Zoë Sheehan Saldaña: There Must Be Some Way Out of Here

THERE MUST BE SOME WAY OUT OF HERE Zoë Sheehan Saldaña

THERE MUST BE SOME WAY OUT OF HERE Zoë Sheehan Saldaña

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Ain’t That Work?

Safe space. It’s become a commonplace—in architecture, in conversation, in culture at large.

People are clamoring for enclosure and protection, implying that these things, generally speaking, are in short supply. For her exhibition at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Zoë Sheehan Saldaña obliges. As soon as you enter, you find yourself in what could be called an “insecurity closet,” filled with items you might seek out in an emergency: a flotation life vest, a ball of twine, hand sanitizer, a roll of bandage, a match, even a bottle of homemade ketchup (which would be just the thing you’d want, Sheehan hypothesizes, when apocalypse comes).

Here’s the thing: she made them all from scratch.

She spun and plied and wound the twine. Distilled the alcohol for and compounded the sanitizer from constituent ingredients. Wove the bandage on a loom. Cooked the ketchup on her kitchen stovetop.

As a response to our tremulous times, this array of supplies is obviously, woefully inadequate. What we really need are measures far exceeding these modest goods: a comprehensive social safety net, genuinely humane political leadership, a remedy for impending climate disaster, and other items that can’t be fit on a shopping list. Given these shortfalls in our affairs, Sheehan’s handmade readymades positively ache with emotion: specifically, the feeling that something ought to be done but it’s hard to say what, or how, and the intuition that art should be of some help but is maddeningly unable to prove its social utility (as opposed to its market value) once and for all. Sheehan knows what she’s doing with a needle and thread. At the same time, if a good friend were drowning, would you really throw her an artwork? No: Sheehan’s life vest is fated to remain in the gallery. Like nearly all art, it is an end not a means. It preserves nothing but itself.

That said, you sure can’t fault her effort. Each of Sheehan’s works is an impressive, bloody-mindedly literal feat of facture, based on intensive research.

She’s such a skilled maker that her products closely

approximate the factory made; her labor hovers just barely above the threshold of invisibility. Given the investment of time and effort required, she does not choose her projects lightly; there is always an added dimension of metaphor and implication.

Often, dark clouds of history hover heavily over them. To make her Strike Anywhere matches, for example, she consulted with chemist Glen Kowach to retro-engineer a proper flammable compound.

The result, potential arson in your pocket, evokes the match-girl uprising of late nineteenth-century London (the factory workers were motivated in part by the fact that the “safety matches” they were making were, for them, anything but safe). More generally, it symbolizes the principle of free labor: the inalienable right to strike anywhere, anytime.

A contrary image arises in Sheehan’s practice of making pins by hand, an allusion to Adam Smith’s explication of the division of labor in his 1776 treatise The Wealth of Nations. Smith explained that by separating out the eighteen individual tasks of pin making, and assigning each to a set of workers, production speed could be increased by a multiple of fifty or more. In the process, of course, the experience of labor would become even more mind-numbingly dull than it had already been— but Smith was an economist, not a social worker.

Sheehan effectively reverses Smith’s example, making thousands of tin-plated brass pins herself, by hand, and bestowing upon her handiwork the title of his book. She vicariously embodies the gestures of the eighteenth-century workers who served, for Smith, merely as a statistical sample. The pins are accurate to that historical moment: she traveled to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England, to examine period examples. (Prior to the invention of staples, pages were held fast with pins, and because books are generally dated, this allows for the establishment of a rigorous chronological sequencing of pin technology.) Sheehan’s pile of pins numbers 2016 in total—“such a prickly year,” she reminds us—just a handful really, but a stupefying amount of labor.

What does it amount to? Well . . . that’s the question, isn’t it? For all their dystopian charge,

(opposite) Windsock, 2019 Handwoven dyed silk, aluminum, steel Woven by Justin Squizzero, The Burroughs Garret, Newbury, VT 3

Sheehan’s investigations of labor also have a deadpan charm—recalling one of American literature’s best-loved scenes, from Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer. Near the beginning of the book, young Tom is in a state of low dejection, for he is obliged to whitewash a board fence, thirty yards long and nine feet high. It looks like his day will be lost to endless toil. Then inspiration strikes. Ben Rogers saunters by—“the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been dreading.” But Tom affects complete absorption in his work, surveying each of his brushstrokes “with the eye of an artist.”

