The Sporozoan Swarm is a modular work of art, made up of torn and cut Intaglio and Lithographic prints combined with drawing, with a projected 500,000 components. These components break down from The Swarm into many small clusters and migrate around the world. The Swarms component structure allows it to ebb and flow through spaces in a fluid way, wrapping around doorways and shifting through corners: it suggests the fluid dynamics of life. Small Clusters of The Swarm are installed in places that are not typically seen as “art viewing spaces,” allowing the greatest number of viewers the space to commune with the piece, free of sterile pretense, or limited access. This way of viewing makes the work become more a part of the viewer’s multifaceted memory, rather than a one-dimensional ornament.
A great deal of site specific or time limited work relies on photography to allow viewers to witness and “own” the art. With The Sporozoan Swarm, the owner of the work or “The Keeper” of a Cluster becomes part of the larger whole of the interconnected world-wide installation. And while viewers are able to see photographs of my installations all over the world, providing a macro perspective, they are also able to install a piece of the whole on their wall using their own aesthetic, their own voice.
These Keepers become aesthetic partners when they decide how Clusters or individual pieces of The Swarm should be displayed. The Keepers physically touch, interact with, and hang the same pieces that I have printed, torn and drawn, contributing to the evolution of the whole. By handling the work they make it a less precious, more tangible, common grounded thing. The element of many small pieces available to people all over the world connects The Keepers to me and to the large-scale public installations of The Swarm I create. The Sporozoan Swarm acts as a binder of all of its Clusters and Keepers by connecting them through its on-line locating map and its serendipitous collective experience.
Art can change our world. Just let it be a part of your life.
Sweetie Boutique has asked me to stay on for another month. This will give all of you who weren’t able to come last month another chance. It also allows me to be more prepared. I will be showing new Swarm Containers, at least one Trophy and two prints from The Sporozoan Cavities suite and of course the two installs in the display windows.
Come out say hello and check out the work. West Seattle should be hopping.
It is a great story. My friend John Petzinger emailed me to say he saw an ad on craigslist looking for artists. I replied to the ad and heard back, almost immediately, from Sense Nail Spa in the Washington State Convention Center in downtown Seattle. The salon had looked at images of work from Sweetie Boutique and B of A and asked if I would like to show some work in their space and of course I said yes. This happened so fast from the time John sent me the ad to the time I was showing them my work was only about 24 hours. I took in a couple Swarm Containers. When I got there Robert, the manager asked me if I could do an installation on their main wall behind the front desk. He told me there was a neurological conference arriving the next day and that over the next week about 10,000 neurological professionals from around the world would be coming through and hoped I could install it the next day: Friday.
Zanne was in China. I frantically inquired with Izzy’s main play date friends and all of them came back and said “sorry…..” It was too short notice. I called John. “Hey remember that ad you sent me…” It turned out John came to help me on Friday and Izzy went to run errands with his wife. Thank you so much you two. John took great shots of The Swarm going up and was a great help in prepping pieces for me. I ran out of steam just about the time the salon was closing and all parties involved decided I should finish on Saturday. Izzy would spend the afternoon with John and I would finish.
The Swarm wrapped its way through a corner and another and then around to the other side of the wall. It is not decorative, it does not blend in, it does command the space and grab attention both inside The Salon and through the glass windows. If you live in Seattle you should try to see one of the four installs that are currently up. They are all listed in this post.
Art can change your world.
It has been a while since I worked on this project, the Sporozoan Swarm is running me ragged. Before I began The Swarm I was working on a project in which I asked people to send me an item of clothing and I would modify it with The Sporozoan. I started out just screen printing the image on t-shirts and the like but then I started getting excited about sewing and began embroidering articles of clothing.
Katrina was very daring in sending me a dress and telling to me to go for it. I cut into it and added bits and pieces and did a lot of hand as well as machine embroidery to the dress. Now that I have finally seen the dress on her I am excited to breath some life back into this project. We shall see what the next few days bring in the life of The Sporozoan Embroidery project.
The Sporozoan Swarm is not a lot of little pieces going out into the world to individuals. It is one large piece of art work, with a population slated to be around 50,000 when completed, that is broken up into clusters so that it can be Kept by many different hands. All these Keepers in turn create a fabric, around the world, of strangers connected by The Swarm. Once the entire population of The Swarm has been distributed The Map will pin point all locations of The Swarm and be a testament to arts ability to cross all barriers and bring people together on common ground.
Art can change the world.
The Swarm is calling you. All you need to do is leave a comment and you get one. I will be picking someone at random but not until I have 5 comments. This weeks give away is for a Minuscule Sporozoan Swarm. Once I have 5 comments I will notify the new Keeper, via email and then get their Swarm in the mail. Check out the map to see The Swarms proliferation so far.
Check back next week I will have a new give away then.
Art is everywhere, it is true, but art in the way we normally think about it is not everywhere. That is because we have been trained to believe that art is only to be seen in formal locals. Bullshit! Art should be all around us and not just the art that is in advertising or in the beautiful design of a door handle or an article of clothing. In this shot one of the parasite prints has taken the place of an ad on the Berlin subway. When I was teaching at Pratt a student who had lived in East Berlin decided that she wanted to take art work and place it in the Berlin subway. She asked people for work and came back with pictures of where the work had ended up. It was a real interesting project that encouraged a lot of other students to think about how the boundaries, that are set for art, can be viewed.
Make art and make it be seen. Art is changing our world!!
Beauty comes in many forms not all of which are pretty. The Tragic beauty book is a collaborative project organized by members of Booklyn and Artichoke Press. I am not sure how many books have been published but in 2005, when I was asked to participate, six books had been published. All participants were given dimensions and fold placements and asked to create 30 pages for the book. The book wishes to examine all that the artists who participate consider that which is beautiful and tragic. I used a design of the sporozoan on one side of the page and on the other I broke up the page into seven stories. I took pictures of death and destruction across NYC. I used the recent vandalism of on of my public sculptures as the center piece and framed it with images of dead animals in the street, dead houses collapsing and homeless people.
The page is a screen print containing around 30 colours. Some of the image is hand drawn and some digital with hand manipulation. It required 19 folds and hours of cutting to finish the piece so that it could be given to the book binder.
Art finds the best in us.
“The sporozoan’s shrine to the mapping of the parasite.” is a piece I made in 2002 for a large group show. This picture is a detail of the sporozoan’s display box.
