Community Newly Cultivated

Myohan Oh

Between receiving Clutch from the previous carrier and arriving home with the gallery, I encountered a couple of friends who stopped me on the street and took interest in this unusual vessel containing the Terra/Form exhibition that I held by my side.  I was delighted to know that there were some who were interested in Clutch without any initiation on my part.

Later, I was sitting in my apartment getting ready to go to Wicker Park, and wondering how I would approach strangers and what I would say to engage them in the Clutch exhibition, and ultimately how I would cultivate a community through this experience. I kept opening and closing that 5”x 5”x 5” gallery space, unconsciously thinking that I would see something different each time I opened it. Then Landon Williams’ piece entitled Here came into view and it made me think about what it means to be here and to be in the moment that I’m in. I thought about where I was: my apartment building. I thought about how an apartment building is, in a sense, a community in and of itself. A bunch of people from all different backgrounds and different locations and different stages in life gather and inhabit this one building for the sake of living. Then I thought about how although we (the residents) are in close vicinity to one other, we are still separate; come to think of it, I didn’t know the names of anyone on my floor, let alone who they were.

I decided to jettison the idea of going to Wicker Park with this exhibition and embraced the idea of going around to the other apartment units on my floor, knocking on doors, and getting to know the inhabitants of this so-called community.

The experience came to fruition beautifully. I went from door to door, knocking and awkwardly asking if the resident or residents would be interested in taking a look at this miniature gallery. Obviously not everyone answered their doors because not everyone was home, but overall, I got to know my neighbors. There lives a guy on my floor [for privacy reasons, I will not reveal names] who goes to Columbia and majors in photography and has a very suave taste in hairstyle (apparently there are a lot of Columbia students on my floor). There is a room of three girls who actually have a large poster of a boy band (whose name I can’t remember for the life of me) and play music very often and loud enough to the point where one can hear it from down the hall. I also had no idea that the apartment unit next to mine was vacant: the residents there had moved out very recently; I had only figured this out when the rentor came around and entered that unit that I was waiting in front of so patiently, only to find out that it was completely cleared out and uninhabited.

Through this experience with Clutch, I can confidently say that I had cultivated community in a space where community seemed evident but was in fact absent. This wasn’t a community in the sense that all the residents on my floor got to know each other, but rather it was more personal and for my own gain, that I gained the opportunity to interact with others and to have them open their lives to me while I shared pieces of mine (and classmates’ through the artwork in the gallery). My underlying hope for those on my floor is that my action of knocking and interacting with this exhibition would encourage others to cultivate community as well, not necessarily through presenting pieces of art in a clutch purse, but through whatever means of expression best fit them.

Clutch attends A Christmas Carol

Ciar O’Mahony
 

I took Clutch to the theatre with me to see A Christmas Carol and could not have asked for a more excitable reception.  A Christmas Carol, being a very family oriented play, had attracted an audience of all ages and small children were everywhere.  All I had to do was show a couple of children what was inside the little wooden box and dozens of children were flocking over through the narrow aisle of seats attempting to see and touch what was inside.  My lengthy explanations of Terra/Form and the concept of Clutch Gallery were condensed into more digestible ideas for those under age eight.  "Clutch was a gallery" I said, "All of the things inside were works of art by different artists..." I had never considered what Clutch would be like in the eyes of children, but they are as valuable as any other audience.  The intrigue and enthusiasm were palpable from some but disappointment could also be felt from others, hoping for something slightly more Christmas-oriented.  Small hands grabbed at work and I became more of a care-taker of Clutch than anything.  I spoke with a couple of other people as well, the person sitting next to me, and other play-goers casually.  Clutch became a miniature theatre in the rows of another as well as a garden and a gallery.  It felt strange to be a small part of a large audience who had come prepared to witness a spectacle while also carrying a spectacle of my own.  A Christmas Carol is a play that has been performed in Chicago for over 50 years now and is an established part of the city's theatrical history, Clutch is a project that is now establishing itself as a tiny pillar in the Chicago arts community and maybe they will intersect again at a future time.

Clutch Schmoozes during SAIC Crit Week

Risa Recio


Clutch gallery took a tour with me around the Graduate Painting and Drawing critique spaces for Critique Week. As I brought Clutch with me, the expected curiosity of classmates followed and not surprisingly, acted as a tool to diffuse much of the tension surrounding the studios. As classmates would come and go to discuss their critiques and talk about the harsh criticisms from their panels, their moods would suddenly change when they saw what I held.