Ben sets in to teasing him: “I’m going in a-swimming, I am. Don’t you wish you could? But of course you’d druther work. . . .”

“What do you call work?,” replies Tom. “Why, ain’t that work?,” says Ben. “Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain’t. All I know, is, it suits Tom Sawyer.”

That stops Ben in his tracks. He watches for a bit as Tom “sweeps his brush daintily, back and forth, steps back to note the effect, adds a touch here and there, criticizes the effect again.” Finally, Ben can bear it no longer. “Say, Tom,” he says. “Let me whitewash a little.”

You probably know the rest. With a great show of reluctance, Tom lets Ben take over for a while and then, with equal magnanimity, allows other local boys their turns, driving a hard bargain for the privilege and supervising their progress from a nearby barrelhead. By the end of the day, Tom is “literally rolling in wealth,” the proud possessor of—among other things—twelve marbles, a spool cannon, “a key that wouldn’t unlock anything,” a brass doorknob, four pieces of orange peel, and “a kitten with only one eye.” The fence, meanwhile, has three fresh coats of paint.

This little yarn can be taken as an allegory of capitalism, if you like. Clever Tom sits indolently

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by, raking in spoils, while other fools do the work.

Indeed, the story is frequently cited (with appalling lack of irony) as an example in business-motivation courses. Yet, as Sheehan points out, the story would read quite a bit differently if Tom were a middleaged man; as it is, we can understand him not as an overseer but rather as an imaginative boy, a likely lad whose act of psychological manipulation has only trivial consequences. That is to say, Tom is a lot like an artist. Through a simple trick of reconceptualization, he transforms everyday labor into something else, something people actually, mysteriously, seem to want. This is how Twain himself interpreted his parable: “Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and . . . play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”

Sheehan has been testing that principle throughout her career. She has produced a miscellany that puts the contents of Tom’s pockets to shame: her matches and pins, a run of terry cloth towels, a jar of homebrewed lampblack, a plastic bucket. It all adds up to a grand guignol of banality, extreme in its hard-won physical particulars, but mordantly playful all the same.

Sheehan’s sense of humor finds correspondences in Twain’s own homely, hilarious images: the jumping frog of Calaveras County, for example, which is foiled in its athletic exploits by being filled with lead shot.

When Sheehan places a coyote pelt on the gallery floor, your first thought (not an incorrect one) is that she identifies with the creature, and its reputation as the Great Trickster. Your second thought is that it looks like roadkill. And your third might be to notice that, nearby, is a pile of lambskins. She’s reduced the antagonistic life-and-death struggles of the American frontier to accent rugs.

The lambskins actually do serve a purpose. She cut some of them into rollers with which to repaint the gallery walls flat white, using a milk paint of her own making. “It’s also ornament,” she observes, “if you think about it.” She claims the skin of the exhibition space, in effect also claiming the whole museum as a readymade, a blank canvas that she (in the approved Duchampian mode) “assists” through subtle transformation. There is a leitmotif running

through the exhibition of staining and cleaning, of darkness and light: on the one hand, the jar of lampblack, on the other, the bucket and towels.

She had carpets woven for the show, blending white and non-white wools, the latter not generally commercially viable (hence the proverbial black sheep of the flock). Talk to a painter these days, and you will often hear the phrase “mark making,” used in preference to the outdated idea of the gesture—freighted with expressionist intent. One way to understand Sheehan’s work is as a pervasive bluff calling, in which the presumed neutrality of conceptual art is intensely materialized, and thus brought to account.

That all sounds pretty abstract, perhaps. But Sheehan’s refusal to ever leave well enough alone marks her out as a vigorously American artist. She is fascinated by our identity as a self-made nation, our go-it-alone, damn-the-torpedoes, hell-or-thehighway perspective on the world. If her work has a single subject, it is its own freedom, which she conceives both as an ideal and an impossibility. So for this project at The Aldrich, she requested that the Museum zero out certain lines in its budget.

