BRIAN GILLIS

The presence (or absence) of fire on the land is intimately tied to the presence (or absence) of water. Interrogating the question of what the land holds, physically, ecologically, emotionally, and socially, Holding Fire invited public participation in a series of events, conversations, installations, and transformations that connect these two elements across our landscapes.

Holding Fire shifted with changing conditions over the course of the project run at Well Well Projects during peak fire season in Portland, Oregon. Beginning with an opening reception and public action using fire shelters, visitors were invited to join a series of events engaging questions around what the land holds with the construction of a “Dam Analog” in a workshop setting the following day. The following week participants assembled again for a workshop focused on pulping and natural relationship forest products have to water and fire, and the project concluded with a collective action in which the constructed dam was removed for transportation to a pond south of Portland.

Fuel Ladder is an interdisciplinary research collective of artists, designers, and thinkers in and around Eugene, Oregon, who are exploring climate crisis through the social and ecological complexities of wildfire. As a collective working at the intersections of contemporary art and climate, they cultivate collaboration through practice-based research, engaging on-the-ground experiences of climate crisis through the stories, metaphors, and materials of wildfire in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Fuel Ladder cultivates a dispersed network of nodes for exchange based in conversation, correspondence, and creation of objects and experiences. They seek to invite diverse participants and communities into regional explorations of wildfire and its cycles of both destruction and renewal. Fuel Ladder includes Karin Bolender, William Bonner, David Buckley Borden, Brian Gillis, Colin Ives, Emily Eliza Scott, Nancy Silvers, and Sasha Michelle White

The ALBERTA ABBEY HISTORY PROJECT is a site-specific, living archive and lending library that houses information, records, and reference texts related to the 126 NE Alberta Street building site, institutional and community histories, and the social welfare of North/Northeast Portland. This archive is designed to be open and responsive, benefitting from periodic contributions by individuals and institutions in the community.

The ALBERTA ABBEY HISTORY PROJECT is an element of Service Works, an experimental, semi-visible service platform that partners with individuals and institutions to connect the ALBERTA ABBEY to North/Northeast Portland through access to socially relevant resources, opportunities, and information.

The ALBERTA ABBEY is a nonprofit organization that aims to nurture the creative, visual, and performing arts in North/Northeast Portland by amplifying opportunities for Black and underrepresented communities.

This image represents a series of forms that explore the capacity of waterlogged, semiporous porcelain to create a humid microenvironment that can sustain a tillandsia air plant.

Porcelain and Tillandsia

8” diameter

Free Radio was a community-based project that used the CUE Art Foundation gallery as a laboratory in which a different local group was aided each week with the development and proliferation of their unique voice. Each one-week session consisted of a series of activities directed toward community building, the development of a voice, archiving that voice, and the skills associated with various broadcast technologies to disseminate that voice. As an additional aid, a 110-page manual complete with technical specifications, historic case studies, timelines, essays about broadcasting, and a host of other resources was published for use as a reference text for participating groups and gallery goers. Each session culminated in a public broadcast produced entirely by that group and transmitted to the greater New York City Metropolitan Area in some capacity. Broadcasts ranged from AM and FM radio transmissions or webcasts, to pamphleting in subway stations or tying written content to helium balloons and releasing them.

The first broadcast was made by the people who built Free Radio, an international group of artists and writers, hackers and computer scientists, and educators. Collaborating groups included:

Verbal Pyrotechnics, a zine for young adult literature. Their occupation included a daily open work space for writers, a think tank related to NYC narratives, a public book swap, producing distributable printed materials, and organizing a workshop by author Jen Nails about the use of improvisation techniques to help create authentic stories.

UPBeat NYC, a free music education program based in the South Bronx that targets students in at-risk communities. They used the gallery space to practice, teach adult gallery goers to play an instrument, record and broadcast music, and finally to hold what they called an “Instant Orchestra” where musicians from all over the city came together with the public to play and teach each other percussion music.

Brooklyn Youth Company, a theatre company of middle school students who worked with the Moth Radio Hour to develop and broadcast autobiographical stories.

Chris Cobb, a member of a number of Occupy Wall Street working groups, organized panels, lectures, and discussions with a variety of individuals and groups on a range of social issues. His first broadcast, held on May Day, was a panel about the possibilities of publishing in the era of ebooks and the internet given by representatives of printers McSweeney's and Printed Matter, as well as the acclaimed Williamsberg Spoonbill & Sugartown bookshop. Other events ranged from public discussions by members of Occupy Astoria about their work and a panel about value and control in art from members of Occupy With Art , to a lecture about the History of New York by Christopher Paul Moore, then a researcher from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and a discussion with Caroline Woolard the cofounder of Ourgoods trade school. At the end of his final session, the last session of the Free Radio project, Chris was given the AM and FM radio transmitting equipment used in Free Radio.

