Patterns Reinterpreted from Nature

Kelly Monico

Denver, CO

May 2015

Patterns Reinterpreted from Nature

I was excited to travel to the comfy backwoods of Pickens, South Carolina where I knew I’d have the opportunity to fully immerse myself in my artistic practice at the Rensing Center. This type of immersion is difficult to do with a busy teaching schedule during the academic year. Luckily, I was able to procure ten rich and productive days.
Immediately after arriving at the Rensing Center, I found myself seduced by the captivating scenery and environment. There is a sense of serenity and stillness here that simply isn’t accessible in urban life. The milieu of the Rensing Center, the land, setting, and power of the environment, would be the catalyst for my work over the next 10 days. The peaceful landscape includes twenty some acres of green grass, goats, cows, and a surplus of hundred year old trees. Amidst this vast acreage is a wonderful nature trail that I leisurely hiked several times each day. On my very first hike I began to record and document my environment along the trail. Elements and variables recorded along the path included; trees, slope of trail, leaves, sounds, weather, the creek, temperature, plant life, and flowers. By reinterpreting the information along the trail through patterns, I was able to translate the land into another physical form - creating a hybridity between topography and art. 

The patterned artwork on the left shows documentation that visualizes elements recorded along the nature trail. Every 10 steps are marked with a specific color that designates downhill, uphill, flat, and extreme downhill. The number of rectangular and horizontal shapes in each column represents the amount of trees visible along the edge of the path. The artwork reads from top to bottom, starting with the top left corner of the composition. I’m currently rendering drawings on top of the print that correspond with the amount of leaves and branches fallen along the path. All of this data is recorded in the notes seen left of the artwork.

 ~Kelly Monico | Denver, Colorado 
kellymonico.com/

take a breath

The three week I have been Rensing Center has made some difference in my attitude towards life. I remember, one morning in the first week, driving on the way to recycling station, I told Ellen that I am trying to push myself to start painting as soon as possible. However, she told me she wanted me to slow down, to see and to walk around. And she suggested me to throw out my previous idea and concept, and hoped I could get something new from Rensing. I was amazed by her idea. And then I was thinking that maybe it is time to be quiet and relax, and not intend to plan something. That is a totally different experience to my previous life which is always intense and competitive. I went forward unceasingly, but forgot to breathe. This time, I would like to taste, smell and touch what was ignored but probably is precious to myself…On that way, Ellen introduced the plants beside the road, recycle system in Pickens, and geographical features here…etc, and promised to explore the forest of Rensing with me, which I had been so expected since I knew Rensing. 

So this week, I went to the forest with Ellen and Katherine. Such a beautiful trip! We got sculptural mushrooms, and really tasted them at dinner that night.

- Xiaoren Liu

"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." - Winnie The Pooh

I'm leaving tomorrow, after seven weeks here at the Rensing Center. Although that sounds long, inevitably the end has snuck up on me before I am ready. I've been having so much fun with the work I've started in the last week that I wish I could stay longer!

Still from a video - potential source material... for something.

I spent the first month of my residency primarily making an animation for a show in Chicago, where I had to go for a week to install and attend the opening, and after getting back here I had just 10 days to spend on new work. I decided not to put too much pressure on myself, and allow myself time to read and relax, and experiment with ideas rather than trying to create a finished piece. I mentioned in a previous post that I'm interested in Appalachian murder ballads, which I have continued to listen to throughout my stay. I've been slowly forming a more concrete approach to the subject - the animation/installation project will be an exploration of my conflicted feelings towards the romanticizing of violence against women (in the case of most murder ballads, inflicted by a male lover). I am considering how poetry and lyricism can distort our understanding of cruelty. Reading Christina Hastie's thesis "This Murder Done": Misogyny, Femicide,and Modernity in 19th-Century Appalachian Murder Ballads (http://ht.ly/etbAE) has given me a more specific direction to follow and provided a context in which to unpack the ballads. Talking to fellow resident poet Anna Lena about old-time songs and ballad structures has also given me a lot to work with in formal terms (I’m also indebted to Anna Lena for her generous feedback on my writing for the previous animation project). But rather than follow a strictly narrative path, simply illustrating a story, I want to create more open-ended imagery that invokes the kind of romantic fear and lyrical violence encapsulated by those songs. A parallel study is the affective character of the natural landscape – for example how lush growth can breed feelings of anxiety and claustrophobia. I started doing some experiments with animating paper cutouts in the woods, which I am really excited about and will continue to pursue in future environments. I'm grateful for the reflective time at Rensing that inspired new ideas and processes, planting seeds for artwork that will bloom in the coming months.