Shipping, gallery prep, installation: she’d handle it. Every item on display was ferried to Ridgefield in the back of her own car. For the labels and text panels, she even tried to concoct her own printing toner. (Just thermoplastic and pigment, anyone can do it, though not too many would.) The cover of the book you are reading now is printed in ink of her own manufacture.

There is a degree of parody here—a send-up of the mythic ideal of the artist as proudly autonomous.

In fact, Sheehan did accept a bit of help here and there. Very Tom Sawyerishly, she talked the Museum’s trustees into helping her paint the gallery walls, on a volunteer basis. Another minor piece of conscription involved the terry cloth towels that Sheehan wove on a loom previously used by the great German weaver Anni Albers, still functioning and accessible at the Albers Foundation in Bethany, Connecticut. It took Sheehan months to work out the exact technique to get them soft and white and

regular—exactly like those you’d find in a cheap hotel. She has asked an Aldrich staff member to throw one of the towels to the Museum’s atrium floor each morning, beginning every day with a delegated act of surrender.

Sheehan incurs many such dependencies, large and small. Practically speaking, there is always a horizon at which Sheehan must relinquish control.

I have already mentioned her collaboration with a chemist; similarly, in her attempt to make toner, she sought advice from an engineer in the industry named John Cooper, who has devoted his life to printer technology (think of that!). She didn’t alloy the brass for her pins—though she did plate them with tin herself, in her kitchen. She didn’t design the 3-D printer that she used to make her plastic bucket. Yet she always gestures outside the system, as if art could somehow slip through the iron jaws of economic supply and demand. Hence our exhibition title, borrowed from Bob Dylan: There must be some way out of here, said the joker to the thief.

It is worth recalling, in this connection, an early project of Sheehan’s—the one that first gained her national attention. Entitled Shopdropping, it involved visiting a depressing chain store and buying some cheap garments there, doubtless made in some sweatshop somewhere. Once home, she would painstakingly recreate the clothing by hand, then transfer the original tags to her replicas, and “return” them, to be sold again. As with the pins, Sheehan effectively occupied the role of an exploited pieceworker, an act of silent solidarity.

Meanwhile her art entered the marketplace by stealth, with unknown customers drafted, unwitting, into the scheme.

The gentle yet insistent utopianism of this early project is present at The Aldrich, too, notably in a hammock that hangs between two trees out front. It is visible through the Museum’s permanently installed camera obscura, whose lens has the effect of turning everything outdoors upside down. Seen from the viewing chamber, someone in the hammock appears unmoored

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from the ground, floating in midair (much as Bruce Nauman, attempting to levitate in his studio, famously didn’t). The hammock is of course hand twined, a fact that will elude all but the most vigilant passersby; here, as ever, Sheehan ensures that her craftsmanship is of sufficient excellence to evade detection.

Like her "Shopdropped" garments, drifting invisibly in plain sight down the commodity stream, the hammock manifests a level of generosity that our society is just not built to receive. It is as if she has taken on our collective inability to understand our physical environment as a private burden. This is utterly futile, of course—hence the tossed-in towel and other professions of inadequacy that punctuate the exhibition. But the very idea lends her work an urgent intensity, like that of an unheard alarm that just keeps sounding.

Sheehan has in view not just the general atmosphere of global crisis—the great Damoclean sword of climate change that hangs above all our heads—but the particular paroxysms of contemporary America.

Just after the 2016 election, when the rest of us were taking to the streets or to social media, Sheehan made a quiet pilgrimage to Death Valley, where she gathered salt. She now exhibits it in a neat mound under the accompanying title America’s Lowest Point, which Death Valley is, geographically speaking. The title leaves you free to draw your own conclusions about the Trump administration. Or, for that matter, to think of Lot’s wife, from the Book of Genesis, who was transformed into a salty pillar when she looked toward her hometown of Sodom.

