From the Inside Out
What Is It and What Is It For? Heather Brammeier on the Making of From the Inside Out
I was working on a collaborative project, a painting one of my graduate students and I were trading back and forth. I like my undergraduate students to be able to watch this process unfold and ask questions that arise about painting, collaboration, and the artistic process in general.
“What is it?” an undergraduate asked a number of times, squinting her eyes at the painting; it was the undue stress on the word ‘is’ that caused me to laugh out loud. “We’re discovering what it is as we go,” I said, or some such explanation. “I don’t know yet.” It is that qualifier ‘yet’ that is so significant in abstraction as well as any type of improvisational process. It is not knowing yet that is a huge obstacle for many of my students in beginning courses; they want to be told what to make, how to make it, and what it will look like when they’re finished. “I don’t know yet,” is unsettling to them. Of course, it’s one of the most important lessons to learn if one is to be an artist. Artwork is revealed over time, not just to the viewer, but to the artists themselves. This element of time adds a built-in uncertainty. Time itself is difficult to comprehend. Lacking concrete manifestation, we mark time indirectly. It is an abstraction. No wonder, then, that artwork that requires time just to physically traverse, much less comprehend, is difficult to define. Nicholas and I faced this challenge each time we had to introduce a student or group of students to the From the Inside Out collaboration in process. Fortunately, it became much easier as time went on, the installation grew, and there more to see. “Take some time to look around first,” we could say. “Then consider what your contribution could be. You don’t have to be able to sew. There are any number of ways you can add to the piece.”No wonder, too, that as time went on, more students were willing to join in. I’ve already categorized the piece as an installation, which usually incorporates sculptural elements. Yet this piece, particularly the “wall” in the form of a golden spiral, incorporates a lot of two-dimensional type of work; drawing, quilting, sewing, and printmaking. Unlike most two-dimensional artwork, which con-
fronts the viewer with a whole visual impression that can then be examined piece by piece, we created a piece that, perceived part by part, gradually builds a perception of the whole. This type of visual comprehension is more typical of sculpture, which requires viewing from all sides to fully perceive the whole; however, the scale and placement of the structural elements of From the Inside Out actually require a mental re-construction that is similar to our comprehension of architecture. This is appropriate, because one of our primary goals was to highlight the architecture of the gallery space, exploiting the second floor overlook, the niches around the outside wall of the gallery, and the windows to the outside space. This consideration and customization to the space in which the exhibition is mounted has become a defining characteristic of site-specific installation, a category in which From the Inside Out could certainly be placed. An interesting dynamic arose between the sophistication required to perceive the piece in totality and the accessibility of the individual parts. The vignettes created along the fabric wall are accessible both physically and visually, enticing the viewer’s sense of touch and stimulating the imagination with color. The visual aesthetic relates to folk art more than fine art, in both the imagery and the use of materials. The students who contributed imagery touched upon basic themes of common experience: portraiture and sense of identity, animals and interaction with nature, geometry and optical patterns, and doorways or windows that activate curiosity and engagement through play. Though these themes are basic, and thus accessible to a wide audience, they create more complexity in the whole. These elements were the unknowns when the piece began, and they were also the least controlled. Nicholas and I certainly maintained a supervisory role, but on the whole we advocated revisions rather than deletions, and we embraced the variety of contributions to the wall. Nicholas admitted (during the gallery talk, prior to the opening reception) that the process was humbling, because even though we could have imposed more artistic direction and control, the spirit of the collaborative process underscored for us that our decisions were not automatically more valid than those of a young newly embarking on a program of study in art. One beginning art student, after working in the gallery with peers for about an hour, asked, ”What is this for, anyway?” A naïve question, perhaps, but still, a question artists should continually be asking themselves. The medium of fabric was most accommodating to combining the efforts of a number of individuals; it allowed for some people to work an hour or two only, while others put in twenty or more hours over the course of two weeks. The fabric walls are like paintings in color and texture, but the process was very much collage and assemblage. We departed from the grid dictated by formal quilting or design and embraced the improvisation of collage or crazy quilting. Chance was a factor in assembling so many pieces, but consideration was given to each juxtaposition and transition.
