Fluids began as a way of connecting with friends, family, colleagues, students, and many others I did not even meet. It is part collaborative research, part design problem solving that culminates in a congenial opportunity to share drinks with participants who become contributors to the piece.  I started this process by conducting surveying participants asking them questions about their personal habits and rules of beverage consumption.  Once the research was gathered, the information was transferred graphically, joining the glasses with text and image.  The glassware and cups (totaling around 300) was exhibited in an interactive manner whereby viewers drank from the glasses I created.

I am interested in orchestrating multi-disciplinary research based events that allow my work to be generated from responses, interactions and situations where  I cannot anticipate the outcome.  To achieve this I set up situations that celebrate community, values and reinforce personal habits allowing for an affirmation of identity.  This documents and provides opportunities for new observations, questions, and connections to emerge.  This project allowed me to engage with the participants in a community-based, creative project which further provides models of how the visual arts, performance, and design can occur outside the isolation of individual producers and engage with community building and a socially engaged art practice.

Fluids, 3’x24’x4″,  handmade and commercially produced ceramic and glass ware with screen print decals, 2014-2018

Photographs courtesy of Wes Magyar

 

Exhibits

2014 Making Contact, MSU Faculty Exhibition, Center for Visual Art, Denver, CO

 

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