The Transformative Home

These are my newest works that I have been working on the past week or so.  

           “I imagine each planted life as a surrogate for a human form.  I am interested in the intimacy and fragility that the anthropomorphic pile of seed and dirt create.  Placing it in the visual landscape is a way for me to engage in a conversation about the life and the temporary environments we create, occupy, and share with other living things.

           I imagine each discarded blanket as a specific memory of a part of life that was lived through these objects.  It is my opinion that entropy explains the state of the present human life.  It is while we are engaged in living that we are fighting that state of decay and attempting to control our own conditions.  I want to highlight the significance and extent of the time, protection, and attention that must be spent in order for things to grow despite the aspect of chance and chaos. These fundamental inconsistencies in the transformation of a home fascinate me and continue to fuel my curiosity to seek the patience involved to find potential beauty in the decay and growth of the future.”

                                                            -Frances Russell

The Gap, Sheldon Vanauken

“ Between the probable and proved there yawns
A gap. Afraid to jump, we stand absurd,
Then see behind us sink the ground and, worse,
Our very standpoint crumbling. Desperate dawns
Our only hope: to leap into the Word
That opens up the shuttered universe. ”

Ken Price

This summer I got to see Ken Price's retrospective at the Met.  After that I was able to spend a week in Taos where his home was for the majority of his later years.  He grew up in Los Angeles, got his MFA in New York, and worked in Taos.  He very rarely used glazes on his ceramics but instead used layers and layers of acrylic paints which he later sanded to reveal a great depth.  When visiting the Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, Price's death shrine to himself was installed, which was so fitting to see just a year after his death.  

Rona Pondick

I recently came across Rona Pondick's work in my Gender and the Body class as she deals with the feminist critique of Freudian theories of sexuality.  She is an american sculptor who studied under Richard Serra and went to Yale to get her MFA.  She deals with a wide range of imagery including teeth, trees, human/animal hybrids, beds, etc.  You can see all of her work over at her website. 

Sterling Ruby

Sterling Ruby is an artist working in Los Angeles.  He works in a wide range of media including ceramics, sculpture, painting, and video.  Being inspired by the graffiti culture, his work seeks to confront the psychological space where individual expression meets social constructs.  

Lesley Dill: MIAMI 2013

This is the blackbird dress that I worked on all summer with Lesley Dill and other interns.  

A Zachary Allen and Frances Russell exchange

In order to practice the skills that we had been learning, Zach and I decided to have an exchange after the process was over.  In exchange for him making me an art cabinet out of nogal, walnut, and metal (complete with hand carved handles),  I created a handwoven (size full) merino and raw silk blanket.