The pre-ordained structure of the golden spiral with double wall created large planes whose curves, while gradual, made the fabric walls anything but flat. Both frustrating and freeing, the large impact of slight curves points to a larger theme Nicholas and I chose to undertake. In painting and sculpture, we both investigate that which is neither two-dimensional nor three-dimensional, but somewhere in between. In the dictates of physics, no surface, however flat, in the three-dimensional world can ever actually be only two dimensions. However, we use the categorizations of twodimensional and three-dimensional in art to highlight and summarize the differences between the approaches. Two-dimensional work is often meant to create an illusion of depth, while three-dimensional work usually exploits the physical depth of sculpture “in the round”. As a painter who often paints hard-edged shapes most easily described as flat, the instinct to rebel against this reductive categorization has grown more insistent over the past few years. “Flat” shapes or hard-edged shapes can create depth, not only through the type of optical illusion employed by Op Art painters, but also by employing color, gradients, and, yes, brushstroke and surface quality (an element I have often had to explain is intentional in my paintings). This was my response in an internal dialogue that led to the self-imposed challenge of pushing further towards the three-dimensional without sacrificing flat shapes. This challenge resulted in the making of Flatness and the Third Dimension, seen here accompanying the golden spiral. The intertwining, curving shapes are cut from cardboard, then covered with fabric on both sides. The hand sewing required is laborious but essential. Though mounted on a wall, they do not lie flat; they are intertwined physically rather than optically. They are a painting come to life, given dimension, and though there is a “back” not fully visible, that side is congruous, just as the back of the head not usually seen in a portrait still must be there to complete the head. Nicholas also included “accompanying” pieces separate from, but companions to, the golden spiral wall. His vinyl sculptures approach the in-between-dimensions problem from the other side; rather than intentionally emphasizing flatness in a three-dimensional object, he hides it. In particular, his sparkly black vinyl sculpture is voluminous; its diminutive form still suggests monumentality with the same confident arrogance of Puppy, a forty-three-foot-tall topiary by Jeff Koons. It seems bundled with potential energy, an entity that might spring to life in monumental form like the Stay-Puft marshmallow man in Ghostbusters. Surprisingly, removed from the gallery setting, the plywood backing and floppy vinyl folds expose the masterful illusion in this piece.
The wall itself is a purposeful balance between flatness and dimensionality. Meant to allude in some ways to Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc, it is not cold steel, but touchable fabric. Its form is not solid and heavy, but comparatively thin, and covering empty spaces inside. Thus it became a rejoinder, as Peoria Journal Star writer Gary Panetta aptly called it, to Tilted Arc. We created a monumental form by hand rather than using industrial production methods. We exploited the space in between the inner and out wall, creating pockets, shelves, and permeations within the wall. We invited the viewer to follow a path along the wall, as Serra did with his Arc, but rewarded the viewer with intricate visual and physical discoveries along the way. In fact, we saw viewers as being lured rather than forced along a path; from the intrigue of the outdoor element that we planned would draw in our viewers to the doorway in the wall hidden behind the largest arc of the spiral wall, we sought to entice the viewer to explore the gallery space deeper and more fully than a traditionally mounted exhibition would. The exploration culminates in a trip to the second floor of the building to view the spiral at the only vantage point from which it can be seen in its entirety, the windowed overlook outside of the gallery space. So From the Inside Out is a layering of perspectives; it becomes more than a succession of flat imagery, more than a sculpture in the round, it is a place, an accretion of spatial experiences. It could be summarized in words or in two dimensions, as a building can be with a blueprint, but a full understanding can only be reached by experiencing it on a number of physical and mental levels of exploration. The perception gained, like the physical artwork, is diminished by attempts to summarize—but isn’t that true of all artwork? The unified whole can be parsed and discussed in a variety of sophisticated ways that belie the simplicity and accessibility of the individual parts. Our original intention in using the golden spiral was its connection to natural forms. As we constructed and experienced it in the gallery space, we realized the natural reference was actually secondary to more abstract manipulations of our experience of time and space. Forced to summarize, to put words to experiences, as visual artists are loathe to do, I will choose to call From the Inside Out not painting, not sculpture, not collage, assemblage, fiber art, or even architecture. I will attempt to simplify more by broadening to the term that complicates because of its embrace of imagination, wit and whimsy, mental modeling, and strained metaphors; I will call it abstraction. -Heather Brammeier
