report after ACRE

My time at ACRE this year was much different than last. I was more introspective and private. I guess I had a lot of personal/studio things to work on. I didn't make much, but did research, plan, work on ideas, have studio visits, travel around (lots), and talk with Allie a lot about how our practices work and work together (collaboratively). Here are some images and notes from my 12 days in Southwestern Wisconsin.

 farms outside Bloomington, WI

8/6/11 - ACRE

some notes from a studio visit with Jan Tichy

"The Stars I was Born Under" - he saw this as a talismanic object - because people enjoyed it and took them away - balloons are give-aways.

what does it mean that I'm interested in portals (hexes) now that I am "cleaning my space"

is kitsch not already spiritual, talismanic, and magical?

notes on hexes and White Hex:

-does it need to fit the space?

-permanence vs. ephemerality

-portal = door? window? person sized?

One Day at a Time (in process - I think it needs to be much larger - it is still at 'craft' scale)

laundry along Rt. E between Steuben and Boscobel, WI

8/9/11 - ACRE
some notes from a studio visit with Brandon Alvendia
"poetry" - artists often use this work incorrectly
mining - digging up
- I'm an anthropologist who joined (or came from) the tribe
what is the material link to the place my work/inspiration comes from?
thread to real life can deal (attend to) kitsch and irony
- where's the tell

Sentinel (for ACRE) - in the ACRE studios at the Steuben Lodge, I left him there

 
8/13/11 - ACRE
some notes from a studio visit with New Capital (Ben and Chelsea)
One Day at a Time - showing the/a dark underbelly of Midwestern America
cultural scale - is constructed of individual's opinions of cultural scale (melting pot)
Ben gave me a question from a psychology test - white rabbit in a white room - what do you do? A: I try to pet it but it hops away from me. (I evidently am not afraid of death, and want to know it, but it is elusive)
*they agreed that something else needs to happen to One Day at a Time - they suggested a scale shift - to take it out of the craft/folk realm.

me and some other resident artists watching the 32nd ward recall election debate at a bar in Steuben

detail of a wall at the Dickeyville Grotto, in Dickeyville, WI

8/13/11 - ACRE
notes from a studio visit with Duncan McKenzie
One Day at a Time - funny, but cute
-participates too much in the folk space
-it needs some "tooth"
irony gives you a (critical) distance - and enough distance to access nostalgia (in the avant-guard) art world
-enough to look at it / cold reflection / because it's scary and rich with meaning
he said that I'm replicating emo values
"you have no God before art" - art world's slogan - it is anti-dogma
belief - not theism
what have we lost by not having belief?
is there belief now?
art is good at exploring what can be "Art"
-doesn't/can't change the world
he wanted to know how do/can I live off of (have a career) with an intervention based practice?
-Conrad Bakker

an eagle, flying over the lock and dam on the Mississippi River at Davenport, IA

SW WI

 a house near Bloomington, WI

 a sign in Pairie du Chien, WI

a picture found in a Life magazine in the Community Thrift Store in Boscobel, WI

faith and support

 

 (photographs and notes from when I was driving from Chicago to ACRE [Steuben, WI])

• with help from some great people, i'm becoming a better person.
• so, i'm making work about help and support (for others), because thinking of others is a thing i'm trying to improve in myself.
• but, these pieces are also for me - to help me help myself.
• i find source materials and inspiration in places of support in our culture: Pennsylvania Dutch, Christianity, witchcraft, AA, counseling, astrology, and belief systems. i look to these things not to create my own faith, but to use them as a model for associative moves in my studio.

from Anthony Elms artist talk at ACRE

Juan Muñoz: “If you remove the furniture from a room, the room is loaded with that emptiness. It’s not an empty room, it is a room which is no longer occupied with what used to be there before. That’s a quality you cannot build from zero. You have first to build the house, then furnish the room, then take the things away.”
______________________________

Juan Muñoz, James Lingwood, “A Conversation, July 1995,” Monologues & Dialogues, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, 1996, pg 127.

spiritual points in the forest and pastures near Steuben, WI

on my last morning at ACRE i decided to execute this project that i've been considering since the beginning of the residency. i made 10 markers and set out into the woods and cow pastures south of Bob and Rosa's farm; with a map and maul in tow. the form was taken from the utilitarian (property?) markers that i've seen around Joliet, IL. i placed these markers at points that i deemed spiritual - such a between 2 apple trees that i ate from, next to a found hawk feather, in a clearing with light in a dark part of some over-growth, inside a foundation of a long gone house, and at the end of a valley. the plan was to imbue this land with some mystical powers. i ended up getting very lost, and didn't know it till i reached a pond that was much farther East on the map from where i thought i was. at that point i was dehydrated (i forgot my water) and tired from hiking through dense overgrowth and from carrying the markers and the maul. i found a road and hitch-hiked back to the lodge. i was 2 or 3 miles of walking in the sun away from home and water. i was only able to place 6 markers.

nature! (Steuben, WI edition)

a bat that Sweetpea the cat killed

a valley carved by water

bald eagle

bald eagle close up

a big right angle

i drove toward the moon all night.

at 3:00am today i went from ACRE (Steuben, WI), south to Davenport, IA, and west to Joliet, IL.

"is asks me to invest in the piece and it's invisible power"

Adam Farcus - To Bloom Out (efflorescence) 2010

detail

Adam Farcus - Untitled (rock, candle, candleabra, ball bearing, and table) 2010

detail

detail

two new pieces of a few that i installed in my bedroom at ACRE. the first one is made of efflorescence, more on that here. i had a pretty great studio visit with Anthony Elms at 9am today. we talked a lot about the object in this space - and how the objects transform and alter the read of the space - and how these objects would be way different in a gallery space. mostly they wouldn't be as slippery or hidden. i'm working on a poem in response to our studio visit, Anthony's awesome lecture/performance last night, and issues i've been dealing with for a while now (mainly spirituality and poetry).

Conduit

Adam Farcus - Conduit (electrical outlet, conduit, and box; screws, fasteners, wire, LED lights, power source) 2010

detail

this would look good with this untitled piece.

Mouth Wash and Mice

Adam Farcus - Mouth Wash and Mice: World of Variety, Boscobel, WI (store intervention and photograph) 2010

ACRE Walk - 8/18/10 - Steuben, Wisconsin

van
toad
pile of railroad ties
cow pies
farm house foundation
shoe sole
refrigerator
gold finches
fork in the valley
cow hoof prints
electric fence
bull
silos
harvested hay field
TV antennae
spiritual point
paved road
bald eagle
four wheeler
rifles
turkey call
arrows
Miller High Life
black mold
electric fence
river rocks
deer bone
shoe soles
nurse logs
pile of wagon wheels
fence

when walls are lights

The above image is the wall in the resident studio building at ACRE, Steuben, WI. It is made of mortar, wood, and glass bottles - it probably glows amazingly at sunrise. Much more to come from rural Southwestern Wisconsin.