Straight Up Feudal

Straight Up Feudal


[we find ourselves]
        clueless
in the 2017 Middle Ages

1%er's and their
corporations are the
ruling class
the ceo's and merchants
still have money
[where] the rest were
made serf, dependent on
and needs must be grateful
to the corporation.

Remember Roland Tried To Tell 'Em
but the systematic dismantling
of America's pseudodemocracy
went unperceived in a
maelstrom of social
media and information
overload.
Now.
It doesn't matter.

history will call
this coup bloodless.
meanwhile, there is a lot of blood being shed.

#TakeAKnee

The Paducah Project

A. I. R. Studio, Paducah, Kentucky

March 3 - 31, 2017

(special thanks to Dr. Estelle Cooke-Sampson, Debbi Dabney, Alonzo Davis, Cathy Neri, Michael Terra, Susan Mitz, The Paducah Fiber Artists Guild and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities for their support of this project.)

Materials

quilt batting and fabric interfacing (painted white using mixture of latex and Liquitex gloss medium)

Golden acrylics, chalk pastels, coloring pencils, graphite, oil stick, cotton thread

Process (in any order)

Paint Cut Weave Stitch Draw

Subject: INTERSECTIONS

              (referenced by parts crossing)   

MATERIAL          PLACE            TRADITION

RACE                  GENDER            HISTORY

CULTURE          NARRATIVE      FINE ART

PAINTING           OBJECT             PICTURE

starting point: "intersectional"
                         one long braid (humanity/connectedness/binding/chains)

                         black brown yellow red white (ethnicity) 

 

ending point: braid becomes technical (no longer conceptual/subject)

Exhibition: Honfleur Gallery June 16 -August 5, 2017

Chains of Humanity
36" x 56" x 2"

Hanging Out: We the People Blacker than Blue Chocolate Caramel High Yellow and Red Bone Too
34" x 34" 

BlackBone
38" x 24.5"

Penetrating Blackness
31" x 57"

Breaking the Chains of Mental Slavery Behind Our Smiley Face Masks
18" x 66"

Balancing Act (20 Constructed Drawings)
12" x 9"

Untitled (16 panels)
21" x 21"

Review of Group Exhibition "Chocolate Cities" curated by Martina Dodd

"Chocolate Cities: The History, Legacy, & Sustainability of African American Urban Enclaves" reaches into the soul of a changing city.  
by LAURA IRENE  Washington City Paper MAR 9, 2017 11 AM

Cultural pride and vibrant communities gave rise to the coinage of Chocolate City in D.C. in the ’70s. In the face of a constantly gentrifying area, many have been forced to move out of the communities they built, but the soul of what Chocolate City stood for can never be plowed over. In its seventh year, the Prince George’s African American Museum and Cultural Center presents Chocolate Cities: The History, Legacy, & Sustainability of African American Urban Enclaves, which focuses specifically on D.C. and Prince George’s County. It is an art exhibit, curated by Martina Dodd, that highlights the artistic exploration of history and social justice and features artists Tim Davis, Lloyd Foster, Lionel Frazier White III, Sheila Crider, Michael Booker, and Larry Cook.

The museum is a modest space that houses a rich experience. It lives along the stretch of Rhode Island Avenue that changes from D.C. to Maryland in a tan building that you would miss if you weren’t looking for it. Look for it. 

In the era of fitting experiences into a square for the perfect photo opportunity to share on social media, Chocolate Cities makes you want to do the opposite. The work selected can, for the most part, fit along a wall or in a frame. It doesn’t make you want to pull out your phone and take a selfie—not because it isn’t worthy, but because it demands your full attention.    

Larry Cook’s “Thomas” is a photograph of a man and a child. They are not smiling or posing for a photo; they exist as they are. Cook’s work is in the same stream of consciousness as millions of photos we scan each day on the internet. But the difference is “Thomas” allows you to observe the life of a real person in a space that challenges you to think about someone other than yourself. Could Thomas be your cousin, brother, lover? Or, perhaps, he is your neighbor that you ignore? Whichever the case, he exists. 

Lloyd Foster’s untitled photographs of men playing a game of chess are more direct. The black-and-white photographs are not a mystery, but they do portray a quiet wisdom: The men are older and contemplative, and the beauty of the photos lies in the moments caught. It is not a novel idea, but it does force us to stop and thoughtfully consume.    