Nearly a century ago, Vladimir Tatlin designed a tower to embody the revolutionary new society ushered in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. A feat of advanced engineering to be built of glass and steel higher than the Eiffel Tower, The Monument Sign of the Times to the Third International stands as one of the Nicholas Nyland on the Making of From the Inside Out great unbuilt tributes to collectivism (aka communism) and Constructivism, a grand symbol of Modernism. A little more than half a century later, artist Richard Serra was chosen to create a work of public art to “grace” the new plaza of the planned addition to the Jacob Javits Federal Building in New York. Serra’s work, titled Tilted Arc, was a 120 foot long by 12 foot high sheet of unfinished steel that bisected the plaza whose effect was, according to Serra: “The viewer becomes aware of himself and of his movement through the plaza. As he moves, the sculpture changes. Contraction and expansion of the sculpture result from the viewer’s movement. Step by step the perception not only of the sculpture but of the entire environment changes.”(1) When Heather and I decided to embark on the project that would become From the Inside Out, we spoke of our intentions in many of the same terms used by Serra for Tilted Arc. We strove to activate the gallery space in such a way as to encourage the viewer to slow down and become more conscious of their perceptions not only of the work, but of their place within it. Calling upon these precedents also freights the work with the less pleasant realities that followed the idealistic beginnings: the impossibility of the promised utopia of communism which finally collapsed with the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 - this ironically coincides
with the year that federal workers cut Tilted Arc into three pieces for scrap after Serra lost a protracted legal battle following a heated controversy and calls for the artwork’s removal. In many senses, From the Inside Out, is the “anti-Serra”; we strove to no less idealistic goals but set about acting upon them with a different strategy. Firstly, we wanted to include as many individual voices as were interested in participating. This necessitated a structure that was both capacious enough and unifying to be a coherent work of art. The golden spiral served double duty as an excellent form that brought together references to Tilted Arc and Tatlin’s tower while absorbing a great many pieces contributed by our student collaborators. Our material choices were also chosen in stark contrast to the virtuoso feats of engineering and industrial might that has been traditionally championed through Modernism and the project cited above. The wood armature of the spiral was covered with fabrics pieced together with needle and thread. A kinder, gentler monument to collectivism emerged after two long weeks and yards of fabrics donated by inveterate quilters (Heather’s late mother’s own collection of fabrics were incorporated into the work). Unlike Modernism’s trademark refutation of history, this piece embraces and hopes to join what we are discovering is less the linear trajectory of “progress” but a spiraling out of human experience. -Nicholas Nyland Notes 1. PBS Culture Shock, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/visualarts/tiltedarc_a.html, accessed June 20, 2010
Heuser Gallery as seen from the second floor overlook.
The plywood framework for the inside installation.
The ample floor space in the gallery became our workspace for assembling fabrics.
As larger portions of fabrics were assembled, we hung them over the framework to try various combinations of fabrics and imagery.
Students came to work throughout each day and evening. Here, Leah Roszkowski cuts straight edges on her fabric drawing.
After only a week, what had been an empty gallery was now a frenetic workspace with works in progress spread across the floor.
Pieces were pinned, sewed, tied, and glued to each other to make the fabric wall.
Vinyl strips were woven together and stapled to the outside portion of the structure. Here, Jacob Guzan assists Nicholas Nyland.
Quite a bit of hand-sewing was required to connect the larger portions of fabric. Left to right: Robyn Rognstad, Rachel Goldberg, Nicholas Nyland, Heather Brammeier.
The “end� of the golden spiral curled into a walled niche just outside a gallery window.
The spiral could only be seen in its entirety from the second floor gallery overlook.
The wall appears to be continuous, even as it moves outside the gallery and “through� walls and shrubbery.
