American ceramist Kathy Butterly earned a BFA at Moore College of Art in 1986 and an MFA at the University of California, Davis in 1990. Her awards include the Evelyn Shapiro Foundation Grant in 1993, an Empire State Crafts Alliance Grant in 1995, an NYFA Grant in 1999 and the Anonymous Was a Woman Award in 2002.

Butterly will be speaking alongside her fellow Dirt On Delight artists Ann Agee, and Beverly Semmes on the panel There’s Just Something About Clay, with coordinating exhibition curator Andria Hickey. The discussion will take place at 7:00 pm on Thursday, October 8^th, 2009, in the Walker Art Center Cinema. Tickets are free and will be available at the Bazinet Garden Lobby desk from 6:00 pm.

In your answer to the Institute for Contemporary Art question,“How did you come to clay?”  you cite Viola Frey as an inspiration. You said the way she worked was so confident, almost macho, that you were so inspired to make clay your medium. Now, you’re being exhibited with her in the Dirt on Delight show. Can you comment a little further on her inspiration and the rest of your process in working with clay?

I think that basically in addition to what was already mentioned, Viola was there at the right time/right place for me.  She enabled that light bulb to go off over my head.  In addition to Viola, Jack Thompson and Ken Vavrek who were my ceramic teachers at Moore College of Art, helped to open my world up further with inspiration for world travel and also taught me the down and dirty basics of working with clay. You wouldn’t realize by looking at my and Viola’s pieces that she was an original source for my love of  clay, but after witnessing her in action, making her monumental pieces,  I began to also work very large….4-9 ft. tall.  Now my works are 4-9 inches tall. 

Why is there a distinction between ceramics/clay and any other sculpture? How important is that distinction anymore?

“Kathy Butterly’s tiny ceramic vessels are abstract and intensely associative, most often evoking aspects of the body. They recall the convolutions of George Ohr’s pots and Robert Arneson’s mugging faces and twisted figures, as well as the finesse of Adrian Saxe’s gew-gaw-ornamented vases. Her playful tone echoes these predecessors, but with a coyness that seems distinctly feminine.” That’s a quote from a review of your work by Janet Koplos in the New York Times. Can you talk about how you come to create some of these objects? Particularly, Fall into Spring, Cenotes, and Like Butter, which I believe are all in Dirt on Delight.

I never know what a piece will be/look like until it is completely finished. I never do sketches…..I can explain my process- both thought and making-  like that of a Rorschach test combined with exquisite corpse.  I start with a form, react to it, add to it, fire it, react, fire react……..so on.  At a certain point I understand where  the piece wants to go and after it is complete I understand the meaning of the piece….. ” Fall into Spring” has to do with how I was feeling after 9/11 (I live downtown in Manhattan.)  My head was so full of information and it felt so heavy…..I made a few pieces like this one.  It is definitely a self portrait ….of how I was feeling….. If you look at the piece “Like Butter” – it is a piece made early in my relationship with my husband. Cenote has to do with lushness, about showing off the inside as an equal to the outside and also about the fear of loss of water…..

What would you say to artists choosing clay as their medium to create? 

I would say the same thing to anyone who wanted to be any sort of artist….just be honest to yourself and your work.

If you’ve spent any time in the Walker’s summer exhibition The Quick and The Dead, you have probably noticed a small vitrine of curious forms made of brightly colored yarn. If you knit using a circular needle, these objects may look familiar to you as a hat or baby sweater gone terribly wrong; all twisted and turned over on themselves. In fact, these are not botched knitting projects, but crocheted representations of a mathematical theory known as hyperbolic space.

As a most basic explanation, hyperbolic space is a theoretical principle of geometry that suggests spatial structures altogether different from spheres and those defined by rules parallel lines, i.e. Euclidean geometry. A much more thorough explanation is found here, in an interview between mathemetician Daina Taimina and geometer David Henderson. In 1997 Taimina solved a century-old quandary of what forms hyperbolic space assume by figuring out that crochet could model it.

