Other One to Drop

Other One to Drop, 2022
Rubber shoe, thread, motor, wood, ziptie

The tapping of the shoe conjures ideas of waiting. The repetitive movement is consistent, but the slow pace adds anticipation and may even require some patience as the shoe hovers, finally taps and repeats. 

This year so far

2013 has been very full in a really good way.

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Solo Exhibition, A Bit Over the Top, Seerveld Gallery at Trinity Christian College, Palos Heights, IL

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Solo Exhibition, While Away, COOP Gallery, Nashville, TN

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On the Verge of Failure, CultureWorks, Holland, MI

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Solo Exhibition, Pretty Good Shape, threewalls, Chicago, IL

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Solo Exhibition, Less Still, Eli & Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI (catalogue)

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(upcoming) the ephemeral, the fleeting, Bellarmine University, Louisville, KY

Lecture at the Broad

Last night I gave a lecture in conversation with Aimee Shapiro the Director of Education at the Broad. It was a chronological account of my work over the last 5 years which was a satisfying way for me to organize the information I presented as it shows that there has been progress and how one thing has lead to another. Thanks to everyone who came out!
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Installing "Vice Versa"

I don’t have final footage/images of the Vice Versa installation at the Broad quite yet. I’m hoping to have this ready soon, but in the meantime, there are a few views from the installation time.
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Making "Swarm" at the Broad

I have a few snapshots of Swarm in progress. The whole piece needed to be built on site because of the fragility of the hanging parts. Most of the piece was built in the education wing between July 8-15, after which time it was carefully moved through the cafe to it’s final resting place for the exhibition over the welcome desk near the second floor viewing window.

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Review of "While Away" in the Nashville Scene

Click here to read: Lisa Walcott’s open ended installations have secret lives of their own
My blog post about the exhibition:While Away

Quoted text:

Take a quick glance at Coop Gallery’s current exhibit, While Away, and you might not see much: just ultra-minimalist sculptures made from commonplace household objects. But a closer look reveals surprises: The pieces aren’t static sculptures at all, but witty and elegant dynamic installations. An aerosol can sits atop a cardboard box, emitting a steady stream of white vapor; a doorknob inserted into a haphazardly placed beam of wood is silently turning. By bringing life to domestic clutter, these pieces turn the banal into something simultaneously eerie, charming and thought-provoking.

While Away is the first Nashville show for Lisa Walcott, a Michigander who is currently finishing up a residency at Chicago’s Threewalls Gallery. Her art involves, in her words, “objects that people can relate to.” Mini-motors, like those found in children’s science fair projects, bring her work into motion in ways that are familiar yet disconcerting. “When [the object] is doing this quirky gesture, you can bring your experience to it, and it maybe just sort of flips it in a funny way,” she says.

Walcott’s pieces mimic the moments of fragile equilibrium that sometimes transfix us in our daily lives — a bouncing ball, a smoking cigarette, a recently tugged lamp cord swaying rhythmically. Electricity uncannily extends these moments, suggesting household objects that move even after those responsible for animating them are gone.

“Threshold” is a sort of deconstructed door — a few planks of wood leaning against the gallery wall, one with a knob placed at hand height. Look closer and you’ll see the knob is slowly and continuously turning. The effect is unsettling. Similarly, in “Fine, Thank You,” a crumpled brown paper bag protrudes from the wall, expanding and contracting as if being breathed into.

In “Everything Is Different When It’s Over,” a lighted lamp leans against the wall. Black specks are suspended from wires above, resembling an annoying swarm of flies. The arrangement is similar to a traditional mobile, but instead of changing shape as the air around it moves, this piece makes use of simulated serendipity. The wires rotate; a strategically placed piece of rubber tubing periodically impedes their movement, creating an insectile jerky movement. The tableau (the kicked-over lamp, the flies) suggests a minor domestic meltdown. On the opposite wall, a flyswatter hangs, impaled by a kitchen knife: Did it fail to please its user?

These installations merely suggest such questions, inviting spectators to invent backstories without providing any definitive answers. “I like to leave it really open-ended,” Walcott says. “I’m more creating a mood than a full narrative.”

While all this may make While Away sound like an intellectual challenge, the show isn’t short on aesthetic appeal. “On and On” is especially simple and elegant. A lamp cord hangs from a wire that’s attached to a beam of wood placed near the ceiling. Every seven seconds, a spinning mechanical arm plucks the wire, making the cord bounce manically. Judging from audience reactions, the piece was a favorite; one art crawl visitor declared, “I want that over my bed at night.”

That would be a fitting place for it. These objects’ repetitive motions possess a soothingly meditative quality. They draw the spectator into the present moment, even as their unnatural persistence makes us paradoxically aware of the passage of time.

Keeping viewers mesmerized was Walcott’s goal when she started working with moving parts about four years ago. “I was always talking about transitional spaces and gestural objects and that kind of thing,” she recalls. “I always had a really active studio process. But when I showed my work, I’d just show the remnants of what I had done. So once I started actually animating the pieces themselves, it kind of made the form meet the function — everything clicked at that point.”

While Away makes clear that Walcott has found the perfect vehicle for her ideas. She describes her work as “pieces that [are] breathing in the moment, but have that threat of idleness sitting really close by. I like that sort of relationship with a double-edge aspect. Almost every good thing in life, I feel like, has something that threatens it.”

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Pretty Good Shape

March 8-21, 2013
threewalls 119 N. Peoria #2c Chicago, IL

Pretty Good Shape materialized from the musings and survival of an artist in residence. While making on top of life, daily sustenance blends into material and back out again, agitation swarms and looms and humor emerges from a hole in the wall; regardless it all continues on. The act of supporting creativity without overindulging and spoiling it is precarious and never the same. Marks in space act as cairns; a way to push forward and find the next thing while leaving a path to backtrack, keep record and maybe begin to understand the present moment.

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Maybe it’s supposed to
hole in the wall, soap, water, container, tubing, motor

I feel so sorry for you in those hot pants II
table base, motor, white table cloth

Still Life in Balance
hot cocoa powder, paper scrap, cough drop, tape, pink packing peanut, twist tie, bagel on napkin, paper towel piece, orange rind, onion skin, honey, sugar cube, eyelash, oatmeal, rock salt, pepper, sugar cube, staple, toothpaste, two rubber bands, painted cardboard piece, wrapper, contact lens, cinnamon, penny, wrapper corner, plastic protector, match, avocado skin, pin, sawdust, napkin bit, bread crumb, used birthday candle, eye lash, thread, mini marshmallow, red wine stain, two popcorn kernels, ribbon, gorilla glue, drywall, box fan foot, avocado skin, salt, tag piece, thread, rice, cup, ketchup packet

Nonetheless
wax, sinkers, thread, wire, motor, wood

Untitled (from the Kitchen Table Series–2 drawings)
ink, graphite and acrylic on paper