations that some people have with galleries (that feeling of “If you’re not here to buy, you shouldn’t be here at all”). Plus, at the Tempest you can have a beer or cocktail while you look at the art. You can’t beat that.
If beer isn’t your thing, you can also have a cuppa tea or joe, and the food is divine—Denise runs a classy joint here. So curl up on a retro couch for happy hour, come chat by the adorable green picket fence, or just stop in to take in that fabulous red wall. Mnemonic Sampler will be up through April 30.
December 31st, 2009
End-of-the-year summaries have never been my strong suit, not least because I tend to measure time on completely different terms than the standard calendar (like counting up from the anniversary of an important event, for instance). And since nobody seems to be able to agree on whether the decade ends this year or next (anyway, doesn’t any ten-year span count as a decade?), I think I’ll leave that one alone as well.
Instead, I thought I’d share my own way of marking time—an experiment that I’ve been working on for two years now.
My friend Sarah Christianson has spent the last several years documenting the history of her fifth-generation family farm. Among her family artifacts are several of her great grandmother’s daily diaries, which Mrs. Anderson faithfully kept for many years. As you can see, there isn’t much space to write (so most entries say things like, “Went to the store, visited with Mildred,” etc.)—but what really interested me was how the five-year format of each page paints a larger picture of a woman’s life.
Sarah and I were both inspired to start five-year journals of our own, but I decided to turn mine into a sketchbook. I loved the idea and the challenge of documenting each day with a tiny, panoramic image.
Almost every drawing depicts something mundane, even trivial; it might be a sliver of that day’s activities, or just a snippet of an object that caught my eye. I’m almost never specific in the brief phrase written in each space—in fact, already I find myself forgetting what I was referring to when I go back to look at past entries. When I do remember what I was talking about, though, each illustration triggers my memories better and more richly than any of my photographs or writing can.
But that’s not the point of this project; this was never meant to be a detailed journal of my every thought or action. Instead, I’m trying to remind myself to really look at the world around me, and to live in my own present.
Now, exactly two years into the project, the same type of narrative I found in Claire Anderson’s diaries is already beginning to emerge. The drawings serve as a sort of flip-book; as one pages through the journal my personality, tastes and interests come to life, and the result is a more complete picture of myself than I ever could have come up with consciously. And an interesting by-product of all of this is the sometimes-unwitting documentation of the current era—this book might prove to be useful in other ways, someday.
The really curious bit is how the book is both intensely personal and completely ordinary. There isn’t a single image in there that I couldn’t share with a total stranger (no nudity, no embarrassing missives, no dirty laundry, etc.), and yet I’ve only actually shown it to a handful of people. I’m not sure why that is, but now that I’ve gone “public” about it I’m sure I’ll post occasional excerpts from here on out.
At the very least, maybe this will tighten the screws on my discipline a bit. Sarah and I learned quickly how difficult it is to keep a daily journal like this, whether in words or pictures (I doff my hat to Mrs. Anderson’s habits)—it’s all I can do to keep up with it, and I’m often playing catch-up. But now that I see how worthwhile the effort has been, I find myself excited for whatever tomorrow brings.
And isn’t that the whole point?
Wishing you a happy New Year full of wonderful events and tiny moments worth savoring—however you choose to remember them.
December 10th, 2009
After nearly a year, image-gathering for my Mt. Rainier artist book is finally coming to an end, and I’m starting to make the final illustrations. I have a huge stack of sketches, scribbles and recorded data, and thousands upon thousands of photos to sift through. This month and next are scheduled for the all-important (and terrifying) process of Figuring Out How the Heck to Make It Work—physical mock-ups, final compositions, text-writing, etc. But before I could move on with a clear conscience, I had one last far-away location to cross off my research list: Portland. And for some reason, the stars just weren’t aligning for me.