Mobile Audio/Visual Recording Pod, Library/Reprographics Center Outfitted with Books, Photocopier, Computers, Scanner, Printer, Typewriter, Art and Office Supplies, Coffee Making Equipment and Supplies, Printed Vinyl Informationals, Miscellaneous Furniture, Dimensional Lumber, MDF, Miscellaneous Hardware, High Capacity Leveling Casters, Miscellaneous Broadcast Technology Including AM/FM Transmitters and Receivers, Telegraph Transmitters and Receivers, Weather Station, Microscopes with Slides of Flora, Antlers, Miscellaneous Audio and Visual Recording Equipment, Misc. Still Cameras, Talking Drum, Bullhorn, Geiger Counter, Stuffed Homing Pigeon, Bingo Ball Mixer and Meters of All Kinds

40’ x 25’ x 14’

Made in collaboration with Robin Lambert, Mike Miller, John Park, Ryan Paxton, and Elizabeth Dunn-Ruiz.

Download Free Radio Manual

This project was primarily a place for sleeping.

Enough lumber to frame a 2000 square foot house and a looming, amorphous, black inflatable collide in the gallery space. Among a jumbled pile of moving boxes and a family’s personal effects, are spaces for people to sleep within or outside the public eye. People paid prevailing wage to sleep in the gallery space during open hours were current “non-traditional” students attending Portland Community College Cascade and longtime residents Northeast Portland. They were asked to wear comfortable cloths that would obscure their identity and communicate ambiguous age, gender, race, and socio-economic class, and to hold or keep close to them an editioned terracotta vessel made by Pablo Picasso in some way while sleeping. At the conclusion of the exhibition, the lumber was given to Dignity Village, a city-recognized encampment of unhoused people in Portland, Oregon.

Editioned Terracotta Vessel by Pablo Picasso (c.1965), Douglas Fir, Vinyl, Cardboard, Miscellaneous Bags, Sleeping Bag, Clothing, Nike Air Jordans (c.1988) and Sleeping Person

16' x 20' x 10'

Download Papers on Power

POWER comes from the Latin word “potere”, meaning “to be able to”, and is often associated with words such as control, influence, ability, potential, force, impact, energy, and might, among others. Power is often thought of as that which is possessed, transferred, acted upon, exchanged, imposed, and has affect. In its most basic form, power can be described as an exchange of energy that has the potential to yield physical, theoretical, or social impact. It has the ability to do something in a particular way, especially as a faculty, quality, or physical manifestation. Power is omnipresent, existing within, outside, and between forces, objects, people, institutions, and social and cultural systems. Power can be tangible or intangible, enduring or temporary, and have no impact on a body or such that shapes its existence completely.

As an expansive way to investigate notions of power, the University of Oregon Center for Art Research (CFAR) commissioned artists and cultural producers with a range of lived experiences to respond to the question “What is power?” as it relates to their work and thinking. Contributors were encouraged to make this endeavor something that in some way serves them, or to approach the occasion of developing their piece as a way to process or explore things they may not otherwise. While the project is called Papers on Power, CFAR encouraged contributors to use any format they deem appropriate, from the typical academic paper or photo essay to experimental forms that may have little or no precedent. The initial project prompt posed a 1200 word maximum, which was chosen as more of a starting point than a constraint and that which is not quite long enough to completely resolve most thoughts but affords the opportunity to be speculative or propositional to introduce thinking specific to an individual’s practice(s) while modeling, probing, and/or elucidating the nature of their relationship to the subject of power. CFAR followed the work, adjusting timelines and lending support as needed to let things mature organically within the complexity of the lives that produced them.

Papers on Power is a compilation of casts to the ether, sent from home sites all over the US during a time that was fraught and unclear, and so difficult to find purchase in. These pieces were published through CFAR’s website as they were completed in 2020 and 2021, and now bound here to seed thinking and catalyze exchange related to power.

Special thanks to contributors Bukola Koiki, Libby Werbel, Nick Tobier, manuel arturo abreu, Nicki Green, Molly Zuckerman Hartung, A. Laurie Palmer, Crystal Z Campbell, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Yaelle S. Amir, Jea Alford, Ariana Jacob, Susan Cuffaro, Sean Cumming, Brian Dolber, Hannah Gioia, Anna Gray, Patricia Vázquez Gómez, Cat Hollis, Anna Neighbor, Larissa Petrucci, Emmett Schlenz and Lise Soskolne, Garrick Imatani, Lynn Yarne, and Lu Yim, garima thakur, Sharita Towne.

Edited by Brian Gillis

ISBN 978-1-7362447-2-2

© 2021 The University of Oregon, Center for Art Research

All content copyright the authors and artists

Published by the Center for Art Research

5232 University of Oregon

Eugene, OR 97403

Designed by Aaron Bjork

Further is a space for considering landscape, migration, and the social and cultural contributions of adolescents through the relationship of two narratives that are tens of thousands of years apart. By positioning a series of objects within a diorama space, this project conflates the theory of paleolithic migration down North America’s west coast with movement up the west coast by legendary graffiti artist CHAKA, a teenager who painted walls and signs from Tijuana to British Columbia in the early 1990s. Adding to long held beliefs that the Americas were first populated by familial bands migrating across the Bering land bridge, some evidence suggests that small groups of drifting, unattached juveniles also made these treks without the responsibility to support a kin group, or the need to find new resources.

Present in a carpeted infinity room are a porcelain model of the human endocrine system, a self-watering platform for a tillandsia plant, porcelain CHAKA objects, a scratch hologram, human coprolite with the presence of camel and horse (c.14,000 BCE), related books and periodicals on loan from libraries in California, Oregon, and Washington, and space to sit or lie down

How might a body’s capacity to imagine unseen places and the ability to walk 30 miles in a day motivate massive journeys across unknown landscapes without direct necessity? What does juvenile individuation and movement through a landscape reveal about human nature? How do these inclinations and predispositions impact the culture and society of a specific place? What do these legends, theories, and histories suggest about a certain kind of intangible nascence that culture may always carry as a vital part of its existence? How do these behaviors relate to seminal developmental theories of Object Permanence, Formal and Material Affordance, and the Adjacent Possible?

Polychrome Porcelain, Carpet, Steel, Chrome Steel, Wood, Mirror, Tillandsia, Coprolite, Bound Academic Papers, and Books

13’ x 11’ x 12’

This directional antenna, designed to broadcast pirate radio, represents a series of forms that explore ways specific orientations of antennae can create interference that allows for directional transmission.

Stained Porcelain, Copper, Steel and Miscellaneous Electrical Components

28" x 10" x 10"

Bronze, Studiomade Foundation, and Jasmine

3” diameter

My grandmother Naomi was born in Chicago in 1916. The middle of three girls born to recent arrivals from Austria and Russia, she quit school at 13 to work. The following year, after the birth of her younger sister, her older sister was sent to an asylum at the age of 15.

Organized and hardworking, Naomi worked in offices in various capacities since she was a child. A couple years before the birth of her first child, Harriet, she married Joe Wexler. A truck driver for his family's steel distribution business who was ten years her senior. Joe was known as a quiet, cerebral man who could fix anything, having trained as a printmaker in his youth before traveling as a semi-pro baseball player and working trade jobs in the 1920s.

With the passing of Joe in his late fifties when my mother was 17, Naomi became a single parent. Following some years back in the workforce, she eventually married a family friend named Bill Brilliant. A hardworking house painter, and father of two children younger than my mother, who lost his spouse around the same time Naomi did.

Naomi had impeccable taste and was known to always be very well put together despite never having much money. I knew her when she was in her 60s. When she was soft and powdery, quick to giggle and kvell, and had a beautiful vanity topped with perfumes, powders, and lotions that I loved to sit at. I used to love putting on her jewelry, particularly her clip-on earrings, and periodically she’d let me try on her scents or makeup. While she had the most jewelry I’d ever seen, she wore very little at one time. Always with a hamza on a very delicate necklace and three bangle bracelets.

Naomi, who we called NanaOmi, was the only grandparent I had a relationship with. She and I had a special bond. She sang old yiddish songs to me at night, taught me needlepoint, and let me help her cook. We’d take walks together and when I breakdanced for her, she’d laugh to the point of crying. When I was ten, a few years after my father’s brother died from an overdose, NanaOmi passed away because of medical negligence related to breast cancer treatment.

Berea College is the United States' oldest work college. Founded by abolitionists and social reformers in 1855 as the South's first coeducational and racially integrated college, Berea’s mission is to educate the people of Appalachia (from Georgia to New York state) who have great promise and limited economic resources. Berea's students have always received free tuition and a modest stipend in exchange for service to the institution. 1855 – Present converted Berea College's Doris Ulmann gallery into a book bindery where student workers were trained to manufacture a two-volume book filled with content related to the progressive history and philosophical concerns of the college. Student bindery technicians were tasked with making books, leading bookmaking workshops, and training any willing gallery goer, so as to proliferate the book's content and bookmaking process. The bookmaking process was documented and laid out as step-by-step instructions in book's appendix, and the digital file was formally attached to Berea’s Printing Services unit and is reproducible upon request. Since the project’s conclusion, students in freshman seminar courses have continued to make these books and use them as the core text for the class.

Instructional section of book, 1855 - Present (Vol. II), and related signage designed in collaboration with John Arndt.

Download 1855 - Present: Accounts of Equity, Reason, and Commitment (Vol.I)

Download 1855 - Present: Accounts of Equity, Reason, and Commitment (Vol.II)

Paper, Book Binding Tools and Equipment, Misc. Furniture and Signage

20' x 30' x 22'

“Paldies” means “Thank You” in Latvian. Two concrete markers, imprinted with this word left in two different areas within the town limits of Roja, Latvia. One marker was placed at the edge of a vacant lot/meadow in the heart of town, a place that has remained undeveloped since the town's founding in the Middle Ages. The other marker was placed at the mouth of a freshwater spring, which has been the primary source of drinking water for people in this area since before the town's founding.

Concrete

12” x 36” x 12”

A “limen” is a threshold of physical or psychological response, or a boundary of perception where one side of a stimulus is perceivable while the other side is not. Enos park is a boundary space in Springfield, Illinois that is complexly situated between history and modernity, socioeconomic classes, racial demographics, and municipal and neighborhood stewardship. This project is utilitarian, reflecting information around itself as a way to reconsider the site through shifts in perception, possible understanding, and a range of associations by visitors and residents alike.

Wood, Paint, and Mirror

Made in collaboration with Mike Miller

Link to

Decodification of the Body

VR space

Decodification of the Body centers the use of contemporary and emerging technologies to transform the determined correlation between the object of the body and its subjective reflection. These three artists, a trans woman, a Jewish man, and a Muslim man, explore the possibilities for decodifying the self as a subjective mechanism that is shaped by a series of immediate struggles, both in and outside of the body, which eventually presents the inability of the self to fully express its rightful image to others. Decodification of the Body portrays a similar arithmetical relation between the unexpressed but intended schema of the self and the unintentionally expressed image of it through a conglomeration of first and third-person expressions of identity, which may or may not be tied to a physical body, socio-cultural context, and/or the impact of perceptual biases of individuals and groups. By providing windows into lived, implied, and perceived experience, THIS SPACE offers the opportunity for one body to consider the limits of its own knowledge about others and scales for appraising the body as an unplanned realization that is not fixed or predetermined by its nature.

Made in collaboration with Farhad Bahram and Chelsea Thompto

These objects were designed for implant under the skin to be used as power objects to seed social progress. As alternative approaches to agitate for change, one edition of three implants was modeled in the image of abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1818 - 1895) and another edition of three implants was made in the form of abolitionist John Brown (1800 - 1859). Objects were later given to individuals and institutions whose primary work focuses on social equity and justice.

Micromilled Bioceramic

.1875" x .1875" x .1875"

This ephemeral monument presents five moments in 20th century American history where some degree of failure led to progress. Built as a site for investigation, inflatable buoys join objects, books, and narrative banners on a stage set at the same height as the average chair. A topographic model of the Berkley Pit (Butte, MT), a can of “New COKE” from 1985, a model of the Edmund Pettus Bridge (Selma, AL), a group of handmade garments, an infant Bristlecone Pine tree, and a host of related books, periodicals, printed web content, zines, academic journals, and love letters are available for viewers to sit and examine.

Bristlecone Pine Tree (Pinus Longaeva), Terracotta, Woven Paper Dress, Silk Wedding Dress, Cotton Apron, Leather Baby Shoes, Dress Forms, New COKE Can (c.1985), Laser Cut Mahogany, CNC Milled MDF, MDF Sheeting, Fir Dimensional Lumber, Miscellaneous Hardware, Welded Vinyl, Printed Vinyl, Aluminum Flagpoles, Casters, Three-Ring Binders, Miscellaneous Books, Periodicals, Printed Web Content, Zines, Academic Journals and Love Letters (1996 - 2008)

24’ x 16’ x 16'

Download New Coke Text

Download Edmund Pettus Bridge Text

Download Her Dresses Text

Download Berkeley Pit Text

Download Donald Rusk Curry Text

Copper and Studiomade Blush

3” diameter

My grandmother Bashie was born in Cleveland in 1915. The youngest of five children born to recent arrivals from Russia, Bashie quit school at 13 following the death of her parents as the Great Depression began. She was raised by her oldest sibling Jean, an anxious woman who calmed nerves with alcohol and eventually died of liver failure, and help from her brothers. Morris was a traveling salesman whose wife knew about relationships and children he had throughout the midwest. Phil was a professional gambler and part time bartender at clubs run by the mob. Max was supposedly “slow”, from an early age working menial jobs that were often the family’s only consistent pay.

It’s unclear how the Rothenberg siblings came to Chicago in the 30’s. Records show that Bashie got married at about the time she had her first child, Lois. My grandfather, Herbie, formerly a professional boxer, worked as a bouncer in his 20s and 30s and started waiting tables at the Drake Hotel once he got married. He was also a known philanderer and gambler. 

Bashie raised my father and his siblings in one-bedroom apartments with lots of other people staying over. Most of the adults were hustling or unemployed, addicted to alcohol or drugs, and some had pretty severe mental illness. Their primary income came from a crate they called a newspaper stand staffed by Max, and my dad and his brother once they were school age. 

Bashie was the matriarch of the family, despite being the youngest by ten years and seldom leaving the house. She ran hustles in the neighborhood and would administer old-world medicine and rituals for a range of reasons. She held court every night while the family played cards, smoked cigarettes and drank. 

Bashie didn’t have much, two dresses and a coat. She was regularly unkempt, but when she went out she always wore a headscarf and a little bit of blush to counter her grey-green pallor.

Bashie began taking insulin for diabetes in her forties. Somewhat regularly going into diabetic comas, she took her own life three months before I was born. My parents named me Baruch Shalom after her.