Several existing quilts were incorporated into the piece, such as the one on the right in this photo. On the left of this photo, Robyn Rognstad created quilt-like patterns that reference Modernist geometric painting.
In placing the structure, Nicholas and Heather maximized both interior and exterior architectural elements. The spiral runs tangent to an exterior wall and is cradled in a window niche.
For the exterior “covering”, strips of vinyl reference Constructivist concerns and palettes which contrast the landscaping outside Heuser Art Center.
Nicholas Nyland often refers to Japanese garden design and Chinese scholars’ rocks. The placement of the golden spiral works with the placement of a boulder in the (American) landscaping outside the Heuser Art Center.
Flatness and the Third Dimension (on the wall) was visually connected to the wall not only with fabric and color, but also with the use of a “shadow� in dark-colored vinyl.
Several students made monotypes or used large type numerals on fabric.
The vinyl shadow becomes almost a river that runs under the wall and through to the inside of the spiral.
Viewers were enticed to find the interior of the spiral, where they were rewarded with different perspectives and new vignettes.
The doorway to the interior space was hidden from the entry to the gallery space; viewers had to explore to find it.
The gallery became a space of visual play and actual play. Interaction was encouraged by visual and tactile cues at various levels.
The doorway became a frame as well as point of entry.
Some openings appear to have pieces coming out of or going into the wall.
Other types of frames and windows made use of the shallow depth created by the plywood structure of the wall. This “porthole� frames an optical piece that is playfully designed.
The consideration of interior and exterior spaces obliquely addressed issues of private and public space, particularly in gallery settings.
Robyn Rognstad built a hidden shelf for her vignette Mount Sadness.
Here, the peephole frames the door on the other side of the spiral wall.
A triangular opening at floor level became a peephole for little ones, or for anyone willing to lie on the floor of the gallery.
Before reaching the door in the wall, the curious viewer could find “sneak peeks� at the other side.
Not a door or a window, this corner nook was another delightful surprise for children; it became a pass-through for stuffed animals or the corduroy pillow tucked into it.
The triangle became a secondary geometric motif in piecing the fabrics, and in creating views throughout. the wall.
The construction of the entire piece was a study in concealing and revealing.
A biomorphic creature is housed in a pocket-like opening in the wall.
Selective vinyl cutouts on the floor emphasize the flatness of gallery surfaces in contrast to the varied surfaces of the spiral wall.
Heather Brammeier prepared a strip-pieced quilt prior to the installation; several whole quilts were incorporated into the wall so as to create large areas from which transitions could be devised and motifs could be pulled out and repeated.
Graduate student Sarah Zaleski used fabric scraps to create an abstract peacock fan.
Undergraduate Christine Montgomery constructed a geometer’s apron.
Printmaker Helen Schenk took a theme from her prints and brought it to life in fabric.
Many times, the fabrics themselves suggested designs. Robyn Rognstad made a tortoise and hare on a print that appears to tell a love story of sorts.
Themes of nature and identity merged, particularly with this bear by Pam Gargiulo, whose work celebrates her descent from Aboriginal peoples in Canada.
Marita Early used thin strips of fabric to create a tree of life.
Robyn Rognstad uses animals to shed light on human foibles. The rabbit is a recurring theme in her work.
Along with fabrics, students pulled from wallpaper sample books donated.
Jenna Gagen uses the circus to explore themes of innocence and experience.
Jenna’s Conjoined Twins are a sideshow in the circus she has created.
Here, the ringmaster of the circus is pictured.
Various students created representations relating to identity. The girl with the pink umbrella is a recurring character in student Rachel Goldberg’s drawings; for this project, she created a new interpretation in fabric.
