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Work That Makes Art
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Charla Batey
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October, 20 2007
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Last July, artist James Sterling Pitt was in a near fatal car crash that limited the use of his left hand. One would understand if he didn’t keep a heavy work schedule.
But when fellow artists Lisa Solomon and Lorene Anderson came calling with an idea to create a piece of artwork every day for at least 21 days, he jumped at the chance. |
Artist James Pitt's scroll, inspired by his father.
Last July, artist James Sterling Pitt was in a near fatal car crash that limited the use of his left hand. One would understand if he didn’t keep a heavy work schedule.
But when fellow artists Lisa Solomon and Lorene Anderson came calling with an idea to create a piece of artwork every day for at least 21 days, he jumped at the chance.
“It forced me to start working directly with what comes up and what surrounds me,’’ Mr. Pitt says of his temporary disability. “It changed my practice.”
That is more or less the idea. Both Ms. Solomon and Ms. Anderson had been working on daily projects themselves, and had realized that something different happens when an artist has to start and finish a piece within 24 hours. When artists have only a short timeframe, every element, from methods and ideas to materials and intimacy, changes.
Lorene Anderson and Lisa Solomon
The results of Mr. Pitt’s work, along with the works of 12 other Bay Area artists who took up the one-a-day challenge, are part of a new exhibit opening Sunday at Blankspace Gallery in Oakland.
For Mr. Pitt, this was the perfect opportunity have his whole day be “art time” and to put in time with his family in New Mexico as well.
Over the course of the next 56 days, he called his overweight father each morning at 10 a.m. and reminded him to go for a walk. His exhibit includes recordings of these phone calls and a scroll with identical drawings of his father huddled on the floor.
Twelve days after this project began, he began to email his mother the phrase “Remember the white light from underneath” to remind her at work of the potential good in life. The portion of the exhibit dedicated to her features copies of the 44 emails he sent to her and a box where a he planted a morning glory seed each day.
While Mr. Pitt used the idea to get closer to his family through repetitive processes, John Herschend’s art looked at the opportunities that spring up at unexpected moments.
Every day for three weeks, Mr. Herschend used a Palm Pilot phone to shoot videos of random moments throughout his day. He shot things like his wife walking down the street in Montreal and an airport monitor showing people walking through an airport.
The mixed-media artist from San Francisco then used Craigslist to find a stranger to take over his project, saying he had lost his handheld device.
A couple responded. They used their Palm Pilot to shoot themselves arguing about how to finish the work of the artist who had “disappeared.” Mr. Herschend’s exhibit, titled “Where I am Calling From,” has a chart explaining the perspective of the man arguing with his girlfriend, and a painting Mr. Herschend did from this man’s point of view.
“I ended up with something new everyday. It was a nice excuse to try something new,” says Mr. Herschend, who described the experience as “exhilarating and scary.”
John Herschend’s exhibit
Other artists in the show, like Tracey Cockrell, agree. Ms. Cockrell’s puffy, quilted “sound clouds” (with speakers inside) will hang from the gallery's ceiling, and will emit sounds from the natural environment at Baxter State Park in Maine. Ms. Cockrell captured them by putting a microphone in the bottom of a canoe during a ride in a lake, and recording the sounds made by animals in the park. “I’m not the kind of artist who works in a rapid way, but it was liberating,” says Ms. Cockrell.
The curators’ works—Ms. Solomon’s ink and thread images and Ms. Anderson’s drawings and paintings based on Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities —will also be on display.
What: WorkADay Exhibit
When: Sunday, October 20th-Monday, November 19th
Where: Blankspace Gallery, 6608 San Pablo Ave, Oakland |
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