Art Laundry and Where Art Comes From

09 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Art World, Artists, Compass Gallery at Willamette Heritage Center, Drawings, Family photos, Just visual, Modern Life, Oregon, PNAA, Sculpture, Uncategorized

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Art Laundry at Compass Gallery, Carolyn Schneider, Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Jan Zach, Jonathan Bucci, making art, Marie Watt, Milton Avery, PNAA, Russell Childers

This week of working in the backyard studio with Carolyn Schneider, somebody I’ve known since the 7th grade when we met in an art class, has been fun. Interesting. Poignant. Hilarious. Sad. Our own work, our dead mothers and fathers, our family dynamics, aging, our own work…all this talk whirling around while we have worked has brought feelings, ideas and thoughts to our dialog beyond just what the art project of the moment might be. Depth of feeling and meaning in work have been our topics…

and everything we have talked of and thought of was brought to the fore when we visited the Hallie Ford Museum today to see the wood carvings of Russell Childers. Beautifully curated by Jonathan Bucci the show “Russell Childers: Oregon Outsider” is up at the museum until October 23rd, giving you LOTS of time to see it.

A victim of the Eugenics movement (removing the “damaged” from society) the deaf and dumb Childers was placed by a judge in Salem’s state facility “Fairview Training Center for the Feeble Minded” (as it was then called) when he was aged 10, over the objections of his mother…and he spent the next 38 years of his life at Fairview. He began to carve wooden pieces while there and it was his talent as a carver that eventually gained his release. This work embodies all that Carolyn and I talked of this week and much more…feelings, memories, the desire to make…it’s all here in this beautiful work. I’m not going to label each piece but reading the informative labels will deepen your feeling for the show I think, as it did ours.

Also on view at the museum in another nice show curated by Bucci, are the drawings of sculptor Jan Zach…Zach and a student of his “discovered” Childers and his work, giving him some years of acclaim and inspired working. The Judith and Jan Zach Archive is part of the Pacific Northwest Artists Archive of the papers of regional artists, and many of the drawings are from the archive.

In the “on-loan” section of the museum just now is a nice Milton Avery painting

…and then I visited my family blanket in the Marie Watt piece…

before we headed off for a restorative coffee…

Two more days of “Art Laundry” before Carolyn goes home and the Compass Gallery returns to a gallery…laundry no more. 1313 SE Mill Street…11:00-3:00. Tomorrow Carol Green will be with us sewing bags. Come on down.

Art Laundry, III

30 Saturday Jul 2016

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Art World, Artists, Bonnie Hull, Compass Gallery at Willamette Heritage Center, Drawings, Ephemera, Just visual, Modern Life, PNAA, Salem, Uncategorized

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Art, Art Laundry 3, Art work, Bonnie Hull, Carolyn Schneider, Drawings, hand quilting, PNAA, Quilts

Carolyn Schneider and I met in a 7th grade art class. Our first forays into the art world were on the subway into the city to go to the Art Institute of Chicago when we were 13. We’ve been looking at art, thinking about art and making art ever since. For the last decade we’ve had an annual studio event either in her California studio, or in mine…more talking, more looking, more art-making, some writing.

In 2012 we had a gallery show in Fort Bragg, California which we called “Art Laundry” and it looked like this.

Drawings, quilts, mending, sewing, prints…it even included my little “Gallery of Plaid”

and then in 2015 Carolyn and ART LAUNDRY came to Salem…and it looked like this:

It was drawing, it was quilts, it was talking and masks and thinking of that interface between making art and doing routine work and domestic work, it was fun and serious.

This year Art Laundry III comes to the Compass Gallery at the Willamette Heritage Center, 1313 Mill Street SE. August 3 the gallery will be hung with Carolyn Schneider’s drawings, my quilts and monoprints. Beginning Monday August 8 Carolyn and I will be in the gallery for 4 days, 11-3 daily. Carolyn will be performing public ironing and talking about work of all kinds. The “opening” will be Thursday night August 11th at the gallery, from 5-7. We urge you to come see us, bring some ironing, sit and talk about the work you are making, the work we are making, or how you learned to iron a shirt…see you very soon!