In the last gallery of Sheehan’s Aldrich show, the salt sits right alongside Wealth of Nations, the two heaps balefully glinting under the lights. Also in the room are three further piles, of saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur—the constituent components of gunpowder.

Sad to say, the arrangement rings all too true as an allegorical portrait of America: the Bible, capital, and violence, in an unstable mixture.

But don’t lose hope, for Sheehan certainly hasn’t.

Her works do reflect the anxiety of our times. Yet

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they are also protracted acts of defiance. After all, if hand sanitizer can be made in the comfort of one’s own home, what else might be possible?

Sheehan’s optimism is of the most unreasonable sort, and it expresses itself, at times, in the simplest of gestures. The hammock is one example; others (not included in the present show) include a kite, discharge printed in indigo, sent flying heavenward; and an affectionate photo essay she has made of things left free for the taking in the front yards of our citizenry. She’s not the only one who finds reason to step outside the system of supply and demand.

Not for nothing did she title her last one-person show (at Vox Populi, in Philadelphia) Promised Land.

Paradise, here and now: why not? It’s just that she doesn’t want to make promises she can’t keep.

Dylan, again: Let us not talk falsely now, for the hour is getting late.

For all the legerdemain of Sheehan’s practice, then, she is ultimately playing it straight, trying her damndest to get use value, exchange value, and symbolic value—talk about an unstable mixture—to match up fair and square. If pressed to choose just one work in the Aldrich show that emblematizes her point of view, you could do worse than the wind sock that she has stitched up and placed atop the Museum. Despite its prominent position, few people in passing traffic will even notice it, fluttering up there in the breeze. For the duration of the exhibition, though, it will register the prevailing changes.

That is what Sheehan tries to do too, day after day, in her studio.

Is that . . .“work”? Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain’t. Either way, it’s Sheehan’s way of facing up to the present, even if that means facing every which way at once. Dylan, one last time: The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.

Glenn Adamson Zoë Sheehan Saldaña was born in Massachusetts in 1973; she currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Hammock, 2019 Twined cotton rope, wood, steel

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Towel, 2018 Handwoven cotton-terry cloth Created in residence at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, CT

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Wealth of Nations, 2015–17 Tin-plated brass pins created in the manner described

by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (1776)

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Salt from America’s Lowest Point, 2016 Salt collected at Badwater Basin, Death Valley, CA

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Cliffs Notes on Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, 2008–9 Laser print on Mohawk Superfine paper, sterling silver wire, wax

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Strike Anywhere, 2007–8 Poplar wood, wax, gelatin, pigments, flammable chemicals Designed and produced in collaboration with Dr. Glen Kowach, professor of chemistry, City College of CUNY

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Dropcloth, 2012 Handwoven cotton

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Roller, 2012–present Alum-tanned lambskin, phenolic cardboard tube

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Carpet, 2013 Hand-tufted cut-pile wool Created with the participation of Bill Blachly’s flock of Romney and Border Leicester sheep (Marshfield, VT); Kate Smith and the Marshfield School of Weaving (VT); Green Mountain Spinnery (Putney, VT); and Joshua Hasson (Walnut Creek, CA) 16

Screw, 2015; Anchor, 2014; Paint, 2013–present 3D-printed steel; 3D-printed plastic; handmade white milk paint (casein base made from skim milk, vinegar, washing soda, water); fillers (French chalk, marble dust, titanium dioxide)

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Life Jackets, 2008–9 Coated and heat-sealed nylon, polyester webbing, thread, buckle, reflective tape, safety whistle, milkweed-fiber-fluff filling (adult size, left; child size, right)

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The buoyant milkweed fluff inside the life jackets was grown and processed under the direction of Dr. Winthrop B. Phippen, Department of Agriculture, Alternative Crops Program, Western Illinois University (Macomb, IL).