Tim Davis’ “I Am Still Waiting,” “Why Are You Waiting,” “When I Grow Up,” and “Go-Go” are mixed media collages that dig into the psyche. The faces in the paintings have no features, and if the whole face isn’t colored in, the eyes are blocked out by a strip of black.  Davis’ seamless combination of paint and cut-out paper with very specific objects adds to the complexity of the stories being told.  

Michael Booker’s “Chocolate City Park II,” an interactive piece, sits quietly on a shelf. It is made up of an old radio and a frame sitting on delicate fabric. There are headphones that hang beneath the shelf, in which a powerful voice recites a speech: “We aren’t going to tolerate any violence…” it continues on a loop. The speech coming from the headphones transforms the physical parts of the work; it is no longer just a silent shelf of objects but rather a vehicle for change.     

Sheila Crider’s “Walk in the Park: Apartment Living” is fun and colorful, reminiscent of children’s artwork. Seven paintings form a neighborhood of apartment dwellers anchored by a polyester sculpture of two towers, coming together to tell the story of a community. 

Crider continues the apartment theme in “The Black Army,” an encased sculpture of 18 structures aligned  like soldiers—in all black. Quite a juxtaposition with her previous colorful, playful view. The title plays a large role in how we view the sculpture, suggesting that the sculptures may not be buildings at all, but a community changed. 

Meanwhile, Lionel Frazier White III tugs on our heartstrings with “Porch Girl,” a video of still photographs of his mother. Lionel’s mother starts as a young girl sitting on a D.C. stoop and is later shown graduating as an adult. Each photo becomes a moving story as the people in the photos transform into dark shapes. It is a simple xerox machine blackout process that tells a powerful story. We see not only the good memories of lives lived, but also become bystanders as those same lives are taken. It is a powerful video that brings the entire exhibit together.  

In a rapidly changing D.C., Chocolate Cities is a rich journey that is thoughtfully curated by Dodd. It’s an exhibition that connects D.C.’s past with its present; and in that, it demands to be experienced by present humans. 

4519 Rhode Island Ave. Free. (301) 403-1382. pgaamcc.org.

afterthought**

afterthought**
Artists' Talk:  Conversation with Ellyn Weiss
DC Arts Center 2/12/17

"Toxicity in the Air"
an installation to provoke awareness of pollution poisoning the atmosphere using recycled and repurposed materials with petroleum products...
(handmade paper using recycled paper and/or lint as pulp base, recycled tar paper, found vinyl cord)

additional elements:
Performance A
Actor stands at exhibit entrance and passes out face masks to all upon exit.
Performance B
Actor stands at podium wearing face mask reading statistics about air pollution

**refers to science/scientific method without incorporated scientific elements
    reconstructs empirical experience as science/scientific sample
    uses common pastoral landscape (clouds) to reference urban pollution




abstraction from a writers point of view
means shared language
like french or spanish or farsi or zulu
how many ways to say
whatever
are how many ways to say
whatever

writing
"abstract"
a narrative?
a vision?
a mind game
perception
how u look at it
how u see
reading
it

material-
a (first)  level of language)
texture
shape
form
color
pattern
line by
line





starting point:
Thanks
to DCAC, B Stanley, Phil and Mike for agreeing to show this body of work in the context of a retrospective...
to the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities for awarding me a fellowship based on this work.

the show title "January 15 - October 16" are execution dates and include all the work produced during that time with the exception of "Walk in the Park: Apartment Living" and "The Black Army," both on view at the Prince George's County African American Museum and Cultural Center.

Organized in three parts, it featured the installation "Toxicity in the Air," "3sided," a studio exercise and a PopUp Patrons' Boutique which represented the retrospective aspect with a catalog and miniature collages using paper dating back to my days at Eastern Market...

artist statement:
My practice integrates image, object and frame using abstraction to make pictures or settings that read as something familiar. My intent is to articulate issues of contemporary culture and art thru installations and objects that embody social and/or aesthetic ideas. I work to strengthen the artists' relationship with the public at large and to challenge how "fine art" is being defined for "ordinary" people.

random thoughts:
abstraction is a mind game         out the box/on the fringes    
      competition      literal vs allusion vs illusion        
                       being independent in the art world            necessity
the more people that understand a language the more effectively you communicate

Washington Post Review of Solo Exhibition

Reviewers are not necessarily critics anymore dissecting methodology and technical prowess. What is important to me is that a review provides lasting documentation of the work outside of the artist' own efforts. This is crucial for independent artists  because it creates a starting point for discovery and research by scholars and collectors alike... 