One of my animation experiments in the woods. Apologies for poor quality - don't go fullscreen.

I’m really going to miss this place. The time and space alone to think and create has been incredibly valuable, as have the connections with the Rensing Center family and with fellow residents, from whom I learned a great deal (and shared some lovely walks and swims, and the all-important grocery store trips, since I was car-less). I certainly hope to be back one day!

Fellow residents at a nearby swimming hole. 

- Ali Aschman

www.aliaschman.com

Highlights from the past week

Ellen's son Shelby put up a rope swing under the big tree next to the pasture!

Shelby also cut down a dead tree and the goats love playing on the log. It is a joy to watch them.

    

Dessert and fireworks at the neighboring Delgado residence:

And today, fellow resident Laura and I went hiking on Raven Rock Trail at Keowee-Toxaway State Park, and saw this lovely sight:

I can't believe I am almost halfway through my residency here. It's been a very productive and reflective time so far, and I feel so grateful to have this time to focus on my work while being immersed in these beautiful surroundings.

- Ali Aschman

www.aliaschman.com

Deep breaths

It has been exactly two weeks since I arrived at the Rensing Center for a seven-week long residency. I came from Chicago, where I had been working around the clock to finish work from my last studio residency in preparation for a show, and then moving the entire contents of my apartment into a storage unit so that I can be a nomadic residency-hopper for the next several months. It was an incredibly frazzled and exhausting last few weeks in Chicago, and arriving in South Carolina with its wide open skies and vast expanses of green was truly a breath of fresh air, in both a literal and metaphorical sense.

At a lookout in Table Rock State Park, one of my first stops in the area.

Ellen made me feel immediately at home in the newly remodeled Rensing Center apartment and studio. I am thrilled with the work space, having not had a personal studio since last August, and never having had one with a view anywhere close to this! I love working at the huge table with the garage door wide open, listening to the birds and crickets. I was happy to be able to make some improvements to the space as part of my work exchange, doing some house painting and creating a new countertop for the kitchen. I also became fast friends with Bob the cat, who spends most of his time napping on my bed.

The exquisite view from my studio.

The last couple of weeks have offered an array of experiences different to my usual city life. Watching oats being milled, moonshine being distilled and blacksmiths at work at the historic Hagood Mill, all to the soundtrack of bluegrass music, was both sweetly charming and strangely surreal in its closeness to stereotypes of the South that I had always thought must surely be exaggerated. Getting dirty in the Rensing garden, squashing bugs that were attacking the vegetables, and pulling out a row of garlic at Dick Baird's farm down the road in exchange for a huge haul of organic veggies and greens, have been welcome first-time experiences for this city-girl.

Bluegrass musicians at the Hagood Mill

My creative process has been different here too. I'm currently working on finishing a stop-motion animation made from relief and silkscreen prints created at my last residency, but my mind is also full of ideas for the next project I will be working on here, inspired specifically by the surrounding landscape, and the tradition of Appalachian murder ballads. The waterfall is my favorite place to contemplate, although at times I feel my mind goes into overdrive and I need to retreat back the the studio to process the swirl of thoughts. On my first day, Ellen spoke to me about "breathing in and breathing out", that as artists we tend to do a hell of a lot of breathing out but sometimes forget to breathe in. This has really resonated with me, and I've been consciously trying to absorb as much of the environment as possible, whether that be through visits to the Pickens flea market, discussions with other residents and Rensing family at the Sunday night dinners at Ellen's house, or simply savoring the taste of a blackberry plucked from the bush right outside my door. I've yet to fully figure out how these experiences will filter down into my work, or 'be exhaled' so to speak, but I can certainly say that my lungs are full!

Stimulating conversation and delicious dinner with the whole Rensing crew, in Ellen's wonderful home.

The waterfall

- Ali Aschman

www.aliaschman.com                                                                                           

To the Waterfall

I took the trail to the waterfall today in the early morning to avoid the heat. The wooden archway that marked the trail-head hid mysteriously in the dense forest. As I crept along deeper into the dark opening of overhanging limbs, breaking intricate cobwebs in my path, I felt like I was in a fairy tale – Gretel, Snow White or Little Red Riding Hood. A crow squawked up above. My feet sunk softly into the mud. I soon heard the sound of the creek running beside me. Small white markers named the plants – witch hazel, sassafras, winter-berry - a feast for a witch’s brew. Before long, I reached the falls rushing down boulders, a small roar, the scent of moss and wet soil. Just beyond, a sweet little deck invited me to sit for a spell. Perhaps there was a fairy tale in this after all. I pulled out my notebook and began to write: Once upon a time…

-Johanna DeBiase

www.johannadebiase.com