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Ketchup, 2009 Homemade ketchup (tomatoes, corn syrup, vinegar, spices) in readymade plastic squeeze bottle

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Paper Towels, 2009 Handmade, embossed, folded paper in readymade stainless-steel dispenser Created during a workspace residency at Dieu DonnĂŠ Papermill, Brooklyn, NY Paper pulp donated by Weyerhaeuser Corporation 21

Bandage, 2015 Rolled, handwoven cotton gauze

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Ball of Twine, 2010 Homespun hemp fiber

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Tobacco, 2007–9 Cured homegrown tobacco

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Rolling Papers, 2009 Handmade linen paper, handmade cotton paper, gum arabic, glue Created during a workspace residency at Dieu DonnĂŠ Papermill, Brooklyn, NY

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Bandana, 2011–15 Discharge print on indigo-dyed cotton Indigo dyeing and printing completed with the cooperation of Marshfield School of Weaving, VT; cotton fabric handwoven by Bhabubhai Ratansinh Vanodia, Bhujodi, Kutch, India

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(opposite) Mop, 2012 Handspun cotton cord, wire, wooden handle

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Hand Sanitizer, 2010–present Ethanol distilled from fermented corn and grain, and gelling agents in readymade dispenser

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Pail, 2019 3D-printed plastic, steel

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Sulfur, Charcoal, Saltpeter, 2018–present

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Collaborators Bill Blachly and his flock

Nicole Reed

Erin Daily and Brian Weissman

David Ritchie

Dieu DonnĂŠ Papermill

Joachim Roesler

Kuldip Gadhvi

Ada Schenck

Marshfield, VT Carpet, Roller

Brooklyn Metal Works Brooklyn, NY Wealth of Nations, Windsock Brooklyn, NY Paper Towels, Rolling Papers Bhuj, Kutch, India Bandana

Joshua Hasson Joshua's Rugs Walnut Creek, CA Carpet

Fritz Horstman

Josef and Anni Albers Foundation Bethany, CT Charcoal

Fred Hoxsie and John Vesia GHP Media West Haven, CT Catalog, Signage

Richard Klein

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Ridgefield, CT Take One, Leave One Box

Glen Kowach

Department of Chemistry City College of CUNY New York, NY Strike Anywhere

Gretchen Kraus

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Ridgefield, CT Catalog

Charles Moody Los Angeles, CA Paint

Winthrop B. Phippen

Department of Agriculture, Alternative Crops Program, Western Illinois University Macomb, IL Life Jackets

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Brooklyn, NY Life Jackets

Green Mountain Spinnery Putney, VT Carpet New Canaan, CT Hammock, Windsock, Box Calais, VT Eaton Hill Textile Works Marshfield, VT Carpet

Kate Smith

Eaton Hill Textile Works and Marshfield School of Weaving Marshfield, VT Carpets, Bandana, Dropcloth

Justin Squizzero

The Burroughs Garret Newbury, VT Windsock, Towel

Bhabubhai Ratansinh Vanodia Bhujodi, Kutch, India Bandana

Jeff Weiss

Santa Monica, CA Salt from America's Lowest Point

Weyerhaeuser Corporation Seattle, WA Paper Towels

Eric Diefenbach Michael Joo Kristina Larson Neil Marcus Julie Phillips Paint

Materials Alum

Linseed oil

Sugar

Aluminum

Logwood

Sulfur

Bentonite

Methyl paraben

Tartaric acid

Brass

Milk

Tin

Cadmium red

Milkweed

Titanium dioxide

Calcium carbonate

Money

Tobacco

Calcium hydroxide

Mustard seeds

Tomatoes

Carbomer

Nylon

Triethanolamine

Charcoal

Oak galls

Vinegar

Citric acid

Oxalic acid

Vitamin E

Cochineal

Paper

Water

Corn

Pepper

Wax

Cotton

Phosphorus

Wood

Coyote

Plastic

Wool

Cream of tartar

Polyester

Yeast

Egg yolk

Potassium nitrate

Zinc

Ferrous sulfate

Potassium

Fustic

 permanganate

Gelatin

Rope

Glass

Salt

Glue

Sheep

Glycerin

Silk

Gum arabic

Silver

Hemp

Soap

Indigo

Sodium carbonate

Laser toner

Soot

Latex

Stannous chloride

Linen

Steel

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Paint First make casein from milk, vinegar, and washing soda…

Yield: approximately 1 qt of casein paint base 1. Curdle milk by slowly adding vinegar to milk with gentle stirring. Do not overmix. Cover and leave undisturbed overnight at room temperature.