What Was Art Laundry?

05 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Artists, Drawings, Inadvertent Galleries, Modern Life

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Art, Art Laundry 2, Carolyn Schneider, installation art, Project Space 2015, Quilts

Carolyn took the last load out of the dryer yesterday…

and we packed up, taking only a little bit of time to reflect on what happened here after we walked into a cavernous unlit space on August 24…

We brought art supplies, ironing boards, sewing machines, mannequins, tables and chairs and “set up shop”. We worked in the space 8:30 to 6 most days, we did not do the work we thought we’d do and we did do and think about things that hadn’t occurred to us before we started.

The lasting thoughts we take away are that shared narratives are a strong thread between friends and strangers, that the smallest tasks carry big memories and relate in many ways to other things we do, that visual art is pretty inclusive and not exclusive, and that community, place, making art and gathering together adds a dimension to one’s work. We made much less art work than we thought we would, and had a lot more interesting dialogs with each other and with our visitors than we had imagined. 211 Commercial was a pretty hard place to transform, but we had fun trying and our visitors had fun too. Image-based people prefer images, so here are a few from our Art Laundry run…

We had an opening…

Sidney came…

Krista became a collaborator…getting into the spirit of things by switching out her table and bringing her own ironing board…

and by Friday we tidied up..

celebrated…

and said goodbye…

Art Laundry, Day 3

26 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Art World, Artists, Bonnie Hull, City, Drawings, Ephemera, Just visual, Modern Life, Uncategorized

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Art, Art Laundry 2, Bonnie Hull, Carolyn Schneider, drawing, installation, masks, Project Space 2015, Salem Art Association

Carolyn Schneider and I have just completed the third day of “Art Laundry II”, part of Salem Art Association’s Project Space, 2015. Our proposal was to work in the space daily and build an installation where we examined the threads between “women’s domestic work” and art work. How they might be similar, how they might be different, does sewing relate to drawing, does painting relate to mending, does collage relate to all of it and then…what about ironing? Each day (except Sunday, August 30) until September 4th Carolyn and I will be at 211 Commercial St NE from 2-6.

We started with a big empty space…and are slowly filling it…

(Ross said it reminded him of post-Katrina New Orleans)

Today we got light bulbs…

During the hours 2-4 we will be ironing. Yesterday we did linen blouses, men’s shirts, hankies…today somebody brought in sheets and another brought in pillow cases. Carolyn loves to iron and it has been a fascinating discussion of ironing techniques, householding in general and the things mothers used to do…everybody seems to agree with…”Start with the collar”…

There’s drawing…

Masks are part of it…

and a few family members showed up too…

We have chairs, we have fun, we have art, we having ironing, we have discourse…come on down!

Art Laundry 2

12 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Artists, City, Drawings, Modern Life, Salem Art Association, Uncategorized

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Art, Art Laundry 2, Art work, Bonnie Hull, Carolyn Schneider, Drawings, Project Space, Salem Art Association

In 2012 I went to Fort Bragg, California, to make art with my friend artist Carolyn Schneider, and to put up a show called “Art Laundry” at the Lost Coast Culture Machine Gallery. We had fun, worked hard, and the show was a success and held over for another month. Carolyn discovered her latent desire to iron in public, I had a great time drawing, sewing, etc. I made the “Shrine to Plaid”…

..and put up drawings, quilts, monoprints. This year Carolyn is coming to Salem and together we are going to make an installation called “Art Laundry 2″…as part of SAlem Art Association’s Project Space 2015…

We’ll be setting up shop at 211 NE Commercial Street from August 24-September 4, with the “opening” on Wednesday, September 2nd. We intend to draw, cut, sew, wash, dry, mend, iron, fold and repeat. We hope to consider art work and women’s work, and the space between. Public ironing will occur daily from 1-2…come see us.