My first attempt this summer was also my first-ever trip to the city, so I had to location-scout with a blank mental map—and when I finally found what I was looking for, it was too hazy to see anything anyway (hence the dotted line where Rainier should be). Since Portland is 140 miles away, I couldn’t just try again any old time I pleased. As the months went by, I became increasingly frustrated—the location I visited over the summer (Larch Mountain) is inaccessible in the winter, and although I had another spot in mind, my schedule and the weather (which was way harder to pin down than an open travel day!) just couldn’t find anything in common; the last few months have been typically Northwestern, with plenty of rain, fog and drear for a volcano to hide behind. Finally, last week, it seemed I had my chance. T-town was socked in with pea-soup fog, but since the previous day had started the same way and ended in sunshine, I decided to go for it. As I cleared the Puget lowlands and the fog lifted, I caught crystal-clear glimpses of Rainier to the east as I went, and my confidence rose. I wouldn’t know for sure until I got there, but the sunny weather seemed like it would hold. I made good time to Portland, wound my way up to Council Crest Park, jogged up to the viewpoint and faced north—
—and saw that Mt. Saint Helens didn’t get the memo. It had its own private weather system blocking Rainier from view.
It was a long drive home that night.
The last few days were torture. The weekend taunted me with sunny mornings and cloudy afternoons (good thing I didn’t take the bait), and the perfect weather went untested Monday and Tuesday while I taught class and kept appointments instead. By Tuesday night, I was sure I’d missed my last chance, and resigned myself to leaving Portland out of the book. But yesterday dawned cold and flawlessly clear, and I was astonished to find my calendar empty. I left the Tailor an incoherent voicemail at work (“I’m going right now! I’ll be back tonight!”) and jumped in the car. Exactly two hours and twenty-three minutes later, this is what I saw:
That’s St. Helens in front, with Rainier just peeking around her left shoulder.
And here’s the illustration that resulted from all this work:
And in case I had any doubts about one image being worth all this trouble, Portland offered me a little bonus—a compositional jewel that I could never have dreamed up on my own:
The City of Roses was still, impossibly, in bloom.
October 14th, 2009
When I walked into the PLU Gallery this morning to document the Mnemonic Sampler show when it opens, my brain had somewhat of a short circuit. Since I was out of town for the past few days, all of the installation work was done for me (thank you a million times over, Heather C.!)—so this was the first time I’d laid eyes on the work since framing it up and chucking the pieces in a box. I somehow couldn’t connect the finished work on the walls with the crazy, chaotic process of the past few months. It seemed so simple, like this was somebody else’s show, and all the nail-biting and never-ending futzing I’d been doing was for some other project that would remain unfinished forever. But I did finish it—and there it is!
I was nervous about the possible absurdity of having twenty-six small pieces in a colossally huge space, but somehow, it works. Heather ingeniously used lighting and visual breaks to transform the gallery into a space that draws the viewer in and creates an intimate experience—which is exactly what I hoped for. Heather, I owe you big.
On to the work itself. Here is the artist statement for the exhibit:
The alphabet is one of the first lessons we learn as children. From the beginning we learn to use it as a mnemonic device—just like “Roy G. Biv,” or “Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge”—assigning meaning to our world by associating symbols with each letter. Because the alphabet is one of our most basic and effective memory tools, we are drawn to it as both a visual and narrative archetype. It’s not surprising, then, that the abecedary is somewhat of a staple among book artists.
Just as we use our ABCs as a memory aid, our possessions help us create the concept of Home. No matter what our economic station, living situation, or domestic permanence, we all tend to share similar symbols of comfort and nostalgia. These ideals are embodied in the everyday objects around us—those mundane materials we take for granted, yet without which we would sense something lacking. As someone who has never had a picket fence, who grew up in a nomadic military family, and who has lived her entire life with relatively few possessions, the archetypal Home should seem foreign to me. Yet the same mnemonic triggers exist in my mind; the same objects attract me.
Mnemonic Sampler collects and files our household icons, gathered together like the stitched and quilted samplers of our mothers and grandmothers. The hand-stitched alphabet enumerates my, your, our trappings, shuffling our collective domestic inventory like the old card game of Memory. Each symbol is familiar; each object is Ours, whether we actually possess it or not. Together they sketch out a Home—real or imagined; longed-for or spurned; past, present, or future.
