january 10, saturday eve, i managed to get to two openings. the lovely esther pearl watson's show is up at billy shire fine arts. her wonderful paintings chronicle her life growing up in small town texas with a spaceship-building dad. i got there on the late side and the gallery was filled--in fact they had to kind of kick everyone out eventually! (see website for images, better than my photos)
also sat eve: "hyperbolic crochet coral reef" by the institute for figuring and companions, is on view at track 16. called the "aids quilt of global warming" (because of the threat to corals of a rise in ocean temps), the crochet reef project was started by sisters margaret and christine wertheim. this is another show not to be missed! read more about it here.
from the track 16 website: "Vast in scale, collective in construction, exquisitely detailed, the Crochet Reef is an unprecedented, hybridic, handicraft invocation of a natural wonder that has become, in itself, a new kind of wonder spawned from tens of thousands of hours of labor. After major exhibitions in Chicago, New York, and most recently a smash success at The Hayward in London, Track 16 is proud to present the first West Coast showing of this giant, ongoing, evolutionary, fancywork experiment."
in addition to the beautiful materials that make up the reef, there is a display of the "toxic reef" created from plastic and trash with interwoven bits of hair ties, metro cards etc., which highlights the eastern garbage patch, a texas-sized floating garbage patch endlessly swilling around (and breaking down into tiny dangerous bits) in the north pacific gyre.
the institute for figuring, directed by margaret wertheim, is "dedicated to the poetic and aesthetic dimensions of science, mathematics and the technical arts." a look here at their lecture offerings is a fascinating place to begin.
I first learned about the IFF at the business card menger sponge installation they did at machine project several years ago. machine is a place where you can learn how to sew your own cat pants, study arduino, or learn to solder. over the holidays, if you lived within a 2 mile radius of their echo park location, you could have a poem delivered to your residence. it really doesn't get any better than this! i, unfortunately, don't live quite within that radius, but if i ever decide to move, that will be the necessary criteria.
above images: crochet reef project
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