ART LAUNDRY

10 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Art World, Bonnie Hull, Drawings, Quilting, Uncategorized

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art installation, Art Laundry, Art work, artist's studio, Carolyn Schneider, creative ironing, Fort Bragg, gallery, Lost Coast Culture Machine

It all began when Carolyn thought we might want to collaborate on an installation in her “home” gallery Lost Coast Culture Machine, in Fort Bragg, California. She then admitted a deep-seated need to iron in public, and “Art Laundry” was born…with the support of gallery owners Anne Beck and Dietmar Krumrey.

We visited the gallery when I arrived…

to check the spaces for the installation…

…and then headed back to Carolyn’s studio.

where we considered ideas (thanks Corrie)

discovered Carolyn’s sewing machine didn’t work…

so I turned to work on paper and managed to come up with 18 items in a few days…ALL made on the wonderful paper made by Anne and Dietmar at Lost Coast. They use old clothes, shredded money (that is…money taken out of circulation and shredded by the bank), pampas grass (a non-native invasive plant) and many other things they include in the fibers when they make paper. I found the paper sensational to work on and came home with a suitcase full…soon they will have online sales.

Carolyn, meanwhile, had a meeting or two, grocery shopping, painting the boxes for the installation, plus making a few smaller pieces to go with her 6 “Big Girls” (as I took to calling them)…

and eventually we packed up and headed to the gallery.

I was going to make the small gallery room into “the shrine to plaid” and got to work…

with the final result looking like this and accommodating all of my work on paper and small fabric pieces, plus the Virgin of Guadalupe quilt…and once it was lit it looked pretty great…

meanwhile the big girls went up and so did the quilts…

Carolyn’s ironing area materialized along with her “shadow” on the wall…

the boxes were wrapped and the rugosa rose hips were picked (on a much needed walk/bikeride)

the lighting adjusted…

and we were open for business…and it was too much fun…

the day after the opening I sewed in the gallery for awhile…Anne’s going to finish the “goodbye quilt” and send it along and I’ll quilt it and send it back as a thank you for giving over the gallery and letting us play…and play we did!

If you are in Fort Bragg, Carolyn will be ironing twice a week for the run of the show…!

Art Laundry…Part 1

26 Wednesday Sep 2012

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Bonnie Hull, Trips, Uncategorized

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Andries Fourie, Art, Art Laundry, Bonnie Hull, Carolyn Schneider, Lost Coast Culture Machine

I leave Friday for California, for a 10 day sojourn in Fort Bragg. Carolyn Schneider and I will be doing an installation at the Lost Coast Culture Machine…”Hull and Schneider met in a seventh grade art class in the Chicago suburbs, where Lake Michigan is the ocean.”

We’ll be examining the iconography of a mid-west girlhood where we leave some things out, but use every medium at hand to examine our co-past. (I know…two former wild girls roaming sedately around the Lost Coast. Now really, doesn’t it sound like fun?)

Last week I packed off some boxes of quilts…and they have arrived…

but we are considering drawing, book-making (the object kind, not the betting kind), ironing, sewing, quilting, drawing, washing, mending, drawing. The show opens October 6th and for the month Carolyn will be appearing in the gallery for “ironing hours.”

My first laundry piece was made in 1977…I was in a lint mode…washing and drying certain things together (a sweater and a towel with frayed fabric, for instance) to produce good looking lint…

The “tag line” for our show is “DRAW SORT CUT SEW WASH DRY MEND FOLD REPEAT” and we have lots of clothes line and clothes pins…I think you can expect a little bit of resonance with Andries Fourie’s beautiful installation (silk screen on sheeting) down at Project Space 2…165 Ferry Street SE…think it will be open Friday night between 5 and 9 (but I’ll already be in California so I won’t see you…). You can get a view through the window if you are out and about this week. Go see…it’s a wonderful space.

