What a year! One of the things I realize I have not taken the time to process this year is the shift to doing work for outdoors.
It wasn’t until I decided to take on the challenge of doing work that is intended for outside that I felt the safety and security of doing work for indoors.
First, indoors is controlled. The temperature, the lighting, how close viewers can get to the work, and even who is permitted to see the work is decided by someone and honored.
Second, indoor spaces have context, they are created by people with an intention on how the space is used. Making art, and showing art is vulnerable. Creating the work is an opening into my soul, and to showing it is an act of service of that experience. Indoors, the work feels safe to share.
Third, when indoors art can be labeled ART with capital letters, and be treated that way.
Going outdoors - the work needs to stand on its own. No walls to support me or the work.
The work needs to be strong. The piece in Brewster was put up on a 105 degree August day at noon, and taken down in November during a snow squall. It survived hurricane like winds and groundhogs. And its got to survive humans and the weird things we do too.
ALL of nature will see it. When art is outside, everything nature has is witnessing it. Eagles, worms, and groundhogs. Everything can poop on it, eat it, and just check it out. Outdoor art is not just for humans.
Nature is BIG. Put something big in your house outside and it looks like a toy. A couch can fill up a room, and outside, its a small piece of the block. 25 feet inside is really big… outiside it is dwarfed by the maginificent OAK.
Nature is beautiful. Anything outside is seen next to the most beautiful of creations - spider webs, trees, dandilions, birds, clouds. Putting art outside is very humbling.
Nature moves. Wind -can’t see it. It can caress your cheek and tear a building down. Outside, there is a lot of it. Outdoor art has to acknowledge wind and its power.
When the pandemic started, we didn’t know how the virus spread. We didn’t know how long it was going to last for. I am an artist. I am a contemporary artist. If I was to own that identity, I was going to shift my art to reflect the contemporary times.
Art was going outside. I was going to make art for outside. The work I created in the past 9 months is a direct experience of the pandemic - our constraints, our desires, and exposure of our weaknesses and our strengths.