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New solo work, pictured here as part of "The Great Big Parade of Lights and Luminaria", Patterson Park. Curated by Laure Drogoul. Photographed by Melissa Webb

What was presented here as "Northern Lights" is an ongoing / expanding piece created in honor of my dear friend Flores McGarrell, who's (nothing short of incredible) life was cut short during the 2010 Haitian earthquake. Flo and I attended MICA together in the 90's, and developed a close collaborative working relationship and deep friendship there and for years beyond. The color palette, textural choices, and theme of "Northern Lights" is based on my happy memories of our first collaborative performance endeavor at MICA. The stilt costume, worn here by Autumn Bread, is constructed, in part, upon the base of a garment I made during our collaboration. I have been (and continue to be) truly inspired in my life and work by Flo, and this piece, started soon after the earthquake, is a tribute to him. It is also my first foray into working with light, which I loved and wish to continue in the future.

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Shown here at the Sondheim Semi-final Exhibition in the Meyerhoff Gallery at the Maryland Institute, College of Art. This participatory performance was first mounted as part of Copycat Theatre's "The Rooms Play", Spring 2011. Participants entering the space were invited to make cookies from salt dough, asked to stand against a wall for the purpose of measuring how much they had grown, and given an impromptu birthday party. Photographed by Edward Winter.

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"The Magic Flight" as seen in Copycat Theatre's "Rooms Play". Over 160 three-minute, solo participatory performances over two three-day weekends. Photographed by Theresa Keil.

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This second incarnation of my participatory installation "The Temporary Nature of Ideas" was mounted at School 33 Art Center from September 3rd to October 29th 2010. Featured performers were Kelley Bell, Theresa Columbus, Jackie Milad, Monica Mirabile, Nicole Shiflet, and myself.

Photographed by Edward Winter.

Viewer/particpants were asked the following via a sign on the wall:

"Feel free to use the space and materials provided to make a personal object in celebration of an unfruitful, unexplored, or abandoned idea. Your object will be a tribute to this idea, once alive and vibrant in your mind's eye, but now retired and unrealized. When you are finished, please use the clothespins and pulleys in the gallery to incorporate your idea into the growing environment."

As a fiber artist, I love the process of making… of obsessively crafting an object, a costume, or an installation… then combining the fruits of these efforts to create entirely new realities through the use of performance and audience participation. I tend to construct detail-oriented, otherworldly scenarios that can be viewed and interacted with in a casual manner, and where the performers are encouraged to react and improvise. The work becomes fully realized through this continuous interaction between the performer, the viewer, and the surrounding environment.

I am interested in removing the separation between the viewer and the work of art, as well as between the audience member and the performer. I want to enable others to become directly involved with the work, and to give them a role in determining the ultimate outcome of each piece. This concept is evident in The Temporary Nature of Ideas, a series of large-scale, “living” installations that I began in 2009. Viewer / participants, using provided materials, are invited to delve into the process of making with me, and to be a part of the growth taking place over time within the space.

There is an inherent collaborative nature to all of my work. I see interactive and participatory work as collaboration with the audience. I feel that collaboration and intuitive processes go hand and hand because what another individual or in this case, many individuals, can bring to a piece is yet another unknown element, another layer of mystery to unfold. In this way the process continues throughout the life of the piece.

Overview

The Temporary Nature of Ideas was a large-scale, four-story, interactive rooftop installation featured at the 2009 Transmodern Festival. In action for the three nights of the festival, as well as during the opening night of Emily C-D's "Off the Wall" show, the installation grew as participants (patrons of the festival) added their own elements using provided materials.

Photographed by Edward Winter.

A sign on the wall read:

"Participants are encouraged to use the provided materials to make an object in honor of an unexplored or abandoned idea. They are invited to create a special tribute to this idea, once alive in thier mind’s eye, but now retired and unrealized. When they finish the object is sent downward on a pulley into the space, where it is placed lovingly amidst the growing landscape."

The actions of re-appropriating the participant's "idea objects" were done by costumed performers, Melissa Webb and Theresa Columbus, who were stationed inside the installation for the duration of the festival. Roving costumed performers, Spoon Popkin and Lee Sinowski roamed the 4 floors of the festival, encouraging festival-goers to make an object in order to take part in the piece.

This is the first of two incarnations of "The Temporary Nature of Ideas", mounted at the 2009 Transmodern festival in a four story light well at the H&H building. It was on a rooftop surrounded by windows, which festival goers could peer down from to observe the space.

When lived in the Whole Gallery on the third floor of the H&H years ago, I would stare into that space and dream about transforming it in some way. When the festival started happening in that building, I began to consider the space seriously.