The interview was conducted by Margaret Wertheim, who along with her sister Christine Wertheim, make up The Institute For Figuring, an LA-based educational organization that conducts projects, makes publications and curates exhibitions aimed at illuminating the poetic and aesthetic dimensions of math and science. Soon after the 1997 crafty breakthrough, the IFF teamed up with Dr. Taimina to further explore and elaborate on her methods of crocheting hyperbolic space, while sustaining a feminist conversation about craft, gender, and labor. Through public workshops around the world, the IFF and many curious crocheters have continued to hook together these symbolic forms, including the ones found in The Quick and the Dead.

If you have further questions on the subject of non-Eucilidean space, the physics of snowflakes or any other wonder of figuring, the IFF will be here on Thursday, July 30 to answer them. For their engagement at the Walker, Margaret and Christine will lead a workshop on how to crochet hyperbolic forms that is open to all skill levels. Yarn and hooks will be provided, although participants are welcome and encouraged to bring their own. The lesson takes place from 5 to 6:30 pm in the Star Tribune Foundation Art Lab. After the workshop, everyone is welcome to continue working on their crocheted objects at the IFF’s lecture, at 7 pm in the Walker Cinema, where they’ll discuss their various projects, including their ongoing effort to draw attention to the plight of the world’s coral reefs through crochet.

It was a lovely May evening last Monday and perfect weather for a walk in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and into the Walker’s galleries with 5th and 6th graders, their parents, siblings, and teachers from Horace Mann School in Saint Paul. We gathered to hear students read from their best work after participating in the Walker’s Writing through Art Program. For the fourth year in a row, Horace Mann students have come to the Walker four times during the school year, each time touring a new gallery or the Garden, and each time doing a different type of writing as part of their tour.

Some students read poems inspired by works of art, others shared original myths or stories in which paintings or sculptures came to life, and still others became junior critics as they expressed their own points of view and opinions about art and architecture.

Here’s a sampling:

A student’s poem inspired by Kenneth Noland’s painting Cantabile….
Target
Circle, Color
Pointing, Shooting, Colliding
Aim for the middle
Bull’s-eye

One student wrote a myth about Fillipo, from the clan of Weather giants who was hired by CNN to “stick their heads above the clouds and predict the weather. They are hardly ever wrong.” He received a giant CNN necklace as a gift for his services which was given to the Walker after his death.

Another student’s favorite was Woodrow, by Deborah Butterfield.
“As I studied the horse, it came to life. I saw tall mountains, with peaks sprinkled with snow with a light blue sky in the background, as the horse frolicked in the hills of the valley.”

In a critical essay about architecture and art, a student took the stance that the Walker Art Center building is art because of how it was designed. “The exterior of the building is made out of squares of hard, metal mesh…. Each piece has dents and bumps in it but the edges still fit.”


And Lichtenstein’s studio painting led to an interesting story that began,
“One sunny Thanksgiving afternoon, Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse traveled to the Arctic….”

Last month WACTAC was ready to present 13 Most Beautiful Young Artists, a multimedia performance featuring original music performed live by 8 groups of young Twin Cities’ musicians. Unfortunately, on the day of the show we had 6″ of snow dumped on us and had to postpone the performance for a later date. Fortunately, we snuck in a tech check before the snow fell. Check out the photos.

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Blizzard, sleet, or snow, we hope to present the performance on Thursday night!

Just because Jody Williams‘ books are small doesn’t mean they aren’t a huge undertaking. Each year this Minneapolis-based book artist devotes time to one large-scale project, in addition to smaller projects, and her teaching commitments at Minnesota Center for Book Arts and Minneapolis College of Art and Design. The Walker is showing her 1998 piece, In Here / Out There as part of the Text/Messages: Books by Artists exhibition, and she was kind enough to stop by last week-end’s Free First Saturday to show families mock-ups of this book as well as another one, called Word for Word inspired by one of my favorite word games, Scrabble.

