Mail Art Memories Inspiring Memories

Before moving to Paonia I lived in Portland, OR, where I taught art in programs for adults with developmental disabilities. At Art From The Heart I facilitated a mail art project in which clients drew images representing particular memories on the front of postcards. The backs of the postcards were left blank with a note saying,

" The drawing on the front of this card was created with a memory in Mind. What does it remind you of? A memory? A place you've been? Someone you know? We'd love to know what this drawing makes you think of. In the space below, write or draw your reflection then mail this card back to us. Thanks!"

Each postcard is pre-addressed with Art From The Heart's address. The postcards have traveled from Oregon to Arizona to Massachusetts, to the Czech Republic and back again. Once people respond to the drawings and mail the card in, clients at Art From The Heart get to see how their memories have called to mind other peoples' memories. It's an exercise in memories inspiring memories inspiring memories. 

To see the latest post (with postcards from Paonia) check out the blog: http://www.mailartmemories.blogspot.com

Resin and Wax and Bronze, oh my!

What a busy few weeks, I have finished casting 300 resin ring pops! I have casted and sanded all of them, so this week I am going to prep them for LEDs and finish them by buffing and polishing. I have a little bit more resin and would love to finish it off but my molds are starting to crap out.

Tomorrow I am going to Lands End Sculpture Center to make my ring pop waxes and cast them in bronze! Once I'm done with the waxes I'll cast the rest of the resin because it won't matter if the mold completely falls apart.

I have been really inspired by the entire casting process, mainly by the excess of what would normally be garbage. Below are some scraps of resin from casting and the circles are from the bottom of the mixing cups. I really enjoy working with what would be considered trash.

The last two pieces I've made have been based completely on that, "The Clothes Project" and "Minneapolis/St. Paul > for sale/wanted > free stuff (whatcha gonna do with all that junk)". You can check both these out on my website, www.melissasclafani.com. The Clothes Project was the last piece I made where I took peoples' unwanted clothes and made them new clothes with the material. Before that I built a house modeled after a Tumbleweed Tiny House out of solely free materials from Craigslist. It's amazing what you can do with trash! How does the saying go, "One man's garbage is another man's treasure?" something like that. So I'm going to try to use these little bits somehow. We will see, maybe they'll find their purpose later on.

Talk to ya'll soon!

Melissa

Ring Pops Galore!

Hi all, I'm Melissa one of the residents at Elsewhere. I've been here since November and have been building momentum! January has been a great month. I've been working on an installation that I'll be finishing in the next  few weeks and teaching myself a few new computer programs.

A little bit about me.

I'm from New York originally, not NYC, but a magical place just east of it, Long Island or as I call it, Lawn Guyland (talk to me for five minutes and you'll understand why I spell it this way). I was last living in Upstate NY in Salem working at Salem Art Works, the picture above was taken on top of the hill in the sculpture park. I went to school at SUNY New Paltz and studied sculpture. A lot of my studies were based on new media and electronic art. I love incorporating sculpture and technology. You will often find me geeking out that I figured out some coding or new program or got something to do what I wanted it to do. If I'm not geeking out over technology, I am probably geeking out about my dog.  I love my dog, Rufus Baby Girl. aka Rufus, Rufalo, Little One, Babigurl, Foofie, Rufus the Doofus…the list goes on and on. Feel free to add your own to the list as well. Okay enough about her, (yes, she is a lady, hence the Baby Girl).

My love for ring pops. Ahh what can I say, ring pops are the shit. I've more recently become obsessed with them. I have my reasons, but I can't tell you guys everything in the first post! So for now, I'll tell you what I am doing with this love.  I decided to make a ceiling light installation with casting ring pops in resin. (see the pictures below for a bit of the process).

I'm hoping to have 200 of them. So far I have just shy of 100. I enjoy the casting process but it definitely is time consuming. I will start cleaning up the castings this week and getting them all ready to have LEDs embedded in them.

The plan is to have the lights react to the viewer. I won't give too much away here, mainly because I am learning how to do all of this and do not want to jinx it!