To prepare for the piece I engaged in a series of visualizations where I would picture myself in the space and let thoughts come into my mind randomly. Ideas flowed in and out, sometimes very specific and sometimes vague, but nothing really stuck. So many solid ideas were literally meandering in and out of focus right in front of my eyes, only to be disregarded, and that is how the concept for the "The Temporary Nature of Ideas" came about.

I decided to let my intuition lead me and trust myself as a conduit- to make the actual piece in the same way that someone might do stream of consciousness writing. I just let things flow naturally. I wanted to make my artmaking process one of exploration rather than the straightforward execution of an idea. It was a scary process to let go of a solid idea for a space of that size and work intuitively, but in the end I felt that it was successful. It was a great lesson for me, and a perfect way for me as a solo artist to learn to reestablish a relationship with materials.

By adding the participatory element I asked people to consider ideas they have had that are still accessible to them, but have never been realized. I wanted people to celebrate an idea as an entity all of its own.

The original piece at Transmodern, and the one I created in 2010 at School 33 are very distinct from one another. The first time, people made their objects on the third floor and lowered them down on pulleys to the performers, who then incorporated the objects into the environment. Participants were not allowed to enter the space, which was on a rooftop, and it was decided, reasonably so, that it would be dangerous, or damaging to the roof to let multiple people down there. Both incarnations had / have their own individual feel to them- I loved the site-specific nature of the first one, the fact that it was originally a kind of grimy and gloomy looking space that was so drastically transformed by the installation and the objects people contributed. There was a certain drama and sense of danger of looking down from a sixth-story window into the space. It took place at night, and lighting which created giant shadows was a huge element in the overall look. At School 33, participants can immerse themselves physically into the space and choose the placement of their objects. There is also a longer time frame so folks can spend as much time as they like in the space and contribute multiple times. I see the two as distinct scenarios, but at the same time, the sculptural elements Temporary Nature are componential, and could work in many different types of settings.

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Costume design and execution, as well as live performance for aminibigcircus' production of "Sorry for the Coldfusion", at The Theatre Project, and The Creative Alliance (2008). aminibigcircus is a collaborative group specializing in live performance, film, and music.

Performers:
Julie Anderson
Christopher Skokowski
Steven Dewey
& Melissa Webb

Photos by Scott Pennington

I worked with live performance and filmmaking troupe aminibigcircus from 1998 until last year, when several members, still dear friends, moved away from Baltimore. "Sorry for the Coldfusion" was our last project together. For several years before this we worked on our film, "Cari Amici", Our Magic Show Moovee", which was presented along with the performance of Coldfusion. Over roughly a 10 year period I served as the primary facilitator of visual elements for the group, whose initial roots came from physical theatre. We created in a fully collaborative manner, making two films and mounting many live performances, some in a traditional theatre setting, and many performed in the public sphere at festivals and other arts events. Most were abstract in nature, yet with often political or socially concious undertones. We used movement and process of gesture building building to communicate our ideas. I learned so much by working with aminibigcircus... I learned about collaboration, working intuitively, and about trusting myself and the work I make as an artist.

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A live performance for the Transmodern Festival in 2007. Created by Melissa Webb, M. Jane Taylor, and Company.

Opulent overlings and unprepossessing underlings glide and tromp forth in a frolicsome… yet begrudging display. A highbrow coterie of long-legged, albeit dainty darlings shares a stilted co-existence with a lowbrow crew of the submissive stripe. …A walk in the park with the Chic She’s and Shabby He’s of yester-year...

In the original living installation, stilted ladies in turn of the century dress sip tea, sniff flowers, eat cupcakes, and open gifts at their tall table. Hard-laboring garden gnomes provide them this luxurious lifestyle.

At first the gnomes work happily, but soon become disgruntled due to decreased break-times and excessive use of their bodies for croquet wickets. A passionate protest ensues…

The ladies’ loyal butler tries to moderate to no avail… until they are offered peace in the form of cupcakes.

Satisfied (for now) they get back to their work. And so the cycle continues…

Photos by Uli Loskot and Alexander Webb

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Featured at Artscape 2007, Ceci n'est pas a Booth, Kiosk or Gazebo and Other Radical Shacks, Curated by Laure Drogoul- A continuation of the Uppity Ladies Saga, the gnome characters get themselves a booth at Artscape, and sell twigs, moss, pinecones, and other woodland offerings for $1 each. Created by Melissa Webb, M. Jane Taylor, and Company.

Photos by Melissa Webb and aminibigcircus.

Overview