Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Newsletter / Humans, like blades of grass…

Humans, like blades of grass, are apt to point in different directions, forgetting that they comprise an interminable garden. The two interviews showcased this week strikingly articulate the universal contingency of stars and cells, boldly outlining the hand that winds the spinning top of time.

Quebecois sculptor Julie Tremblay contorts grids of rigid aluminum mesh into amorphous, fluid, and elusive continua. Painted and illuminated by strings of light, Tremblay’s sculptures mimic the parting gestures of a dance set to the music of dimensions and scale. Sitting at the heart of her expressionistic conundrums is a sincere fascination with the patterns of nature, the geometric interconnectivity of all things organic and artificial. Like an expanding fractal, Tremblay’s methodology directs her artistic momentum inwardly, revealing the eerie similarities between the dome of the stars and the cave of the mind.

Behind David Schafer‘s cross-disciplinary multimedia experiments lurks a pedagogical subtext coming to grips with the interplay of ubiquitous subjects. Stirring a dense concentration of language, mimicry, and sound, Schafer playfully observes the semiotic foam that rises to the surface. Influenced by the whispers of absence amplified by the act of translation, Schafer’s sensory sculptures embody how shifts in context, coupled with endless variations of interpretation, defy the permanence of a text or recording, while lending it a certain universality. Also mentioned in his jovial interview is Schafer’s 3000-record penchant for easy-listening music and the obligation to keep the various compartments of his studio in persistent motion, like placing memories at the forefront of the mind.

Additional interviews include: Chandler McWilliams, Kazys Varnelis, and Pablo Helguera.

What are you reading? April Funcke, one of our users, recently finished Man with a Blue Scarf, a first hand testimony of the creative process from the subject rather than the painter, which documents the extensive and revelatory conversation between surrealist portraitist Lucien Freud and art critic Martin Gayford. James K-M, another one of our users, is enamored with the aphoristic metaphysical wanderings of hyper-prolific Swiss author Robert Walser, whose syntactical experimentation in collections such as “Masquerade” and Other Stories laid an early foundation for future post-modern musings.

Celebrating its 11th iteration, the annual Japan Day @ Central Park is staging an open call to collect evocative and engaging artistic visions. An enormous and vivacious occasion of performances, cuisine, and intermingling cultures, Japan Day commemorates years of mutually appreciative relations between Eastern and Western practices. Artists are asked to merge the imagery of Japan, New York, and Central Park in whatever form they see fit. Submit your design by January 15th for a chance to win a round trip to Japan and have your emblem serve as the face of the 2017 ceremony.

How steady is the trajectory of your earthly growth? Will you arrive at a point like the solipsistic willow, or spiral to infinity as a towering redwood?

As always, here are the links to the interview archive and free resources page.

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