2. Line a colander with several thicknesses of cheesecloth. Pour curdled milk slowly through cheesecloth to separate solid curds from liquid whey.

Drain well.

3. Rinse curds with fresh cool water. Strain through cheesecloth to retain solids. Repeat rinsing several times until vinegar smell has dissipated.

Drain well.

4. Place curds into the inner container of a double boiler. Break up curds into breadcrumb-sized pieces.

5. Sprinkle washing soda over curds and toss to distribute evenly. Add the warm water. Stir to combine.

6. Heat curd mixture over a simmering water bath. Stir frequently. Curds will begin to melt into a thick, brownish-yellow, liquid glue. Regularly scrape down sides of container. Do not overheat or glue may burn. Break up large pieces to speed melting process.

7. Pour glue through mesh strainer into a clean container to remove large particles.

8. Cover. Casein naturally gels when cool. Refrigerated, keeps for a week or more.

2 gal skim milk 2 c attika vinegar (10% acetic acid) 2 T washing soda (Na2CO3) ½ c warm water Colander Cheesecloth Double boiler, or improvise Mesh strainer

…then add fillers and pigment for body and color. Here, white pigment is used.

Yield: approximately 3 qts of white paint 1. Warm casein until liquid in double boiler.

2. Combine dry ingredients. Sift one cup of dry material into liquid casein and then blend well with electric beater. Continue adding dry ingredients cup-wise to wet with thorough beating. Keep warm while mixing. If mixture becomes too thick to effectively beat, add small amounts of boiling water to thin. Desired viscosity is a thick, pancake-like batter.

3. Pour through mesh strainer into a clean container to remove large particles.

4. Cover. Paint naturally gels when cool. Refrigerated, keeps for a week or more.

5. To use, liquify by warming to 100° F in hot-water bath. Thin as desired with hot water to achieve needed paint viscosity for your application.

Notes: Applied in thin layers, dries to an eggshell sheen. Can be sanded for smooth finish. Dry paint is water-resistant but not waterproof. Coat with acrylic or wax sealants where waterproof finish is required. Other colors are easily created by adding desired colored pigment. Milk paint applied thickly crackles as it dries. Unless toxic pigments are used, paint is nontoxic, biodegradable, and VOC-free. There is an odor of ammonia and milk to liquid paint; odorless when dry.

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1 qt casein from preceding recipe 2 c fine-powder french chalk (CaCO3) 2 c fine-powder marble dust (CaCO3) 2 c fine-powder titanium dioxide (TiO2) Boiling water as needed Double boiler, or improvise Sifter Beater or strong whisk Mesh strainer

Hand Sanitizer Yield: 800 ml (~3½ cups) 1. Combine Carbomer 940, water, and methyl paraben, and allow to sit overnight. Carbomer, which is acidic, swells as it hydrates. Methyl paraben is a preservative.

2. Combine ethanol and water to yield 800 ml at 65% ABV (130 proof).

3. Mix 3 T of swelled carbomer from step 1 with 200 ml of ethanol and water from step 2 using a stick blender. Gradually add another 200 ml of ethanol+water mixture, stirring to incorporate. Then add the remaining ethanol+water, and combine well. This effectively disperses the carbomer.

4. Combine triethanolamine (tea) and water to dilute. tea is a strong base.

5. Use a dropper to add tea solution to mixture from step 3. Add tea a few drops at a time while mixing with a spoon. Mixing with a blender will lead to unwanted bubbles. The tea causes the gel to set, and this can happen quickly, so proceed slowly until desired gel thickness is achieved. If mix is too thin, slowly add carbomer from step 1 while stirring carefully with stick blender. If mix is too thick, add additional ethanol+water.