Will write again soon,

Melissa

Weaving Other Peoples' Memories

I'm counting down the days until I show my collection of "woven memories" at The Blue Sage and then at the library. I'm hoping to capture as many stories as I can before this time. I've been really enjoying spending so much time with each memory, imagining it, weaving it, printing it, and thinking about the memory-holder. Here are some photos that show the result of silkscreening on the warp of my loom and then weaving it up:

Hats hearts and halos

I seem to weave in and out of creating here at Elsewhere. Not only do i change hats as residency director, carpenter, dreamer, mother and sometimes as fellow artist in resident, but have recently re-organized the costume closet and added my personal collection of hats to the mix!

The sky is white with millions of angels today, and I am moving out after haveing an extraordinary and healing month in the gingerbread house.  This month has been focused on painting a commission, and well... painting, and painting, just the act of painting.... picking up the brush and putting color on it, not doing the dishes, the computer up dates, the broken heart...

I became sensitive to my oil paints two years ago and have been transiting from being an oil painter to being a water colorist, to not really painting.  Being here this month has eased open a wall in my heart, and color seems to be allowed to spill through once again.  Nothing physical has changed, no new paints, or tricks, just an energy has shifted, a magic.  New eyes and an open heart.  A soft knowing.

My 10 year old daughter Riven Sky was here this month as well. We would peek out the gingerbread window in the morning before getting ready for school to see if “grandmas restaurant” (my mother, Karen, the Residency manager who lives in the basement as well as the pottery studio) was open for breakfast, and it was a lot of the time!  Riven spent most evenings after school putting her music on in the studio and choreographing dance routines, or watching Lane weave on the loom, completely immersed.  She did a couple dance performances here during this month for artists and friends.

This is my commission finished! (not the best pics though)

This is my painting in progress...

Happy new years, welcoming 2013!

Autumn Colors/Winter Mountains

It has been an extraordinary Fall this year around Elsewhere. How effortlessly beautiful Nature can be and I am so grateful to have landed/grounded/fallen into this divine scene. Events around Paonia are keeping us so busy it is hard to track them. With the ArtLibrary merging with the Blue Sage, getting ready for winter, the influx of residents and their glory, haunted houses, and Sheep walking in the road...

how could we ask for more excitment.

Just as the seasons change from abundance to stillness, from colors to the blanket of snow-- we will try to post the many pigments of Elsewhere.

love,Lauren

Collaboration with the Heart and Soul Project!

Collaboration with the Heart and Soul Project! 

Hello! I'm Lane, one of the residents here at Elsewhere Studios. I've been here for a month and have been working on some fiber based sculpture, drawing, sewing, and weaving.

One of the projects I'm working on is in collaboration with the North Fork Valley Heart and Soul Project (http://www.northforkheartsoul.com/index.html). The project has received a grant to research what makes the NFV unique, what people like about it, and where they want to see change. All of this research will help inform future decisions about the towns and will serve as a guide for better communication and community planning.

It just so happens that before arriving I had planned on doing a multi-media project inviting community members to tell personal stories about Paonia. So I've joined forced with the Heart and Soul project and am now in the process of experimenting with ways to print writing onto the the warp (vertical threads) on my loom. I will invite community members to write their stories, which I will print onto the threads. Participants will be invited to weave up the fabric with their stories embedded in the fibers. No previous weaving experience necessary! The "woven stories" will then be displayed in public spaces around town, as close to the location of the original stories as possible. I will guide walking tours to these locations and provide maps for independent exploration.

This is what the words look like after they're silkscreened onto the warp and before they're woven. I'm still in the process of figuring out the best way to make the words clear.

 

The fabric after it's been woven.

I've also been doing a lot of brainstorming about specific questions that I can ask community members about their memories of Paonia. I originally wanted to collect previously unshared memories, but realized that it's really hard to think of a specific memory or story that you've never shared. Above is a chart of a bunch of questions that I thought might help people access specific memories of Paonia.

I decided that I'd better test these questions out for myself to see if I could answer them and to see which ones most inspired me. My most recent home is Portland, OR, so this is the location of my most recent "home" memories.

Hopefully I'll find just the right printing technique pretty soon here and then I'll be ready to start talking to people around town and inviting them to weave up their memories. If you live in Paonia and are interested in telling a story, let me know!