Saturday, February 09, 2008

twas a fun day of suckling!

thanks again to Elaine Bradford of BBAP and Jeff Shell of Green Valentine. it could not have happened without their hard work.



Freed Park Suckling is Continuous installation





18-wheeler tire side walls, inner tubes, baling wire
10' diameter







Kathy and Christopher atop a suckling artifact.
auto tire side walls, baling wire
8' diameter

Friday, February 08, 2008

a big thank you

Gargantuous thanks to Elaine Bradford, JoAnn Park, Troy Stanley and Mat Wolff for helping me with the final installation of suckling is continuous. I am sure all have sore fingers from sewing tire nipple/orifices with baling wire. Though they've all learned my technique, i don't think I have to worry about anyone stealing the method based on the sore fingers that crawled home for a good soaking tonight.

Thanks to Tire International, Ernest's Tires, Refugio Tire Center and Gene Williamson Tires for giving me their old inner tubes and tire scraps.

suckling is continuous

installation at freed park in the heights
at corner of houston ave. and white oak

saturday, feb 9
2pm
unveiling (sans the veil)/meet the artist

------------------------------------

Green Valentine. (by Elaine)

Houston Artist Kathy Kelley creates new sculpture for Freed Park

HOUSTON, TX (January 15, 2008): Buffalo Bayou ArtPark (BBAP) and Heights Beautification Project (HBP) are pleased to present a year-long art installation by local artist Kathy Kelley at Freed Art and Nature Park located at the corner of Houston Ave and White Oak Blvd. Kelley was commissioned to create a piece of site specific art that embodied the ideas of sustainability and recycling, and will be unveiled on February 9, 2008 as part of the 5th annual Green Valentine Tree Planting.

Artist Kathy Kelley was chosen from several proposals submitted to BBAP for the Green Valentine project. Her sculpture is titled “Suckling is Continuous.” Kelley will be creating three large spheres shrouded in found tire elements. She explains the sphere was chosen for its reference to the ongoing nature of our consumptive behavior, and the tire scraps are drawn from elements used in transporting us to and from the objects of our desires.

Kathy Kelley graduated with her MFA from the University of Houston in 2006. She is the recipient of an Emerging Artist Fellowship from the Houston Arts Alliance in 2008, and was awarded Best of Show in the Seven-State Biennial Exhibition at the University of Science and Art of OK Art Gallery in 2007. For more information on Kathy Kelley visit http://kathrynkelley.blogspot.com/ .

BBAP is an artist run, non-profit organization that places temporary art in public spaces across Houston and Harris County. BBAP is partially funded by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance. They are also supported by grants from the Wortham Foundation, the Brown Foundation and Houston Endowment, along with many friends and neighbors. For more information please visit www.bbap-houston.org.

Green Valentine is Co-sponsored by the Heights Beautification Project and the City of Houston’s Parks and Recreation Department. HBP is a citizens’ volunteer group based in The Heights who collaborate on beautification projects in the community. For the past five years, HBP volunteers have planted hundreds of trees at Stude Park and near the White Oak Bayou as part of the Green Valentine Tree Planting. For more information please visit www.greenvalentine.org .

The green art installation was made possible by the generous support of Jaysen Clark, Heather and Randall Davis, Robin and Charles Reimer, BJ and Bob Shell, Monsour Taghdisi and Becca and John Thrash.

Monday, February 04, 2008

why wallpaper (multiples)

(besides ocd)

where can i go that i don’t see row after row of stuff, even just sitting in a little restaurant this morning for breakfast…row upon row of tables, stacks upon stacks of trays, row upon row of bricks, row upon row of juices, desserts, bottles of soup…all are displayed in gridded clusters. i step outside into a parking lot of delineated parking spots filled with car after car. i drive down the street, stripe upon stripe, dot upon dot. cars as far as i can see lined at a stand still on the freeway in the early morning, massive repetition. series, multiples everywhere i go, everywhere i look. rows of stores, bigger than ever, line their interiors and exteriors with the repetitive presentation of their trinkets.

the trend over the last several decades in the arts of multiples and obsessive repetition seems a natural manifestation of our culture and an ever increasing population density (mass).

ok i haven’t fleshed this all the way out, its my first response to thinking about why the trend of multiples is so prevalent right now not just in my own work but in main stream art.

if art is a manifestation of cultural funk, well then, wallpaper art seems to be a perfect manifestation of the last couple of years.