6. Test pH, which should be ~6.5–7 (slightly acid to neutral).

7. Gently stir glycerin and vitamin E oil into mixture.

10 g Carbomer 940 270 ml distilled water ⅛ tsp methyl paraben 600 ml 90% ABV (180 proof) ethanol 200 ml distilled water 1 ml 99% triethanolamine 3 ml distilled water 2 T glycerin ¼ tsp vitamin E oil Stick blender Containers Measuring cups and spoons pH strips

(pages 36–37) Salt flat at America's lowest point, Badwater Basin, Death Valley, CA Photograph by Jeff Weiss 35

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Works in the Exhibition All dimensions h x w x d in inches unless otherwise noted Strike Anywhere, 2007–8 Poplar wood, wax, gelatin, pigment, flammable chemicals Open edition 2¼ x ⅛ x ⅛ each Designed and produced in collaboration with Dr. Glen Kowach, professor of chemistry, City College of CUNY Tobacco, 2007–9 Cured homegrown tobacco Approx. 2 oz.

Life Jackets, 2008–9 Coated and heat-sealed nylon, polyester webbing, thread, buckle, reflective tape, safety whistle, milkweed-fiber-fluff filling Adult size: edition of 14 with 1 artist’s proof 24 x 18 x 5 Child size: edition of 6 with 1 artist’s proof 16 x 13 x 3½ Cliffs Notes on Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, 2008–9 Laser print on Mohawk Superfine paper, sterling silver wire, wax; 80 pages and cover 8¼ x 5¼ x ¼ Paper Towels, 2009 Handmade, embossed, folded paper in readymade stainlesssteel dispenser Edition of 130 Dispenser: 14 × 11 × 4 Towel: 9 × 9¾ flat, 9 × 3¼ folded Created during a workspace residency at Dieu Donné Papermill, Brooklyn, NY Paper pulp donated by Weyerhaeuser Corporation Rolling Papers, 2009 Handmade linen paper, handmade cotton paper, gum arabic, glue Edition of 25 1 x 2⅞ x ¼ each Created during a workspace residency at Dieu Donné Papermill, Brooklyn, NY

Ketchup, 2009 Homemade ketchup (tomatoes, corn syrup, vinegar, spices) in readymade plastic squeeze bottle 8¼ x 2¼ x 2¼ 12 oz.

Ball of Twine, 2010 Homespun hemp fiber Edition of 10 with 1 artist’s proof 2½ x 2 x 2 Hand Sanitizer, 2010–present Ethanol distilled from fermented corn and grain, and gelling agents in readymade dispenser 11 x 6 x 4 Bandana, 2011–15 Discharge print on indigo-dyed cotton Edition of 47 with 12 artist’s proofs 22 x 22 Indigo dyeing and printing completed with the cooperation of the Marshfield School of Weaving, VT; cotton fabric handwoven by Bhabubhai Ratansinh Vanodia, Bhujodi, Kutch, India Dropcloth, 2012 Handwoven cotton 9 x 12 feet Mop, 2012 Handspun cotton cord, wire, wooden handle 60 x 6 x 6 Roller, 2012–present Alum-tanned lambskin, phenolic cardboard tube Open edition 9 x 2 x 2 each Carpet, 2013 Hand-tufted cut-pile wool Installed dimensions in Sound Gallery: 170 sq. ft.

Created with the participation of Bill Blachly’s flock of Romney and Border Leicester sheep (Marshfield, VT); Kate Smith and the Marshfield School of Weaving (VT); Green Mountain Spinnery (Putney, VT); and Joshua Hasson (Walnut Creek, CA)

Paint, 2013–present Handmade white milk paint (casein base made from skim milk, vinegar, washing soda, water); fillers (French chalk, marble dust, titanium dioxide) Installed dimensions in Opatrny Gallery: approx. 1,116 sq. ft.

Painted with the assistance of Museum Trustees Eric Diefenbach, Michael Joo, Kristina Larson, Neil Marcus, and Julie Phillips.