Here are some interesting tidbits about Jody’s work:

• She likened In Here / Out There to our experience of living in Minnesota during winter…you want to go outside but you can’t because of the cold, but staying inside and in your head for so long can be a dangerous thing.
• The ladder made of linen thread was glued together and held between 2 wax sheets of paper while it adhered together.
• In Here / Out There was reproduced 65 times over, to produce an edition. Similar to printmakers, book artists make multiples so they can sell their work and make it accessible to a larger number of people.
• Sometimes Jody makes her own paper and prints her own designs onto paper before using it to make a book (which makes the value go up). The black designs on the red paper in In Here / Out There were printed using a technique called linoleum block printing.
• Despite the fact that Jody’s books are usually contained within a box, she admitted to not liking her college architecture class because there were “too many rules.” She prefers to make her own rules!
• Her Scrabble-inspired book Word for Word is meant to be used as you play the game. She made her own letter-pieces for this project. How are they different from the ones you use to play with?

If you steal away for afternoon* in the exhibition Text/Messages: Books by Artists you’ll encounter a wide array of fascinating objects that relate in one form or another to the notion of the “book.” Among the things you’ll see are: a kite, a cake, a pistol, hand-made paper, mass-printed magazines, gas stations, comics, and cardboard. Together, these works are an imaginative wonderland that manage quite well to illustrate the vast styles, procedures and philosophies that make up the field of book arts.

A panel discussion this Thursday attempts a similar feat by gathering book makers and thinkers for an all-over conversation about the current state of artist book production. Here is a mini-introduction to the panelists:

Buzz Spector: artist and critical writer whose work makes frequent use of the book, both as subject and object. He is concerned with relationships between public history, individual memory, and perception. Spector has issued a number of artists’ books and editions since the mid-1970s, including, most recently, Time Square, a limited edition book whose text is taken from a sequence of Google searches on the nature of time.

Harriet Bart: maker of installations, large-scale sculpture, objects and books from her studio here in Minneapolis. All of Bart’s work is inspired by her deep interest and engagement with books and the written word. Her piece, In the Presence of Absence is featured in Text/Messages. She has also completed more than ten public art commissions around the world.

Sally Alatalo: artist, writer and performer based in Chicago. Her written, printed and performative work intersects with popular-cultural forms and activities such as genre fiction, hairdressing and household tasks. She is a force behind Sara Ranchouse Publishing, a xxx that deals in artist’s books, printed multiples and “art-at-large.” Read her publishing manifesto here.

James Hoff: artist and co-founder/editor of Primary Information, a non-profit publisher devoted to printing artists’ books and multiples by artists both young and old including John Cage, the Art Workers Coalition, Disband, Robert Filliou, Dick Higgins, Allan Kaprow, and Dieter Roth, among many others. He is currently co-editing a facsimile edition of the seminal Avalanche Magazine.

David Plaztker, moderator: curator, book dealer/scholar, former director of Printed Matter, Inc., and purveyor of Specific Object, a personal venture dedicated gathering and presenting interesting objects in any artistic medium. Material shown range from artists’ publications, ephemera, prints, multiples and other editions to literature, music / audio works and unique artworks of the contemporary world. His most recent project is a film screening and exhibition of Belgian Conceptual artist, Marcel Broodthaers’ unusual hybrid of book and film, A Voyage on the North Sea (1973 – 1974).

Please join these folks for a stimulating conversation this Thursday, February 5 at 7 pm. Bring your questions and ideas on all things bookish and get inspired!

*A sunny day is recommended. The windows onto the terrace make for lovely sun bath in the reading area of the exhibition.

The exhibition Tetsumi Kudo: Garden of Metamorphosis, currently on view in Galleries 4—6, posed a challenge to us during Free First Saturdays, the Walker’s monthly program for kids and families. For those of you who haven’t seen this incredible exhibition, there is some “mature” content (there are hundreds of sculptural representations of phalluses and other detached body parts). Of course the Walker has never been shy about exhibiting work that challenges our boundaries. The content of the Kudo exhibition is complex and symbolic, rather than graphically sexual, so we began thinking about how to present this exhibition to families on Free First Saturday. Some of you may remember discussions about the subject of “Warning: Mature Content” signs on the blogs here and here. Aside from the argument that these warning signs don’t effectively communicate much about the content of such a complex exhibition, these signs may keep people away because parents can’t simply leave their kids to preview the exhibition.