Later that evening, I took Clutch to attend the lecture of Visiting Artist, Silke Otto Knapp, an artist originally from Austria who now lives and works in Los Angeles. Her large scale watercolour paintings allude to backdrops of a stage or theater, which became an interesting point of discussion later on in the evening when I had the opportunity to attend a dinner with her, classmates, and some SAIC faculty after the lecture. At this dinner, I presented Clutch to the table and lively discussions ensued. We discussed the surprising theatricality of the Clutch exhibition, how the carrier of Clutch must perform with it (holding, presenting, carrying, etc.) and how the viewers also perform as they interact with the gallery. The effect of Clutchwas a surprising role reversal. Where Silk Otto Knapp’s large scale works set a stage for the view, Clutch acts like a protagonist where we as the audience become a cast of characters in the performance. 

My experience with Clutch came not so much in the discussion of what was in the gallery itself, but what happened outside and around it.

The act of archiving

“Is it part of the Field Museum?”

“Is it something from the Collections?”

I had taken Clutch Gallery to the Field Museum where at any given time that I opened it to a viewer, it seemed that more questions arose than what I could answer. 

Any explanation I gave seemed to only add to the confusion of it.

And I began to question it myself. What exactly distinguished the art within Terra/Form from the artifacts that surrounded it? One could say that the artifacts held within the Field Museum are artifacts because they incorporate aspects of cultural heritage. But I could make the same argument for some of the objects in Terra/Form even if they represent a more personal response to our culture.

Or was it  due to the way the objects were collected and the public’s perception of them? Was it how the objects came to be?

 The contextual explanation of Terra/Form and its fruition began to make me think about the act of collecting. Why do we feel compelled to collect objects and archive them in a particular manner? The psychology of collections tends to fall back on the idea that when we experience chaos in the world around us, collecting objects allows us to find an outlet of personal control.1 It provides us with a comfort zone and one that we can refer back to when we need to be reminded of a moment in our lives. In a lot of ways I think Terra/Form can be a reflection of those feelings and needs- the aroma of a family history, the remains of a path that had been taken before.

 The collections housed within the Field Museum, although now they are carefully archived based on the most current scientific requirements, had similarly humble beginning as Terra/Form- a woman or man feeling the need to gather something she or he found along her or his own personal journey and carefully keep only to open it up to future generations.

Jordan Whitney Martin

1. McKinley, Mark B. "The Psychology of Collecting | The National Psychologist." The Psychology of Collecting | The National Psychologist. N.p., n.d.
Web. 05 Dec. 2014.

Nicole Tourangeau

A view of Chicago
 

Like it or not the controversial Trump Tower is now a landmark in our city. Trump Towers has come to stand for the materiality and fame of the name itself and its over luxurious components.  Having someone close to me living on the 58th floor of Trump Towers has given me the opportunity to experience life in one of the most famed high-rises in Chicago.

I took Clutch to Trump to expose Clutch to environments existing inside and outside of a building known for its superficiality. Before going, I believed living in such a building removes one from nature and its surroundings and creates its own bubble of an environment, much like Clutch is a self-enclosed world.

In the Trump Tower habitat, in summer the windows are covered with extremely large spiders and their webs. They are not present on the day I bring Clutch because the weather is cool, but during summer these “flying” spiders use their silk and catch air currents, landing on some of Chicago’s tallest buildings. Small insects also make these windows their homes, which the spiders eat. In the winter, the windows freeze and slowly the ice begins to melt. This natural process is inevitable in Chicago’s climate and I find it beautiful to watch the ice melt in sync with our weather patterns. The buildings are also equipped with electric fireplaces, artificial and purely used to create a relaxing ambiance. 

For me though what was most significant about spending time with Clutch at the Trump Tower was its extensive view. I feel like you can see all of Chicago, including  bodies of water, expressways, and the changing urban sprawl. The view puts the scale of the city into perspective. I picked out North Avenue Beach - a reminder of how earlier this summer I walked there from downtown. At that time the walk felt exhausting but from the Trump Tower window, it felt much closer. I currently live in Bucktown and even in the short time I’ve lived in this area, I have created a community within my neighborhood. I go to my local gym, buy from the small food store around the corner and, more or less, stay in the neighborhood.  I even walk the same route to the bus to and from school. 

I often forget that I am a part of a much larger, easily accessible city. My original thought that the city dwellers of Chicago’s most dense areas were the most disconnected from their environment but at Trump Tower, with Clutch, seeing Chicago as a whole from a high-rise vantage point, made me think about my own disconnection to Chicago. I have created a small community for myself just like Clutch has created a community for itself, and, like Clutch, perhaps the purpose is to be mindful of making the connections between communities.