Anchor, 2014 3D-printed plastic Open edition ⅜ x ⅜ x 1¼ each Coyote, 2014 Purchased coyote pelt 60 x 20 x 4 Bandage, 2015 Rolled, handwoven cotton gauze 3¾ x 180 Screw, 2015 3D printed steel Open edition ⅝ x 1/3 x 1/3 each Wealth of Nations, 2015–17 Tin-plated brass pins created in the manner described by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (1776) Individual pins: 1 inch long Installed in pile: 3 x 4 x 4 Salt from America’s Lowest Point, 2016 Salt collected at Badwater Basin, Death Valley, CA Dimensions variable Towel, 2018 Handwoven cotton-terry cloth Edition of 2 with 1 artist’s proof 18 x 33 each Created in residence at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation Bethany, CT

Carpet, 2019 Handwoven dyed wool and linen Installed dimensions in Camera Obscura: 120 sq. ft.

Woven by Ada Schenck under the direction of Kate Smith, Eaton Hill Textile Works, Marshfield, VT Hammock, 2019 Twined cotton rope, wood, steel Approx. 132 x 48 Pail, 2019 3D-printed plastic, steel Open edition 16 x 12 x 12 Signage, 2019 Exhibition introductory-text panel printed in handmade oak gall ink; exhibition catalog cover and checklists printed using handmade lampblack pigment Created in collaboration with Fred Hoxsie and John Vesia, GHP Media (West Haven, CT); and Gretchen Kraus, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Take One, Leave One Box, 2019 Paper, glue, readymade objects Participatory artwork in which the public is invited to exchange items for other items left by Museum visitors Dimensions variable Created in collaboration with Richard Klein, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Windsock, 2019 Handwoven dyed silk, aluminum, steel Approx. 13 x 13 x 40 Woven by Justin Squizzero, The Burroughs Garret, Newbury, VT

All works courtesy of the artist unless otherwise noted

Sulfur, Charcoal, Saltpeter, 2018–present Dimensions variable; approx.

1 oz. each

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The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Founded by Larry Aldrich in 1964, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is dedicated to fostering the work of innovative artists whose ideas and interpretations of the world around us serve as a platform to encourage creative thinking. The only museum in Connecticut devoted to contemporary art, The Aldrich has engaged its community with thought-provoking exhibitions and education programs throughout its fifty-five-year history.

Board of Trustees Eric Diefenbach, Chair; Diana Bowes, Vice-Chair; Linda M. Dugan, Treasurer; Claude K. Amadeo, Secretary; Michael Joo; Patricia Kemp; Kristina Larson; Neil Marcus; Amy Pal; Julie Phillips; Andrew J. Pitts; Georganne Aldrich Heller, Honorary Trustee; Kathleen O’Grady, Chair Emerita; Martin Sosnoff, Trustee Emeritus Larry Aldrich (1906–2001), Founder Cybele Maylone, Executive Director Text and compilation © 2019 The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Published by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum 258 Main Street Ridgefield, CT 06877, USA 203.438.4519 aldrichart.org ISBN: 978-0-9994533-8-4

Design: Gretchen Kraus in collaboration with Zoë Sheehan Saldaña Copy Editor: Mary Cason Printer: GHP Media in collaboration with Zoë Sheehan Saldaña

Cover: ink prepared with handmade lampblack pigment; designed and produced by Fred Hoxsie, Gretchen Kraus, and John Vesia in collaboration with Zoë Sheehan Saldaña

Generous support for Zoë Sheehan Saldaña: There Must Be Some Way Out of Here is provided by Kathleen O’Grady, The O’Grady Foundation, The Coby Foundation, and The PSC-CUNY Research Foundation Award Program.

Zoë Sheehan Saldaña: There Must Be Some Way Out of Here November 24, 2019, to May 17, 2020 Organized by Guest Curator Glenn Adamson

Gestures toward self-sufficiency abound in this exhibit, but not even tardigrades really do anything in a vacuum.

Many of the collaborators whose expert contributions made the artwork possible are previously listed in this publication. Thank you all. Special thanks to Glenn Adamson and Richard Klein for their trust and periodic nudging. To my parents, Denise Saldaña and Michael Sheehan: thank you for putting up with me for my entire life. No way out but through.

Zoë Sheehan Saldaña