Artweek…2011

29 Thursday Sep 2011

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Artists, Drawings, Studio, Uncategorized

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artweek, Carolyn Schneider

Here’s a little story…two girls met in art class in 7th grade. They became friends. They dressed in black (like “beatniks”) and took the El to the Loop to the Art Institute to “hang out”…and many years later they began the annual “artweek” visitations. Sometimes in Carolyn’s studio in California, sometimes in mine in Salem. This year, mine. Both wound up on the west coast, far from Wilmette Jr. High School, which has been torn down…

This year we had a lot to talk about…and the week hinged on the talking. We were in very different places…Carolyn working on “The Guardian” series of drawings for a show opening October 7th in Fort Bragg, me dinking around after a curatorial spring and summer, a summer filled with quilts and gardens, trying to work my way back to 2D.

We began and ended with a drawing exercise that, while it didn’t produce great drawings, was incredibly interesting. We each sat with a piece of paper. We could not look at each other, we could not speak. She drew something on her page, I drew something on my page…and by the time we quit we were “on the same page”…if you know what I mean…

and the next day it was right to work…Carolyn’s “Guardians”…one third day of the dead, one third Nepalese myth and imagery, one third pure Carolyn

Carolyn played with gouache

and pastels…

meanwhile at my end I finished a wax piece

and did a couple of little metallic paintings

but mostly fooled with some collages…partly because they were closer to the piecing I’d been doing all summer…and, inevitably, the week came to a close. On Carolyn’s last night we had our “exit interview” but the drawings reflected our mood of overload…

and then the oh no moment had finally arrived…

and she was gone…

…but we’ve hatched a plan for a series of paintings…starts soon at the end of the month…

LIVING THE CREATIVE LIFE: Carolyn Schneider and “The Lost Coast”

02 Friday Apr 2010

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Artists, Living the Creative Life, Studio, Uncategorized

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Carolyn Schneider, Living the Creative Life

Sunday was another sunny day and we headed north across the Golden Gate to Fort Bragg (about 10 miles north of Mendocino). They call it the “Lost Coast” for reasons I don’t know but it IS a hike–four hours from any airport etc. It rained and poured the day I was there so I have no coastal shots either, but here goes:

I admit to quilting the whole way in the car, not taking even one photo of the gorgeous drive through wine country and redwoods. Bill had the welcome mat rolled out for us though:

After fortification we headed out to the studio:

Carolyn’s studio is the entire second floor of the barn where I fell in love with the floor. Carolyn painted the circles when she first arrived in Ft. Bragg about 2 years ago–sort of a “rite of passage” into a new “culture.”

Carolyn and I worked all evening and the next day–she on some collages, me on a tiny quilt top for her to take on a coming trip east to have some “handwork”. I hadn’t brought any “paint clothes” but next visit we plan to just wreck havoc up there making stuff.

(Look at this cute WHITE featherweight!!) We found a box of tiny fabric samples from the 1940’s which I tried to make into something:

Chef Bill meanwhile kept us supplied with DELICIOUS meals:

creamed morrels on toast…yum…

But alas..we had to go back in the sheeting rain, through the redwoods, winding around the vineyard hills, through the rainbow tunnel and

back to the city. I’ve returned refreshed, and reminded what a treasure it is to have a good friend with whom one sees eye to eye.

Art Week, Day Four

06 Tuesday Oct 2009

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Artists, Cottage Studio, Uncategorized

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Carolyn Schneider, Cottage Studio

Well last night I was too tired to post. We worked cheerfully but soundlessly all day long stopping for a few trips to Cooke’s Stationey for clips and pens and things–not even eating lunch until 3:00. We completed our books, started hanging them up. Today we have to finish all the work and then tidy up. Our “Opening” is at 7:30 tonight.

Yesterday began with a bunch of artists having breakfast and Carolyn gamely came along: