© Sara Schneckloth

The work of Sara Schneckloth strives to embody moments of remembering. The emotions and memories from our past experiences leave their mark on more than our minds, they affect the function of our organs, our bodies, today.  This thought informs Schneckloth’s work as she seeks to channel her painful memories into emotive lines of charcoal on paper.

© Sara Schneckloth 2005

The following are excerpts from an interview with Leslie Hinton:

I like to have a sense of a loose structure in which I can invent and explore the themes that are most relevant, but it is rarely a pre-determined event. Drawing lends itself to this kind of immediacy, in terms of both materials and how they are handled, and there is always the sense for me that I’m witnessing a thought evolve as I work. The initial phases of the process are much more visceral/intuitive than pre-conceived and intellectualized, but there is a moment in which I do come at the work from a more analytic bent.

I believe memory informs so much of how we move, how we hold ourselves, how we inscribe a surface – by consciously channeling this ‘ritual remembering’ I am hoping to give past experience an imaged present.

It’s along these lines that I started thinking – if I occupy a certain memory, actively grieving, what happens to my body. When you remember times of embarrassment, your face flushes, if you remember excitement or danger or fear your body responds – with adrenaline or muscle tension or a stomach clench. I realized that as I was making these drawings, as I was immersed in the act of seeing and drawing, of remembering and drawing, my body was going through a whole set of reactions and making marks that came out of those physical places of memory. My stomach would hurt, my shoulders would tighten, I would clench my teeth.

Reliquaries are vessels for holding remnants, or relics, of the dead – they show up in many cultural and religious traditions – in Catholicism – saints have reliquaries that preserve remnants of clothing or possessions or even fragments of bones…

My reliquaries are done in mixed media – oil, charcoal and pastel on paper – many on toned brown paper. To make them, I occupied the mental space of grief, of loss, of anger and sadness, and tried to draw from the gut – starting with a gesture that carried some of the emotion related to the memory I was feeling – then I consciously built it into a form of a container – adding features that I pulled from the work I did with the inherited objects – adding handles, spouts, mouths, lids, turning them into vessels, literal containers…

I had been reading a lot about reliquary figures in West Africa – small carved statues that sat on top of reliquary drums that contained human skulls and bones – the figures functioned as intermediaries between the living and the dead, serving as a site for ceremonial offerings and talking to the deceased. I was attracted to this idea of the intermediary object – something that could translate between the states of life and death, inside and outside, and serve as a point of focus or meditation. In a way, that’s what I felt like I was doing with my drawings. They stood in between me and the memory of my family, and it felt like by doing them, I was coming to grips with that separation.

At the time of this article,

Sara Schneckloth is Assistant Professor – Drawing,

University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC.

She has been teaching since 1996

Images are property of Sara Schneckloth

More:
Full interview with Leslie Hinton
SaraSchneckloth.com

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Graphic designers Pierre & Damien of PleaseLetMeDesign.com recruited belgian racer Stef van Campenhoudt to create a font by tracking the movements of a car with custom software designed by interactive artist Zachary Lieberman of OpenFrameworks.cc and the results are quite entertaining to watch!

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Firekites – AUTUMN STORY – chalk animation from Lucinda Schreiber on Vimeo.

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Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.

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Joshua Allen Harris is a NY street artist who is just doing as any native folk artist does; using the materials of his environment to create something special. The native environment of NYC consists of discarded trash and underground air vents. The result: Lifelike trash monsters who come to life as the vents release air, and then fall again, melting like a wicked witch. What a lift that must be to the unsuspecting passerby!

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Part scientist, part mathematician, part programmer, part sculptor; Bathsheba Grossman creates once impossible works of geometric beauty.

To hear Bathsheba describe her work, one might suspect that she spent her personal hours in the math or comp-sci labs while attending art school. She is a delightful techno-geek whose discourse and description are technically precise and scientific in nature.  Her creations are inspired by mathematics and brought forth into the world in their complete forms.  No, not from the brow of Zeus, but rather through the combination of two modern technologies, namely three dimensional computer modeling and three dimensional metal printing.