We decided on a new approach for this particular exhibition on Free First Saturdays. We staff the entrances with greeters who could offer families a preview before they enter the exhibition. These greeters are equipped with exhibition catalogs and talking points prepared by the Visual Arts department. Almost every parent, regardless of their opinions about the exhibition, are grateful for the information. Knowledge is power, right? According to the greeters, most who have looked at the catalog decided to enter the exhibition. Some decide they aren’t interested and move on. I’m sure that many families have seen Garden of Metamorphosis who would have otherwise avoided it at first sight of those warning signs. Success! Much appreciation is due to all the Visitor Services staff who have acted as ambassadors to this important exhibition.

Tetsumi Kudo: Garden of Metamorphosis is on view until March 22, 2009. Upcoming Free First Saturdays are February 7 and March 7, 10 am—5 pm. Come see Tetsumi Kudo for FREE (or at least come to decide if you want to)! Exhibition catalogs are available for preview at the lobby desks and for sale in the Walker Shop.

WACTAC is putting on an awesome workshop “Sculpture for Lightweights,” taught by local artist and sculptor Amy Toscani and open to all high school students. She has exhibited extensively since 1993, recently having a show at The Soap Factory. During the workshop, Amy will share her knowledge of welding, sewing, and playing light-weight steel to create sculptural objects. You’ll have the opportunity to check out the Walker galleries, flex your muscles on some stainless steel in Amy’s studio, and then exhibit your own sculpture in a final showcase.

We put Amy through the wringer before we deemed her worthy of reciting the WACTAC of Allegiance, and our in home stenographer was kind enough to give us a look at the transcripts:

What were you like in high school?
I was sort of obnoxious and immature, I’d say. I was actually sort of in the grade school stage in high school. You know, I was like pea-shooters and gum under desks. I wasn’t really artistic. I didn’t know I wanted to be an artist. Some of my family members were but I was more into music. You know I was in a marching band and then I went on to college and thought I was going to teach band music. Isn’t that funny? So, I was at the College of Fine Arts and I thought I wanted to go into radio television, in the production end of it, and then I started taking all these art classes. I went to see a counselor and I said, “I want to change out of fine arts into telecommunications.” And he said, and he said, “No, look at all these art classes you took!” I said, “well I can’t be an artist, I’m not good enough to be an artist!” and he said, “you don’t have to be good.” So, I took drawing, illustration, and sculpture for under grad and then it turned out I liked sculpture so much I mastered in it. But yeah, I was going to be a band director.

Muscle 2004 (near the Saint Paul Farmers Market)

What do you want people to get out of your art?
Great question. I guess I want them to have a feeling of wonderment or explore potentials and possibilities and sort of mix up the reality. You know, it’s hard to surprise people in 2008, almost 2009, and then when you can surprise them and make them take notice of something, especially an object, I think that’s big. And I just love doing it. So, I guess I do it for myself more than anything but I do sort of want to the hair on the back of their neck to stand up.

If you were to create a sculpture that visually translated what goes on in your head, what would it look like?
It would be pretty haphazard, and some parts wouldn’t be finished, it might tip over. Someone told me—and I’m an Aries—”Aries are great at starting projects, they love to start projects” and I was like, “That’s right!” But then the follow-through is just like discipline, so I do a little here, I do a little there.

What is your favorite sculpture of all time?

I think it would have to be Lee Bontecou, any one of the early sixties, when she did canvas over these steel frames, and she’d sew them. It was all found objects because she lived above a Chinese laundry mat and they would throw out these conveyer belts, so she cut up the canvas and then stretched them on these frames and she’d sort of burn into them and they looked really industrial and yet biomorphic. I just love her work. And I love Martin Puryear, too. And Carsten Holler.