Mnemonic Sampler is a collection of monoprints, which means that instead of an edition of multiples, each print is created in such a way that it can’t exactly be reproduced. This technique results in a one-of-a-kind, totally unique piece—and is often more closely related to painting than printmaking. These pieces are printed from reduction-cut linoleum blocks—meaning both print colors are carved from the same block.
So once the second design is carved, the first color cannot be printed again.
Designing these pieces was an intuitive process, consisting of both logical and intangible choices of fabric and pattern compositions. Because the design stage was so fluid (almost semi-conscious at times), it really wasn’t possible to do the printing on a press. Instead, each impression was made literally by hand, using masking tape to aid in color registration.
“Q” has an extra conceptual level, since the fabric background is a patchwork “quilt” in its own right. Like everything else about the series, the patchwork is sewn by hand, using the English paper piecing technique.
This was my first attempt at paper piecing, and I’m pleasantly surprised at how quick and accurate it is. Instead of folding and ironing every tiny piece, then wrangling a sewing machine, each patch is wrapped around a paper template and basted down, then whip-stitched together into a block.
The result is a precise little quilt—perfect for embroidery.
I can’t believe how long it took to complete every step of the process—and yet how quickly everything came together at the end. So you can bet I’m excited about celebrating at the opening tonight. And besides, I’m interested to see if the household objects I chose will resonate with viewers; it wasn’t easy to narrow things down to twenty-six letters of the alphabet, so I picked those objects that had the most meaning for me.
So how about it—what spells “Home” for you?
September 22nd, 2009
Swatch books are very near the top of my list of Favorite Things Ever. There is something so satisfying about having every color, pattern, texture, or finish right at your fingertips. I love sitting at my table, with a cup of tea in hand and six hundred sample chips spread out before me, ready for some serious color theory. (In case you’re wondering, this is the amaze-a-crazy DMC embroidery floss über color card. Well-made swatch books like this tend to be expensive to produce, and impossible to find once they go out of print. So if you’re into this sort of thing, I’d suggest snagging your copy before they decide to quit selling them.)
These days the studio has been an explosion of choices. Snippets of fabric and open dictionaries have taken over my life as I get ready for a new solo show, which opens October 14 at the Pacific Lutheran University Gallery. Stay tuned for more details in the next few weeks.
I wish I had something more concrete to show you, but this is one of those projects where everything comes together at once, right at the end (which can be as nerve-wracking as it is rewarding). I’ve got to say, though, that calico—finished or not—sure makes for pretty pictures.
April 1st, 2009
Well, the threads are tied, everything is installed, and I’ve scanned for typos at least six dozen times. I think we’re ready.
Tomorrow evening is the opening reception for To the Letter, my debut solo show. On view are a wide variety of pieces revolving around the art of the letterform: letterpress prints, textile typography, the Feminist Broadside series, artist books, sketchbooks, and more. Stop by and say howdy!
To the Letter: Works by Chandler O’Leary
April 1-30, 2009
Collins Memorial Library, University of Puget Sound
Opening reception:
Thursday, April 2, 4:30-7:00 p.m.
Since handwork is another theme of the show (hand-lettering, hand-binding, hand-stitching, etc.), some of my process materials are also on display. Weirdly, this detail is the part I’m most excited about—I’m forever encouraging my students to include sketches, supplies and other behind-the-scenes objects in their gallery shows, but this is the first chance I’ve had to do it myself. My process tends to be particularly convoluted (probably a symptom of O.C.D. or something), so I’m hoping the sight of things like tabletop platen presses and double-pointed knitting needles will spark some interesting conversation.
Speaking of which, Jessica Spring and I are doing a double-header on Sunday. I’ll be giving a guided tour of the exhibit, and Jessica will give a lecture on her newest artist book, Parts Unknown. There’ll be plenty to talk about, so come and pick our brains!
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Collins Memorial Library
1:00-1:45 p.m. To the Letter gallery talk with Chandler O’Leary
2:00-3:00 p.m. Parts Unknown presentation with Jessica Spring
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’d better go check for typos one more time.
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