Big Orange Monster: An Emergency Exhibition

The Kolaj Institute Gallery in New Orleans recently put out a call for art:

“You mix fear (yellow) and anger (red) and you get a Big Orange Monster. What’s the emergency? There are a lot of Big Orange Monsters on the loose. Monsters only have power if you are afraid of them. So let’s create a space where we can slay our fear of Big Orange Monsters. Art helps us exorcise our demons. Monsters can be glorious and wonderful or horrible and evil. Let’s not cast aside the good Big Orange Monsters because some other Big Orange Monsters are, well… unpleasant.”

This call immediately resonated with me—combining my love of collage and mail art into one outrageous orange opportunity. It felt like the perfect moment to wrestle with the larger-than-life figures that haunt our headlines and cast long shadows over the places where power resides.

#100dayproject

 For the last several years I have watched, in awe, my friends engage in the #100dayproject, an idea that has grown on social media from the original 100 Day Project developed by Michael Blerut. Participating in this was always an aspiration of mine...so this year I finally decided the time was right! Having just concluded some pretty cool experiments for my School for Art Leaders cohort, this is the perfect next step. 

You know my love of all things mail and mail art...so I am working on 100 days of Priority Mail stickers. The theme came pretty easy too, I was standing in line at the post office looking at the priority mail stickers imagining small artworks on them. It is a manageable/desirable size for endless compositions and eventually I can imagine them randomly finding their way stuck around the city. 

Check out some of the artists that have influenced this experience for me on Instagram: @stollen_moment, @obscuragirl,and @kristinanosalstudios to name a few.

I am 19 days in...what I have realized so far is it's not just about the end result of each day's creation but about the cumulative impact of sustained effort and dedication over time and the evolution of the idea. It is now a priority. (see what I did there?)

The Sketchbook Project

This pandemic has presented some interesting opportunities that I may have missed during our "regularly" scheduled program...aka life before March 13, 2020. I had the pleasure of participating in an international game of Telephone with other creatives around the globe, a couple of mail art exhibitions within the US, and most recently a traveling sketchbook. During this time I have also become familiar with Ray Johnson, the original dada mail artist, and am still quite curious about his life and prolific art. These are just a few of the threads have led to this latest experiment. 

The Sketchbook Project. Yesterday I mailed off the sketchbook to the first of 11 artists to contribute their voice to the pages.

Just a little more about the why... The thing that I miss most during this very peculiar time is collaboration and community. Spending time exploring everything... drinking in the exhibitions in museums, artwork, libraries, lectures, artist talks...so the conundrum that has been pulsating these last 11 months, is how to create a sense of community that lives outside the walls of my house. I have certainly found a similar joy in mailing letters, riding my bike to the post office has become a bit of a habit and getting a response from the mail I have sent is very fulfilling and feels so satisfyingly social. 

Traveling Sketchbook

This past week I was sent a traveling sketchbook, a wonderful diversion from all the insanity that is our world right now...such a productive way to process the events of the day away from a screen. The directions were simple: work in the book for eight days, and on the eighth day mail it to another artist. 

Artist Unknown

I really enjoyed perusing the past pages and the imagery and ideas presented by the artists before me. A delicious variety of media and themes... social issues such as voting, the pandemic and more recently vaccines and politics. 

Artist: Jason Lord

During the eight days, I used cuttings from the newspapers detailing the very important and historic democratic win in Georgia on January 6th overshadowed by the Insurrection, followed by mounting pandemic news and then the 2nd Impeachment. I love to use priority mail stickers, a gelli plate, color pencils, gel and paint pens.  There was no shortage of fodder or media for me. 

Ebb & Flow of Covid              (one of my contributions)

It was such a nice way to spend my evenings, I was a little sad to send it on today. The sketchbook is on its way to a dear friend that is also an artist and I am sure it will be nice company for her during the Inauguration and an escape from what could be a nutty week. She will also enjoy the opportunity and send it on to another artist to continue its journey.

The beginning of this year is off to such a tumultuous start,  this was a cathartic diversion. I wish there was a way to see it when it is complete.

Envelopes & Monoprinting

  I spent the day making monoprints that will ultimately become a set of envelopes. I made a template and drew out the pattern on several different  kinds of papers, different sizes as well.

As I worked, I realized I did not need to draw it out ahead of time, I can use my template as a pattern after the prints dry. I borrowed a few extra gelli plates from a friend to increase the scale I could print to make the envelopes larger while keeping consistency with the pattern and color palette you get with a single pull of a print. I put one of the predrawn papers underneath the plates as a guide, the transparency was perfect for that. I put the plates next to each other and lined the seems with the edges of the folds of the envelope.

I realized that the store bought gelli plates were not as generous with the ghost prints as the homemade plate. The ghost print is, in my opinion, the desired result. The larger surface area was challenging as well, I had to ink the plates faster.

I did continue to use the smaller plate as well. I want to make different size envelopes for comparison sake. I used the gear stencils as well as the stencils I made of the Capitol building and letters. I printed on two sides, but I am not sure if that is going to work out, lining that up was pretty tricky. I have plenty of prints for experimentation.