What are your favorite materials and why?
Steel, probably. Lightweight steel. First of all it’s very forgiving. So if you cut it too short, that’s alright, you just add a little section onto it and if you cut it too long, you cut it again. So it suits my personality and my way of working and I also love to sew. I like fabrics a lot. And I sort of use steel as fabric. It’s just this additive, manic process, and it looks homemade and I like that it shows the hand of the artist.

If you could have dinner with three people living or dead who would they be and why?

Ghandi, is one. I always aspire to be more zen (laughs). I was just reading abo ut Shirley Chisholm, I would like to have met her. There’s a documentary on her life called CHISHOLM ‘72: Unbought and Unbroken …Who else, maybe Abe Lincoln or something. I live on Lincoln street (you know, Northeast has the streets named after presidents).

If you could design a senior prom, what would it look like?
It would be based on spaceships and rockets. There would be a lot of rope lights. And really good music. Like, you wouldn’t want to sit down, and you’d want to actually go, even if you didn’t have a date.

What advice could you give to teen artists?
I guess, keep on keeping on. Talent’s not even important—it’s one aspect. It’s perseverance, really. It’s a long distance race and somehow you have to make that process fit your life, because you’re not going to do it if it doesn’t. And you know, who succeeds in life? It’s the person who keeps trying. I think that’s more important than anything.

SO REMEMBER!!! Sign up for the sculpture workshop by January 16th. $30 dollars for Walker Members, $35 for non-members. Broke? Don’t worry about it, scholarships are available. To register contact Teen Programs at 612-375-7628 or email teenprograms@walkerart.org

If you would like to see more of Amy check out her Soap Factory interview below.

Last week, I was giving a tour to a small group of artsy academics in town for a meeting. One of my usual tour stops in the Permanent Collection galleries is at a small work by Yoko Ono in Gallery 2 titled Painting to Hammer a Nail. I like to talk about Yoko Ono as a musician, an important conceptual artist, and her role in the Fluxus movement, etc. But this time, in the middle of my Ono spiel, a woman in the group mentioned that she had been Yoko’s roommate in the 60s. She went onto tell us how it was John Cage who first encouraged Yoko to meet the Beatles because they were composing music in non-traditional ways. She also mentioned that she had given Yoko her first Beatles album as a gift and told the tale of the two of them spotting Paul McCartney on the street, chasing after him, but never catching up. Fact or myth? Who knows? But we all had a very Yoko-esque moment imagining how the world might have been changed if Yoko had met Paul before she met John.

Thursday nights at the Walker are more blind date than play date, but we took Baby J and O to see the Brave New Worlds exhibition last Thursday and had a nice time. I previewed the show before we took the kids, and was happy to find more than a few things a five-year-old could appreciate.

If you’re thinking of visiting Brave New Worlds with kids, here are a few things my kids liked. Maybe yours will like them, too.

The curious origami figures, puffs of fog, and blinking lights in one section of Haegue Yang’s Blind Room reminded O of an airport. The materials were (relatively) common – mini blinds, clumps of mini lights – but from kid’s-eye-view, it must have looked magical.

We spent a long time in Artur Zmijewski’s installation of three videos that document the daily grind of three women workers in Poland. Regular life in a house and at a job– with similarities to and differences from O’s regular life in our American house.

We were all spell-bound by Runa Islam’s Time Lines which combines shots of real tourist attractions with footage of models of the rides. O got a little impatient with the long shots of the cables moving against the blue of the sky – but stuck with it. The suspense – Where’s the car going? Where’s the tower? What are those people waiting for? – kept him watching.

The big messages of the show – what it means for artists to be politically responsible, how artists address the complexities of our “ brave new worlds”– mostly escaped our little group. But I like that O got a bit of perspective on how people live and work in other parts of the world. And I liked that it didn’t take a cartoon character, frenetic action, or wacky dialogue (all staples of children’s media) to get him interested.