"Love Potion Specimen #1"

Brent Cole invited me to participate in this. I wish I had more than a weekend to work on it as the concept would be more developed. In addition, this was a challenge considering I never make artwork about this topic. The above tweet sums up the experience.

It will be exhibited, along with several other artists creations, at this exhibition next week in Indy. Here is a portion of the audio that will soon be available on the website:

For the past two years, I have collected water samples around the world in small glass vials. When thinking about the topic of love, Venice, Italy - the "city of love" - immediately sprang to mind. Incidentally, I also had a water sample from the canal, Rio d. Carmini in front of the Palazzo Zenobio that I collected on 21 July 2011.

The book is one that I have held onto since 1997. I wanted one that looked worn (= well loved) and it fit perfectly with the concept. The best part is that it is a sculpture (hooray!).

Two of my favorite artists and friends from grad school are featured in the archive: Adam Davis and Io Palmer. Check out their books here and here. 

Io Palmer's "Workspace"

Last Friday, a group of us from school traveled to Crawfordsville, Indiana to see Io Palmer's exhibition, Workspace at Wabash College. Io came to Ball State and gave a lecture about her work at the end of February and seeing this show was on my must-do list before it closed. I was enamored by her Art Stars dress that hovered over a vast collections of drawings of hair on napkins. They resembled tiles and ironically the grain of the wood floor worked very well with the intricate representations of various types of hair.

I have a love of artwork that shows a vast collection of objects especially when they look as detailed as the thousands of bobby pins she used to make this piece.

The photos below shows three details from the 2008 series Combs and Hairballs. Check out this link to see the group in its entirety.  It was so hard to pick a favorite as some of the combs held my attention more than the pile of synthetic hair yet some of the hairballs had such character, they were hard not to resist. We spent the longest time discussing the merits of two combs versus two, red or blond, small or large.

I was also fascinated by the decor in the women's bathroom.

Overall, I am so glad to see Io's work in Indiana especially at one of the four men's colleges left in the nation! More on her napkin project very soon.

Visiting Artist Io Palmer

Io Palmer is appearing at Ball State tomorrow to lecture on her latest series/one person exhibition at Wabash College. I am excited to see her talk about her work as she has always been one of my favorite artists in graduate school. I still drink out of a teacup she made that is oversized and covered with chickens.