An 8-foot-deep boundary made primarily of Illinois state flags gives way to the complete Illinois State University Milner Library collection of books concerning Fred Hampton, Black Panthers, John Brown, Weather Underground, Maoism, and a host of others related to socio-cultural revolt in the 19th and 20th century. Present are a photocopier, chairs, black banner embroidered with the Fred Hampton biography, and a window air-conditioner set at the coldest setting. A slide projector automatically advances through a crime scene image of Fred Hampton's bedroom from Dec. 4, 1969, where he was killed that morning by a joint task force comprised of people from the Chicago Police Department, State Attorney's Office, and FBI. At the conclusion of the exhibition, artist-bound copies of the extremely rare Report of the 1970 Grand Jury United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, and FBI files on Fred Hampton, the Black Panthers, and other entities were accessioned and put into circulation by the Milner Library. Books curated and produced for this project were later used as foundational readings for seminar courses in Art, History, and Ethnic Studies.

Nylon Flags, Photocopy Machine, 8,000 BTU Window AC Unit, Slides/Slide Projector, Slides, Misc. Furniture (c.1960s), Illinois State University Milner Library Books and Artist-Bound books related to federal court proceedings and FBI files on Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Bobby Seale, Black Panthers, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Los Angeles Street Gangs Crips and Bloods, American Indian Movement (AIM), Chicano Movement, and other entities related to community organizing, and systematic government oppression and race-based violence.

15' x 20' x 9'

The mission of the U.S. Federal Depository Library Program is to provide local, free access to information from the Federal government in an impartial environment. By making this content available, these depositories also function as a redundant archive of federal files and documents that help to ensure long term access to information that is important to the people of the United States. In most cases, these collections have major gaps related to historically marginalized people and struggles for social progress in the United States.

In response to the absence of information, I have planted books at libraries in Washington, Oregon, California, Illinois, New York, and Arizona that include information related to social justice movements, municipal, state, and federal legislature and court records, and federal documents related to the histories and activities of people and institutions. Content for these books largely comes from academic journals and public information from municipal bodies, courts, and the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.

Images on this page represent a bound portion of FBI files on the Highlander Folk School, a social justice leadership training school in Tennessee, which was left at a Federal Depository Library in California.

Bound Books

Dimensions Vary

This object represents an open edition of casting boxes that produce functional master keys to the gates of Los Angeles Unified School District facilities. The original key these molds were taken from was handed down from LAUSD student to student from the late 1970’s to early 1990’s.

Studio Engineered Polyurethane-Encapsulated Ceramic Refractory and Nickel Silver

4" x 3" x 2.25"

Download Craft and the Hyperobject

Craft and the Hyperobject documents a Center for Art Research (CFAR) Catalytic Conversation held on January 29th, 2020 with Anthea Black, Garth Clark, Sonja Dahl, Jovencio de la Paz, Brian Gillis, Bean Gilsdorf, Nicki Green, Namita Gupta Wiggers, Anya Kivarkis, Bukola Koiki, Stacy Jo Scott, Shannon Stratton, and Lori Talcott to explore notions of craft through the structure of a hyperobject. CFAR’s Catalytic Conversations serve the creative practices of individuals and groups by giving them an opportunity to engage a small body of thinkers in ways that contribute to a project or line of thinking that is in development. These conversations are recorded, transcribed, and archived as reference materials for those involved. This particular Catalytic Conversation was the first that CFAR conducted with intent to publish.

Craft and the Hyperobject is the latest of a series of engagements that University of Oregon’s community of craft-related artists, Sonja Dahl, Jovencio de la Paz, Brian Gillis, Anya Kivarkis, and Stacy Jo Scott, have facilitated using practice-based research, teaching, and speculative discourse to explore craft. After coming together as colleagues at the University of Oregon, we first organized a Summer Craft Forum in 2016 where artists working in ceramics, fibers, metals, and printmaking were invited to the UO campus to work in the studios together, share meals, and hold public conversations related to participants’ work and thinking. After this forum we continued to work together through studio collaborations and exhibitions, conference panels, lectures, and workshops, by organizing public events, teaching at the UO and institutions around the United States, working together on institutional and governmental initiatives, and collaborating with other UO colleagues to found the Center for Art Research.

The Craft and the Hyperobject conversation was convened to consider craft in proximity to the hyperobject, a term coined by Timothy Morton in his 2013 book Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World. In this text, Morton explores the idea of a hyperobject in five parts, or that which is viscous, undulates temporally, is nonlocal, phasing, and interobjective, to explain objects so massively distributed in time and space that they transcend spatiotemporal specificityor legible, tangible, or discretely definable knowing. We chose the framework of the hyperobject to initiate a thought experiment that might allow for the consideration of craft in ways that aren’t preoccupied by previous craft discourse, disproportionately focused on valuation, or positioned as supplemental to other fields, but rather something that is of and in relation to craft on terms that are meaningful to related people and histories.

For this work, we assembled a group of people who represent a range of practices, stakes in the field, and thinking related to craft, and also have the capacity to think speculatively in a cooperative and rigorous think-tank environment. With each correspondence in advance of the Catalytic Conversation, the group received information about project goals, a primer outlining the structure of a hyperobject, and a schedule of events for the day we assembled. With our last communication we also sent the introduction to Morton’s text as a primer to seed the discussion.

This conversation was not intended as a place to perform knowledge, valorize ideas, or establish a new canon, but rather a space to honor and draw from participants’ diverse experiences, knowledge, and perspectives in order to explore craft thinking in fresh and relevant ways. We assumed this short conversation would be inconclusive, and ultimately function more as a catalyst for future inquiry than a series of resolved thoughts. So, in addition to the conversation transcript, we have also included a bibliography of materials that were referenced in the conversation, inform participants’ thinking more generally, or are such that seem important to be thinking about at this moment.

By making this content available through the CFAR website and other forms of digital distribution, and by printing a limited-edition book to distribute to 400 individuals, educational programs, and libraries, we hope that this document serves as a catalytic object to seed further discourse.

Edited by Brian Gillis

ISBN 978-1-7362447-0-8

© 2021 University of Oregon, Center for Art Research 


Published by the Center for Art Research

5232 University of Oregon

Eugene, OR 97403

Designed by Aaron Bjork

This project, built at Heilongjiang University in China, is a large-scale study of a structural armature for a metamap, or that which is intended to serve as a public archive by locating all matter of a site's identity. In this case the site is Harbin, China, a culturally fertile boarder town that has had a history of mixed nationalities and ethnicities including Russians, Eastern Europeans, a large number of Jewish People, and various ethnic Manchurian populations. This armature was developed as a system to grow mined, site-specific content ranging from three-dimensionally scanned local flora and fauna to representations of local architecture, chemical composition of the air, water, soil, history, social data, etc. The overarching objective of this project was to test and advance a methodology for building similar such public archives as permanent monuments that can operate at once like a beacon, mine, and socio-cultural mirror.

Wood, Steel, Mirror, Paper, Paint, Miscellaneous Hardware and Miscellaneous Electrical Equipment

20' x 20' x 20'

Made in collaboration with Mike Miller

Design can be defined as a method for producing things that are used to facilitate and mediate our lives. Until recently, the most cutting-edge, thoughtful design practitioners made work only for the informed elite. With the proliferation of design through high tech devices, omnipresent media, and an expanded field of merchants, the designed object is accessible in new ways that have led to a host of complications and opportunities. As even the farthest reaches of the world have been exposed to design through mobile telephones, branded websites, and bargain couture, has there been a shift in the savvy and demand of the general public. Or, have opportunistic retailers simply identified a trend that is linked to a perception of technical refinement, individuality, and value?

Perhaps this moment is a confluence of many issues: chiefly the global exchange of goods and information, the ability for small manufacturers to use specialized tools and methodologies previously used only by big industry, and a return to aesthetic minimalism popular in the middle of the twentieth century? Perhaps it is market driven, and a result of big box retailers and specialized electronic manufacturers seeing an opportunity to create value through the connection to what was previously seen as boutique design available only to the elite? Perhaps it is comes from modernization or urbanization that is on too massive a scale not to have global influence? The USA, Europe, and Asia have given up many individual aesthetics in favor of participation in a global design dialogue.

Architecture, fashion, electronics, product packaging, automobiles, furniture, and tableware are all participants in this dialogue and given agency through print and digital media, as well as retailers that range from a local swap meet, online store, or multinational corporation to a museum store or boutique design shop. Big retailers like Target, KMart, and Walmart are no longer just distributors but have also been commissioning prominent artists and designers to design lines ranging from generic packaging for house-brand soaps and foods, etc. to a host of domestic objects including furniture, tools, and tableware.

Accessibility by Design is an exhibition of ceramic work that comes from artists and designers who are negotiating this current. The exhibited work evidences a maker's access to new technology and discourse, and a market's hunger for a certain level of refinement, resolve, and individuation.

Curated in collaboration with Susan Beiner, made possible with the participation of Neil Forrest, Trygve Faste & Jessica Swanson, Tyler Lotz, Roberta Massuch, Ian McDonald, Jennifer Forsberg, Amy Santaferraro, Kala Stein, Susan Beiner, Andrew Casto, Rebecca Chappell, Tiffany Bailey, Joe Page, Luke Armitstead, Tim Berg and Rebekah Myers, Mathew McConnell, and Paul Kotula at Vulpes Bastille in Kansas City, MO

In 2002, my friend Ed gave me a jar of pottery shards he had taken from Chaco Canyon in the mid 1950s. In 2022, I gave them to a park ranger at Chaco Culture National Historical Park Visitor Center.

This project was built as an invited response to Face Jugs: Art and Ritual in 19th Century South Carolina, an exhibition of the largest ever assembled collection of face jugs that was produced by the Chipstone Foundation at the Milwaukee Art Museum to explore the origins and conceptual concerns behind the enigmatic face jug form. Alkaline-glazed, stoneware jugs with modeled faces on them were made in Edgefield, South Carolina by enslaved African people from 1858-1875. Very few of these jugs are in existence today, and no one can say conclusively why they were made. Of Ghosts and Speculation uses the occasion of the first major exhibition of historic face jugs as a point of departure to celebrate and monumentalize the face jug while catalyzing future investigation of these rare and culturally significant forms. This project was designed to serve as a public archive that exists simultaneously as a foil, tribute, and living annotation to the historic face jug; or such that stores all the known scholarship about face jugs in both digital and analog forms, while also serving as a repository for new information as it is found.