Though she is now a dedicated full time artist, her past employment has included work as a programmer, college professor, tech writer, typist, and web designer.

Her design concepts often come from her work with clay models, though she sometimes begins with known mathematical shapes.  Still other times, she conceives of an idea in her head and reproduces her vision directly via coded computer scripts which she imports into her 3D modeling software.

Bathsheba compared her use of 3D metal printing to the use of 3D plastic printing which has been in common industrial use for several years: “using some of the same processes [as 3D plastic printing] but with a little metal sintering added on at the end it is possible to do similar operations with metal powder.  Thereby resulting in fully dense metal objects which have the strength, durability and archival nature of steel. But, can also take forms which are impossible to cast, fabricate or really make by any other means at all. So, here I am, working with objects that are impossible to make. If you show these to people who work in metal, they simply fall on the floor, because there is no way to make these things, it’s impossible! …that’s what I consider to be the most interesting new technology in metal, practically since casting was invented.”

Incidentally, I had the opportunity to test this statement. I showed this series of photographs to a local metal machinist. Bathsheba was right, his jaw dropped as he exclaimed the impossibility of creating these shapes in one continuous piece.

“They’re visions of order in the universe; my peaceful places.  I feel calm and hopeful in making them.” says Grossman.

And I have the same experience in viewing them.

Bathsheba also works with glass utilizing sub-surface laser damage to produce 3-dimensional images in glass.

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This amazing image was taken by Dan Duriscoe, for the U.S. National Park Service. The 360-degree full-sky panorama is a composite of 30 images taken in Racetrack Playa in 2005. The image has been digitally processed and increasingly stretched at high altitudes to make it rectangular. A “sailing stone” is also seen in the foreground on the image. In the background is a majestic night sky, featuring thousands of stars and many constellations. The arch across the middle is the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy.

Anecdote:
When I first discovered this image it was without reference and contained no information. I was spellbound because of it’s excellent balance and composition. So, I set out to discover the original source. Fortunately, I was able to do so. In the mean time, I posted a link to the image on Twitter. The link took off like wildfire and was repeatedly re-tweeted such that the image received 300 hits within 3 hours (as tracked by tr.im). That made me all the more determined to discover the photographer. I hope you enjoyed it.

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More about this image:
NASA
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More about the “Night Sky”:
Wikipedia

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“Elisha Mitchell’s Funeral” Ian Brownlee, acrylic on canvas, 60×48, 2009

Brownlee uses the term “myth” in it’s widest sense. I had an opportunity to ask Brownlee about his work. He explained “I’ve spent a lot of time in in southeast and the west, studying the land and its history. Mythology refers not just to stories but to whole mindsets and outlooks full of unquestioned assumptions. Some of the works reference well-known myths, others point out and make fun of those unquestioned assumptions. Others are just strange and funny, but you find that in mythology too.”

“The works on paper from the American Myths series were definitely inspired by Henry Darger. I began the series as large paintings on canvas, painted somewhat realistically. But then looking back at my sketches, they seemed to have a freshness that was missing in the larger pieces. So I decided to do something Darger-esque with them. Those pieces are smaller, they’re on paper, and they rely on outline. I’m now in the process of painting larger versions of some of them.”

“Elisha Mitchell‘s Funeral” (pictured above) relates to an interesting historical figure. Professor Elisha Mitchell, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was one of the first white men to discover the great and mysterious “Black Mountains” of North Carolina rich with dark balsam forests, reminiscent of the last ice age. Though native feet had tread these mountains for 15,000 years, the region was still considered “undiscovered” by the “new world”.