Education: 2002 M.F.A. University of Pennsylvania 2000 B.F.A. Bradley University Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2010 The Fabric of Space, ARC Gallery, Chicago, IL 2008 Fluidity, Murray State University, Murray, KY In Between, Around, and Beyond, LaGuardia Community College, Long Island City, NY 2007 Unbroken, Women’s Institute and Gallery, New Harmony, IN Untelling, Contemporary Art Center, Peoria, IL 2006 Changing Breath, or How Things Fall Together, Anderson College, Anderson, SC 2005 Paintings and Collages, Verde Gallery, Champaign, IL 2004 Regrowth, Glen Vista Art Gallery, Kalamazoo Nature Center, MI
Heather Brammeier
Awards: 2011 Yaddo Artist Residency, Saratoga Springs, NY 2010 Pontlevoy Creative Residency, Pontlevoy, France 2007 Prairie Center of the Arts Residency, Peoria, IL 2007 Byrdcliffe Artist Colony Residency, Woodstock, NY Selected Group Exhibitions: 2010 From the Inside Out, collaboration with Nicholas Nyland, Heuser Art Center, Peoria, IL 2009 Large Works Show 2009, ICON Contemporary Art, Fairfield, IA Echo, Annmarie Garden Sculpture Park and Arts Center, Solomons, MD VAST 41st Annual Visual Arts Exhibition, Visual Arts Society of Texas, Denton, TX Paintpresent, Lexington Art League, Lexington, KY Rock Island Fine Art Exhibition,”Augustana College Art Museum, Rock Island, IL 2008 61st Juried Exhibition, Sioux City Art Center Annual Members’ Show, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL Re.Action, Annmarie Garden Sculpture Park and Arts Center, Solomon, MD It’s Gouache and Gouache Only, Jeff Bailey Gallery, NY 2007 Abstract and Geometric, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL New Arts Program 18th Annual Exhibition of Small Works, Kutztown, PA 2003 Living Room: Issues of Taste and the Politics of Decoration, Storefront 1838, NY The artist is represented by Moberg Gallery, Des Moines, IA.
Education: 2002 M.F.A. Painting, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 1999 B.F.A. Painting, University of Washington, Seattle Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2010 The Problem of Universals, SOIL Gallery, Seattle, WA 2009 Nowhere, Anywhere, Everywhere, OHGE Ltd., Seattle, WA 2008 Ceramics, SOIL Gallery, Seattle, WA 2007 Nicholas Nyland, Mineral, Tacoma Selected Group Exhibitions: 2010 BAM Biennial 2010: Clay Throwdown, Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, WA From the Inside Out, collaboration with Heather Brammeier, Heuser Art Center Peoria, IL In the Garden, Telephone Room Gallery, Tacoma, WA Champagne Truffles, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA Search for Landscapes, SOIL Gallery, Seattle, WA Clay? III, Kirkland Art Center, Kirkland, WA 2009 Introductions, Pulliam Gallery, Portland, OR 2008 Painting Pink Pajamas, Contemporary Art Center, Peoria, IL The Prom; A Semi-Formal Survey of Semi-Formal Painting, Lawrimore Project, Seattle This is a Time Machine, with Ellen Ito, The Helm Gallery, Tacoma 2007 8th Northwest Biennial, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma 2005 Surge, Tacoma Contemporary Urban Art Installations in the Woolworth Windows, Tacoma 2003 Living Room: Issues of Taste and the Politics of Decoration, Storefront 1838, New York, NY Awards: Artist Trust Fellowship, 2008 Finalist, Betty Bowen Award, Seattle, 2008 Kamiyama Artist-in-Residence Program, Japan, 2005 The artist is a member of SOIL Artist-Run Gallery, Seattle, and represented by the Pulliam Gallery, Portland, OR.
Nicholas Nyland
Credits and Acknowledgements This publication is produced in conjunction with the From the Inside Out exhibition at Bradley University Galleries, April 16 - May 16 ,2010 Bradley University Galleries 1501 West Bradley Avenue Peoria, IL 61625 art.bradley.edu/bug Elizabeth Kauffman, Gallery Director Š 2010 Bradley University Galleries We would like to thank all of the supporters that have made this exhibition possible. Friends of Art Slane College of Communications and Fine Arts Illinois Arts Council Office for Teaching Excellence & Faculty Development
Catalog Design by Kris Meyers Photographs by Anastasia Samoylova, Heather Brammeier, and Nicholas Nyland