On Friday, the MFA students went to Seattle. It was a concentrated day full of visiting the new sculpture garden, museums, galleries and Harrell Fletcher's Come Together event at The Henry.
I enjoyed the Richard Serra piece. I had seen some of his work in NY, but I enjoyed it being in an outside environment rather than a gallery. I also was really excited to see Mark Dion's installation. He was one of my favorite lecturers from my undergrad at the Maine College of Art. Maybe I also liked that I have been interested in plant imagery and this piece had some similar aspects to projects I have done myself. For a show in Portland, Maine, I potted and labeled common weeds to give them more importance and to try explain their value rather than their unfavorable identity. He also labeled "weeds" and these were actually then locked up in a museum.
I also was really intersted in seeing first hand Patricia Piccinini's work at Frye. She is one of my favorite contemporary artists. I enjoyed how awkward and terrified I felt around these creatures. After awhile, I started to feel comfortable with them and it makes me wonder how I can use some of these ideas of fear and safety with my own work.