Mark Jenkins' review in the Washington Post this weekend:

Sheila Crider 

Making objects to represent unmaking is also Sheila Crider’s method in “January ’15-October ’16,” a show of paper, fabric and wood pieces at the District of Columbia Arts Center. The selection includes “Water Meditation,” whose blue triangles suggest ocean waves unfouled by mankind. The centerpiece, however, is “Toxicity in the Air,” a series that depicts poisoned skies and sooty clouds.

The notes for the show were written by none other than Ellyn Weiss, who commends Crider for addressing “the most critical issue of our time.” Like “Pestilence,” Crider’s work includes many hanging objects that cast foreboding shadows as they imply the universe above our heads. “Urban Runoff” arrays more than 50 grubby samples made from painted dryer lint. This crypto-scientific display recalls local artist Julie Wolfe’s jars of water collected from urban sources. But where Wolfe adds chemicals to elicit vivid hues, Crider offers mostly industrial shades of gray. Those blue paper waves offer just about the only color in this show that a 19th-century landscape painter might appreciate.

Sheila Crider: January ’15-October ’16 On view through Feb. 12 

District of Columbia Arts Center, 2438 18th St. NW. 202-462-7833 dcartscenter.org/exhibitions.htm 

* correction: lint is varnished with acrylic but not painted.

("Industrial Smog" & "Urban Runoff" photos by Gregory Staley)

    

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/in-the-galleries-these-landscapes-are-something-short-of-idyllic/2017/02/03/e77610f4-e718-11e6-b82f-687d6e6a3e7c_story.html?utm_term=.16795a8cba2

his review of "Volume" in 2014

Sheila Crider

As she demonstrates with a series of monotypes now at Honfleur Gallery, Sheila Crider can layer complexity onto a flat image. But her show is titled “Volume” because of its other work, which comes off the wall more assertively than Jason Gubbiotti’s. The D.C. artist paints on a variety of paper, cuts the sheets into partial strips and then hangs them so that gravity chooses their contours. The artworks turn into banners, DNA-like helixes or — in the case of the brown-red “Volume 11” — sinews that suggest an anatomy textbook or a butcher shop.

Crider’s technique recalls Sam Gilliam, who began exhibiting unframed canvases in the 1960s. But most of Crider’s hanging pieces are snipped into thin segments, so they dangle rather than drape. The two artists also possess different color senses: Crider paints mostly in a single hue or a limited tonal range, relying on shape and light to vary the effect. Yet the acrylic pigment (and occasionally plasticized paper) gives the works a contemporary sheen. Where the artist’s attractively muted prints are largely in earth and rain tones, punctuated by an occasional red slash, her sculptural paintings boast a city-street vitality.

Volume: Sheila Crider On view through Dec. 19 at Honfleur Gallery, 1241 Good Hope Rd. SE. 202-365-8392. www.honfleurgallery.com.

("Volume #11 photo by Greg Staley)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/in-the-galleries-jason-gubbiottis-war-paint-at-civilian-art-projects/2014/12/03/040e8468-796f-11e4-9a27-6fdbc612bff8_story.html?utm_term=.96136a74c5aa

Challenging the Status Quo

it's sometimes a lonely
and thankless job
but as they say
somebody's got to do it

challenging
the status quo

tension so thick
I can't maintain civility
(I could but I don't want to)

so I leave
having a last word
unsaid

as ordinary people
lead lives entrenched
in mainstream convention

pulled out of revelry by a wrong number
a telephone sound
ringing
ringing
ringing
pavlovian response
wants protests to color inside the lines

we attended the Malcolm X school of civil disobedience
and we remember Viet Nam
dramatic conditions
so unconventional we want to call it anything
but its name...

as we are looked down upon
yet
up to
in admiration performing
a loose definition as is
expected

there is only
what we maladroitly assume
is our right to an opinion
to be told yet again
our message is off point
and doesnt belong in this arena