Art of the Week: Be Yourself!

You're invited to the best party ever!  For this interactive ongoing performance, I anonymously mailed out thirty party invitations to friends and mail artists inviting everyone to just be themselves.  I posted some images from one of the Star Wars themed invitations above, other kid party and adult designs were also incorporated.  This shall be an ongoing project whenever I can acquire more low cost invitations.

I extend this invitation here as well: Be Yourself!  Invite others to join in - it's open invitation; All are welcome!  In fact, I'm even registering this as a Creative Commons project, but don't worry too much about attribution since it was originally anonymous.  Feel free to participate: send out invites, post-it notes, have fun with it, write prose, draw a picture, etc... but most of all, just be yourself!


Be Yourself! by Jennifer Weigel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.


Be Yourself!

Ongoing Performance: Just Be Yourself
For: Be Yourself!
Date: Whenever You Choose
Time: Whenever You Want
Place: Wherever You Are
Open invitation; All are welcome!
R.S.V.P. No RSVP Needed.

No special attire, permission, RSVP, etc. necessary!  :)

Art of the Week: Not Speaking

This mini book is titled "I'm Not Speaking to You" and incorporates collage text on cardboard with some figure drawing studies on kraft paper that I created awhile back.  I made this for the same fundraiser I donated my older Werewolf drawing to, though I was almost tempted to keep this one but donated it anyway.

I may post information about the fundraiser event itself later on (great idea, very fun), but as artworks are offered for sale anonymously I shall have to wait for now.  So, the anticipation builds...

Art of the Week: Werewolf

Werewolf is a much older drawing from my study at the Kansas City Art Institute.  I was interested in pattern and created drawings envisioning using fabric and cloth as a means of storytelling, but in a more illustrative way than printing on fabric (although I did that too).

I am donating this drawing to an upcoming fundraiser event, but you can check out some of my similar work for sale through the Framations website.  Just scroll down.

Jennifer Weigel's resident artist page at Framations
http://www.framations.com/weigel.html

WCA Meeting with Guest Speaker Lisa Melandri

Lisa Melandri, the new Director of the Contemporary Art Museum - St. Louis, was the guest speaker at the St. Louis Chapter of the Women's Caucus for Art meeting this evening.  Melandri shared some information about new directions that she is hoping the museum will pursue, along with many wonderful insights about her previous experiences.  She talked of the need to welcome the public and encourage them to want to be involved, noting changes that have already been made along with further plans to reenvision the space while celebrating local artists in more diverse means of expression, engaging other senses in addition to visual observation.

Melandri also spoke of art's ability to awaken the viewer to possibility, to perceive of things differently and to connect with one another.  I have always felt this is one of the greatest powers that art has.  Art is active; to view art is to engage in it.  We are all too often encouraged to perceive of observation as passive, but it is a participatory act.  I have responded before regarding how observation may be interpreted as condoning that which is observed, but its active nature truly extends beyond this.  We are thinking creatures: we take in information by observation, through our senses.  This information is then processed and helps to inform our decisions, likes and dislikes, shaping our experiences and even our memories of them.  We learn by observing; we imitate and/or rebel, we empathize, we grow, we evolve...

Overall, I found the talk very uplifting and actively engaging.  It was good to hear Melandri speak about new directions, exploring different avenues of expression and multiple media, and the need to engage the viewer.  It was also good to hear of plans to partner with other organizations both within and outside of the arts, especially since this presentation occurred through such a partnership.  I cannot wait to see how the Contemporary Art Museum grows & evolves both within their own structure and as part of the broader community.  And, with the intent of being a more active observer, I have even been inspired to rejoin and become a member, and would encourage you to consider doing the same for them and/or those organizations that speak to you, further activating your engagement.  Oh, and be sure to check out the current exhibition Joy in People by Jeremy Deller, it is wonderful & engaging, fun & provocative...

This Week

I will have artworks in two shows opening this week:

 Beyond the Horizon
Framations
218 North Main St., St. Charles, MO
Mar. - Apr. 2013
Reception: Friday, March 15, 6 - 8 PM
I'm excited to have two works on display in this show, including a new necklace and the shoe sculpture, Waves Lapping at Her Feet.

Quilt Expo 2013
Thimble & Thread Quilt Guild
Greensfelder Recreation Center
Queeny Park, 550 Weidman Rd., Ballwin, MO
March 16 & 17, 2013
Going Digital will be included among the massive quilt and fiber art show this weekend at Queeny Park.

Art of the Week: Healthy Harvest

I created Healthy Harvest to submit to The Roadside Museum, "an experimental project for artists with a critical interest in the interactions between degrees of degradation on the physicality of their work and the meseumification of cultural objects."  For The Roadside Museum, artworks will be buried for six months and then unearthed for documentation and exhibition.

Healthy Harvest incorporates found vintage cast bronzed fruits in a reappropriated plastic fruit bag.  Should it be included in the project, my intent is that its degradation (or relative lack thereof) after being unearthed may offer commentary on our environmental practices and on what we culturally hold in importance & esteem.  I was inspired to make manifest the sentiments in the following quote in a visibly tangible manner, especially regarding the notion that we cannot eat money:

"Your people are driven by a terrible sense of deficiency. When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money."
- Alanis Obomsawin, documentary filmmaker and Native American Abenaki from the Odanak Reserve, Canada, as quoted in "Conversations with North American Indians" from "Who Is the Chairman of This Meeting?" 1972