Premiering in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Of Ghosts and Speculation traveled to museums throughout southeastern United States as a partner to a traveling exhibition dedicated to historic face jugs over a two-year period. Afterward, this piece was accessioned along with an historic face jug by the Chipstone Foundation through whom institutional protocols were put in place to allow for the additions of new knowledge, data, images, and scholarly observations related to the origin and identity of face jugs. Thanks to continued work by Chipstone staff and commissioned archeologists, this archive has since received additional information proving connections to African socio-cultural practices through a translation of a Swahili word written on one of Chipstone’s face jugs and additional findings related to individuals delivered to the US on the slave ship Wanderer.

Nickel Plated SLS Printed Nylon (From 3D Scan of 19th Century African American Face Jug from Edgefield, South Carolina), Pottery Shard (c.1865 from Edgefield, South Carolina), Hand-bound Archival Book of All the Known Scholarship About African American Face Jugs, Magnifying Loupe, Magnifying Dome, External Hard Drive and USB Flash Drives Storing All the Known Scholarship About African American Face Jugs, Miscellaneous Hardware, Rubber and Neoprene Sheeting, and Archival Laser Cut, Linen Covered Board Boxes

40” x 20” x 72”

Download Of Ghosts and Speculation Text

Download FIGURING

FIGURING, a publication of The Ford Family Foundation Visual Arts Program’s Critical Conversations initiative, is dedicated to notions of “figuring,” that is, the processing of a moment to inform a position from which to act, the presentation of a form, or expression of a body. By holding space for both indeterminacy and latent form, FIGURING conjures histories and possible futures, lived experiences, and propositions for ways that ethereal matter might exist concretely or be allowed to endure as defined by its own logic.

Executive Editor:

Brian Gillis

Editorial Board:

Meagan Atiyeh

Mack McFarland

Stephanie Snyder, Commissioning Editor

Sue Taylor, Commissioning Editor

Contributors:

Natalie Ball

Patrick Collier

Demian DinéYazhi

Peter Eleey

bart fitzgerald

Bean Gilsdorf

Jeanine Jablonski

Jovencio de la Paz

Prudence Roberts

Sarah Sentilles,

Stephen Slappe

Richard Speer

Abigail Susik

Sharita Towne

Samantha Wall

Libby Werbel

ISBN 978-1-7362447-1-5

© 2021 The University of Oregon, Center for Art Research

Published by the Center for Art Research

5232 University of Oregon

Eugene, OR 97403

Designed by Omnivore

In many ways a photograph locates and archives its subject; operating simultaneously like a beacon and a surrogate. It serves as record of a subject that forever fixes a moment in time. This project is designed to operate similarly. But, whereas photographs use light and light sensitive materials to make an image, this open, nonstandard edition of individual, tailor-made caches records its subject through archival materials, digital storage media, and a GPS beacon to locate and archive as much possible information known about each specific site. Pieces have been made for the Mary Nohl House/John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Fox Point, MI), 3801 Polk Street (Houston, TX), Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (Gatlinburg, TN), and the Cluj-Napoca Museum of Art (Cluj, Romania).

Porcelain, Urethane Plastic, Polyurethane Foam, Silicone, Stainless Steel, GPS Beacon and USB Drives

8" x 4.5" x 3.5"

In response to a commission for "eco-friendly and sustainable" mugs to commemorate a Food Justice conference, the most eco-friendly and sustainable thing to do was to not make anything new. So, conference logos were fired onto mugs purchased at local nonprofit thrift stores in order to make an edition of 350. The remainder of the project budget was provided to Food For Lane County, a nonprofit organization related to food security, to support existing food programs. This project was extended by working in FFLC’s Meals on Wheels program since this initial project.

Found Stoneware, Terracotta, Talc-Based Clay and Porcelain with Gold Decals

Dimensions Vary

From March 2020 to December 2021, I drove between Eugene, Oregon and the San Fernando Valley in California 14 times. In January and February of 2022, I drove back and forth again, leaving 14 hats in different public spaces along the way.

New Era 59FIFTY and 47’ Brand Hats

This project was built as a testament to an unknown man who, after months of protesting capped by a 3-day massacre where thousands of innocent people were killed by their own government, had the audacity to break through the crowds and stand in front of a column of army tanks in mid victory procession. The media were all quarantined in the same area of the same hotel, which yielded one iconic image.

This piece was sited along with others in such a way that used the gallery space as a laboratory to process notions of “disobedience” related to human experience. In this way, a series of quietly connected elements exist within the space adjacent to a question posted in multiple locations throughout:

What is the refusal to follow instructions or behave in accordance with a law, rule, or order regardless if it is inferred, conditional, corporeal, or compulsory, whether by an outside entity or self imposed?

