Sandy Skogland was the artist who first caused me to think about the artwork making process as meditative. She is a conceptual artist who deals with repetitive, process-oriented art production. In the Spring of 2002 her installations and photographs were on exhibit at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York. I had the opportunity to ask Sandy if she found the obsessively repetitive process of creating her work to be a meditative one. She said that she hadn’t really thought about it that way but certainly did.

Her room-sized “Breathing Glass” installation was a perfect example of her repetitive process, affixing thousands of multiple small objects on a shape. This installation was comprised of thousands of individually lamp-worked glass dragonflies on wires protruding through an ethereal blue wall, interconnected by a wire grid mechanized to randomly vibrate. Miniature upside-down plastic figures floated on wires above a low, elevated platform in front of the wall. A bench was placed facing her installation where one sat and waited with suspenseful anticipation for the vibrations to start. Patience paid off as the sound of delicately tinkling glass was heard as the butterflies fluttered amidst miniature marshmallows. On an adjacent wall hung one of her signature Cibachrome photograph of the installation.

Sandy is known for creating room-sized installations she uses to stage her photographs with real people placed in them. Her “Breathing Glass” photograph shows the glass dragonflies in a weightless room of blue. The floor and ceiling are not what we usually experience. Are the humans dressed in blue standing on the ceiling? Are the mirror covered mannequins standing on their heads?

As well as relating to the repetitive process used to cover the forms in her work, I was able to visually relate to this inverted space. When I was a child I used to lie on the floor, look up and pretend the ceiling was the floor. I imagined what it was like to step over the tops of doorways and duck under the tables, lamps, sofa and piano. Looking at Sandy’s photograph evokes those old feelings of warping reality while moving around upside-down figures. This is the link to see the photo in more detail:
http://www.sandyskoglund.com/pages/recent/glass/bgphoto.html.

The wall of shimmering glass dragonflies now hangs at the University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum. Thanks to an anonymous donor the artwork is on permanent view for visitors. For those of us who can’t get there and are interested in her work there are great photos on her website: http://www.sandyskoglund.com/.

All images are copyrighted by Sandy Skoglund.

Another artist who creates artworks with cascading cut-out shapes
is Pae White. I would love to closely examine some of her
installations. She explores movement in her works that remind me of
Calder mobiles on steroids. They are constructed of thousands of
brightly colored orbs of paper strung on colored string. Her
multiple-cut-paper artworks, similarly to Fox’s, seem to define the
three-dimensional space they are installed in.

Pae’s video on You Tube is fascinating to watch. Her site specific
projects, she says, incorporate the architecture of a space.
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWZaTIJec0w)
Her approach to artmaking starts with the space and features it
to pay tribute to it. Surrounded by her 2009 Venice Biennial
installation in its voluminous 13th century Arsenale space on
the video, she explains this approach. Her process she describes
as meditative. Constructing this installation’s imaginary aviary with
bird-seed encrusted chandeliers and brightly colored dropped ceiling
of string must certainly have been meditative.

Both Mark Fox and Pae White experience a meditative process as they
make their artworks. Artists often say their repetitive artmaking
process is meditative. I find my artmaking process is too.

A colorful sunset inspired my return to the Culver Road Armory 
to photograph Mark Fox’s exhibit “Cut...ting Edge” as part of
the architecture seen through the glass walls of the gallery space.
The organic shapes of his sculptures mimicked the reflected
tree shapes in the glass. Mark’s obsessively cut sculptures of
words appeared as part of the reflected shapes and shadows in
the glass. I was able to enjoy his work from a different view point.
The works as part of the architecture are still beautiful,
just in another way. 


The secrets of his construction are discovered when Mark’s
artworks are looked at closely. Unseen glue and wires are
hidden in the multiple layers of words tumbling over words,
holding the layers together. It is inspirational to explore
the construction methods he uses. I look forward to examining
them one more time before the show ends.

As an artist living and working in Rochester, New York I have always been fascinated by the reuse of old buildings. If you live anywhere in the area you should check out what a transformation the Culver Road Armory has gone through. It is a wonderful example of reuse, especially the pop-up gallery Deborah Ronnen created to show Mark Fox’s sculptural drawings. Deborah, owns Deborah Ronnen Fine Arts and is bringing the works of a number of important contemporary artists like Mark to Rochester. The huge open space with floor-to-ceiling glass walls is the perfect location for the installation of his work.

Mark Fox - "Unititled Last Rights"

His work is even more fascinating to look at up close. Mark’s use of intricately cut out text, assembled and tumbling over itself was a delight to explore. Enjoying the opportunity to have a glass of wine and study his work at the opening this past Saturday felt like being at a New York City gallery opening – not the usual Rochester event. It is certainly an exhibit you should try to see while it is here. Check out Mark’s intricate works on his website:
http://www.markfoxstudio.com

I hope you enjoy his work as much as I do.