the nostalgia for seeing an ocean horizon

As a way of moving out of the back of the blue sky gallery, a decision was made to utilize the overhanging dry wall that diagonally bisected the space. I really can’t pinpoint when I decided sidewalk cracks were going to be part of the show, but I had hoped to begin installing it the week before “Your Turn” opened. The idea was to create a crack near the ceiling as a way to make use of more of the gallery. Bridgette Bogle and I didn’t have time to execute this by February 1st. The actual photographing of the cracks happened mid-January and the printing finally commenced a month later. Last weekend was a quick run to Columbus to pick up an additional roll of 100 feet of generic luster paper, the other having run out by the time I got through the first crack.

These “sidewalk cracks” were printed out 15.5″ x 67″. Some were connected to each other in pairs. One set formed a triptych. Bridgette created her own crack with pink ribbon which was marked in intervals with blue and green masking tape. This made each of the sections part of one larger piece we ended up calling “lost horizons”.

I haven’t had time to properly document this part of our collaboration but I am posting a cropped detail of an image from the closing.

The name comes from the James Hilton novel Lost Horizon (and the subsequent movies) but is meant to reference my nostalgia for seeing the ocean horizon from my childhood home in San Diego. The cracks become a horizon line high above the gallery floor which mimic the height of the ocean horizon viewed from a hill.

However…in the process of determining a print size for that massively long strip of gallery space, I printed out three smaller versions of the sidewalk cracks and stacked them on the same sheet of paper. There is something appealing about this scale and arrangement that exists independently of the gallery installation. There may be more of these.

the (pink) coat is the experiment

The other component of In Vivo which was documented last Thursday, Pink Pokeberry Lab Coat. The pattern was created from a scan of a couple of pokeweed leaves.

The coat has several panels made from various dilutions of pokeberry juice. The left rear has completely faded because of the 1:2 dilution used but retains brown images where pink used to be. The right rear has faded the least and, in fact, achieved the least record of an image from exposure to sun. The right rear and right front pocket both got full strength pokeberry juice. The front panels were made using a 1:1 dilution of pokeberry juice.

The hanger is made from a fallen sycamore branch recovered in South Park (Dayton).

Thank you Charmaine Renee for your excellant sewing skills and problem solving abilities. Charmaine and I will be at DVAC at 4 pm tomorrow sewing together the saffron coat which has been exposing since the exhibition opened.