Chicagoisms

A Sixth Chicagoism

Jane Thompson

The organizers of the exhibition Chicagoisms, at The Art Institute of Chicago, identify five key principles serving as the foundation for Chicago’s historic grandeur. These Chicagoisms are:  “Vision Shapes History”, “Optimism Trumps Planning”, “Ambition Overcomes Nature”, “Technology Makes Spectacle”, and “Crisis Provokes Innovation”.   These aphorisms point to such well known events as the Great Chicago Fire, the World’s Columbian Exposition, and the reversal of the flow of the Chicago River.

In the exhibition, nine architects use these principles to make 21^st century proposals for urban development that are curious, unconventional, and sometimes quirky.  The proposals are mostly depicted in aerial view architectural models under clear domes.  Each one invites us to peer down into the city, imagining and interacting with Chicago in new ways.

Similarly, Clutch Gallery invites us to gaze down into the exhibition Terra/Form.  Each of the diverse works of art suggests a way in which the artist observes or interacts with their environment, their terra. HERE by Landon Williams reminds us to stop, breath, and take note of where we are.  Fallen by Melody Bilbo connects the two cities where she lives and works.  Polyroots by Paulina Ramirez Parra commemorates all trees that are destined to serve our human wants. In Vitreous Enamel, Judy Radovsky shares the alchemical geology that has been part of her artwork for years.  LaAndrea Deloyce Mitchell uses collage in Ode to Memphis Gold to speak of the human interconnectivity that she knows in her community in Memphis.  Katie Doyle offers a porcelain flower to make the sense of intimacy permanent.  In Vessel, Tim Llop captures the remnants of his own love of wood working in a basket that was a gift from a friend (Images of these works may be viewed in the blog posts from November entitled Install Photos and Terra/Form Exhibition Opening)

Together in the intimate space of Clutch Gallery, these art works form a metaphoric garden.  In this gallery there are no clear domes, limiting the viewer’s engagement.  Audiences are free to touch each of the art works and even smell the Jasmine scent that Christen Calloway places in Terra/Form in remembrance of a Jasmine tree that was dear to her family.  Viewers are welcomed into the newly formed community and become part of its growth.

This intimacy and accessibility of Terra/Form suggest a sixth aphorism, “Nature Cultivates Community”

Tiny Talk: Vitreous Enamel

Text from an Informal “Tiny Talk,” given on the night of Terra/Form: Cultivating a Community opening at the Art Institute by Judy Radovsky, one of Terra/Form’s contributing artists:

Hi, I’m Judy Radovsky.

My contribution to Clutch is a small piece of Vitreous Enamel.

As you know, this show marks the culmination of our class on contemporary cartography and the beginning of the month- long exhibition at/in clutch gallery.

It must be said that we all were drawn to this course for our own reasons, as the nebulous cluster of issues surrounding walking, wandering, mapping, borders, and identification touched on in our discussions have varied roles in our work.

For myself, the themes I’ve concentrated on for some time now concern materiality, tactility, the relationship between surface, form and light, and also with representations of scale.  This current body of work becomes important in speaking about the enamel, for reasons that will become clear.

I’m in the middle of a few projects that take as their starting point a series of photographs I’ve taken of thin geological sections and saturated crystal chemical solutions.

These images of microscopic space instead of confining themselves to a claustrophobic 30microns, which is an average of their thickness,

instead appear as vast alien landscapes representing the physical processes that formed them.

Another piece I’m working on looks at the structure of a hurricane,

and attempts to translate it into a much smaller physical sculptural object. This, of course, has its challenges, but at heart I’m interested in how we look at the forces around us that push and pull us, whether they appear stable and solid as the ground beneath us or as giant violent weather systems that are essentially intangible, but nevertheless are profoundly impactful and things that we study, chart, and graph. We interpret these intangibles that challenge materiality and time.

So, what then does my small Clutch piece have to do with all this?

Well, this was a small test sample of enamel that I did many years ago. It was almost beyond notice at the time and spent the last number of years in a toolbox, forgotten.

Back then, it had little to do with my practice, but was interesting nonetheless. An experiment that didn’t go anywhere. A kind of island to itself.

When I recently came across it, I was struck at how the material is now completely in line with my current mode of inquiry, with its vitreous mineral structure, and  its state change during heating from a fine granular powder, to a pocked uneven orange peel and then a smooth full fuse.  There’s an earthiness to its quality of shared permanence and impermanence, and a poetry to the capture of mineral color suspended in glass – what is sometimes called a solid liquid (amorphous solid).

But more than that, pertaining directly to the topic of charting winding paths and wandering aimlessly, this piece is a kind of personal map of thought and practice.

It’s one part of my artistic practice that connects the past and present, and I confess that now I have reacquainted myself, I want experiment again with it, and so it also bridges a future Judy’s practice -- becoming an embodiment of this cycle of material and conceptual practice.

It seemed a fitting inclusion to a show of art and mapping.