The brave yet tragic tale involves a great dispute between two men over which peaks were highest and who discovered them first. Mitchell made daring journeys often climbing on his hands and knees through miles of tunnel like, 3 foot high black bear trails through dense thickets up steep and slippery slopes in order to reach and measure the peaks. Ultimately, Elisha Mitchell lost his life in the effort to prove his claims. On June 27, 1857 at approximately 8:19 PM Elisha Mitchell slipped on a rocky ledge above a 20 ft waterfall (now called Mitchell Falls) and fell to his death. He hit his head as he fell and drowned in the deep cold pool below. But, Mitchell had successfully measured the highest peak east of the Rockies, and the mountain now bares his name.

Brownlee’s clean and simple imagery evokes for us the not so clean, and not so simple landscape of “American Myths”.

“Special Delivery” Ian Brownlee, acrylic on paper, 8×10, 2007

“Dying Words” Ian Brownlee, acrylic on paper, 22×30, 2007

Artist Ian Brownlee, Asheville, NC

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It was on the day after his birthday, and the last day of his life, that the reclusive hospital janitor’s extraordinary secret life was discovered…

Illustration from The Story of the Vivian Girls by Henry Darger (Click to enlarge)

Henry Darger was born in 1892, and after his parents died at a young age, he was raised in an “Asylum for Feeble Minded Children”.  At the asylum he was subject to harsh punishments and forced labor and ultimately escaped a year before the asylum was investigated for abuse.  Once free, he found work as a janitor, attended daily Catholic Mass and lived a quiet solitary life in which almost no one knew him or noticed him.

On April 13th, 1973, the last day of Henry Darger’s life, landlord (and accomplished photographer), Nathan Lerner opened the door to the small second story Chicago apartment where Darger had lived in solitude for 40 years.  At that time, Darger had been moved to the St. Augustine Mission because of his failing health.  Among Darger’s personal affects, Lerner uncovered several astounding works of literature and hundreds of works of art, all created in secret by Henry Darger.
Among these were:

• a 15,000 page work of fantasy fiction called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion;
• a 5,000 page autobiography entitled The History of my Life;
• a 10-year daily weather journal;
• assorted diaries;
• a 10,000 page novel entitled Crazy House
• Several hundred original illustrations and water color paintings depicting the plight of young children against oppressive and evil adults.

Darger’s images were often violent, even brutal, displaying the torture and murder of the children in his stories.  They can also be very colorful, playful, sincere and innocent.  Darger surely drew upon his life experiences in the asylum.  His unique style has given rise to the term “Dargerism”.  The American Folk Art Museum calls Darger “one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century”.

Nathan Lerner, Darger’s landlord, “was inextricably bound up in the history of visual culture in Chicago” (according to the New York Times), and instantly recognized the artistic merit of Darger’s compositions.  It was a truly remarkable coincidence that someone, such as Lerner, should be the first to see Darger’s secret works.  Under most other circumstances all of his artwork and stories would surely have been lost forever.  Nathan Lerner, and his wife Kiyoko, gained the rights to Darger’s estate and have brought the world’s attention to it.  Since Lerner’s discovery, Darger’s artwork has achieved wide acclaim as  “outsider art“.  His stories and paintings (and mental status) have become the subject of books and documentary films.

In The Story of The Vivian Girls, we come to learn that the Earth is actually orbiting a larger planet, much as the moon orbits the Earth.  It is upon this larger world that Darger’s story takes place.  I believe that for Darger, the inner fantasy world was larger than his reality, and his reality simply orbited this other, more important fantasy world.  In Darger’s world, abused children are avenged and innocence conquers all.

Darger’s body now rests in All Saints Cemetery in Des Plaines, Illinois, in a plot called “The Old People of the Little Sisters of the Poor Plot.” Darger’s modest headstone is inscribed “Artist” and “Protector of Children.”

Several examples of Darger’s larger works (click to enlarge):

More:
“Dargerism, Contemporary Artists and Henry Darger” -American Folk Art Museum, NY
In the Realms of the Unreal – Documentary Trailer
In the Realms of the Unreal – Part 1 on PBS
Vivian Girls Tattoo on The Awesome Summer Journal

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Mesmerizing to watch.

Try it fullscreen with the lights out for the best effect.  

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