CNC Milled Plywood, Douglas Fir, Television, DVD Player, Video, Close Caption Security Cameras, Monitor and Miscellaneous Hardware

18' x 18' x 16'

A reprographics center is stocked with everything one may need to produce an edition of anything ranging from posters and picket signs, to pamphlets and zines. Guests are invited to use the space in any manner they see fit, they just have to limit editions to 20 per visit and they have to leave one behind. Workshops dedicated to social agitation through printed matter were hosted each weekend during the run of the exhibition.

This piece was sited along with others in such a way that used the gallery space as a laboratory to process notions of “disobedience” related to human experience. In this way, a series of quietly connected elements exist within the space adjacent to a question posted in multiple locations throughout:

What is the refusal to follow instructions or behave in accordance with a law, rule, or order regardless if it is inferred, conditional, corporeal, or compulsory, whether by an outside entity or self imposed?

Photocopy Machine, Computer, Scanner, Printer, Paper Shredder, Maps, Calender, Paper Cutter, Coffee Maker, Miscellaneous Paper, Miscellaneous Office Supplies, Miscellaneous Art Supplies, Miscellaneous Posters, Misc. Books, Miscellaneous Periodicals, Miscellaneous Office Furniture, Miscellaneous Operating Instructions, and Anonymous In-House Editions, etc.

13' x 15' x 7'

This is an edition of three hydroponic growing cabinets that are each growing a crop of tomatoes. The tomatoes were grown for Hopelink a local food bank. At the conclusion of the exhibition one cabinet was given to the Science Program at BEST High School in Kirkland, Washington who has continued to grow food for Hopelink.

This piece was sited along with others in such a way that used the gallery space as a laboratory to process notions of “disobedience” related to human experience. In this way, a series of quietly connected elements exist within the space adjacent to a question posted in multiple locations throughout:

What is the refusal to follow instructions or behave in accordance with a law, rule, or order regardless if it is inferred, conditional, corporeal, or compulsory, whether by an outside entity or self imposed?

Tomatoes, Studio Engineered Clay Growing Medium, Soiless Growing Medium, Miscellaneous Reservoirs, Misc. Pumps, Air Stone, Miscellaneous Timers, Constant Indicator Combination Meter, T5 Lights, Fans, Nylon Stockings, AeroGarden, Roots Organic Nutrients, Recycled Fabric Pots, Paper, Clipboards, Books, Catalogs, Douglas Fir, MDF, Cut Board, Casters, Plexiglas, Miscellaneous Hardware, and Miscellaneous Laboratory Tools and Instrumentation

48" x 28" x 84" (each cabinet)

Emery Blackwell was the first child with cerebral palsy to be mainstreamed in the Oregon public school system. He was the first person with cerebral palsy to own a house under section 8 in the US. He is a member and has been the president of "Oregonians for Independent Living". Emery is also the principle dancer for DanceAbility, a troupe that performs worldwide in an effort to encourage the evolution of mixed-ability dance. He is also an avid cyclist, and at times operates a taxi service using a modified recumbent bicycle of his own design to tow a handicap accessible trailer capable of carrying three people. Because of his condition he necessitates a caretaker at all times, except when he's riding a bicycle.

This piece was sited along with others in such a way that used the gallery space as a laboratory to process notions of “disobedience” related to human experience. In this way, a series of quietly connected elements exist within the space adjacent to a question posted in multiple locations throughout:

What is the refusal to follow instructions or behave in accordance with a law, rule, or order regardless if it is inferred, conditional, corporeal, or compulsory, whether by an outside entity or self imposed?

Modified Recumbent Bicycle, Video and Miscellaneous Hardware.

20' x 10' x 7'

A 1930's Diebold safe with an unknown combination is outfitted with a magnetically mounted, computer driven safe dialer that physically cycles through every possible combination over a 30-hour period.

This piece was sited along with others in such a way that used the gallery space as a laboratory to process notions of “disobedience” related to human experience. In this way, a series of quietly connected elements exist within the space adjacent to a question posted in multiple locations throughout:

What is the refusal to follow instructions or behave in accordance with a law, rule, or order regardless if it is inferred, conditional, corporeal, or compulsory, whether by an outside entity or self imposed?

Diabold Safe, CNC-Milled Fire Brick, Surge Protector, Neodymium Magnates, Stepper Motors, LED Screens, LEDs, Arduino Controllers, Circuit Boards, Miscellaneous Electrical Components, Miscellaneous Hardware, Rubber, Plexiglas and Fans

50" x 30" x 46"

This project was built at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum to mark the centennial of the 1908 Springfield Race Riot. Present were a central map, podiums topped with leather-bound reference books, and directional speakers playing oral accounts of the riot by eye witnesses. The map is a conglomeration of a 1908 city engineer’s map, cropped satellite images of Springfield from 2008, and flags marking where major riot events occurred. Flags also represent sites throughout town where informational markers were placed to facilitate a walking tour.

Included in the leather-bound reference books are death certificates, arrest records, court proceedings, weather reports, reports from national guard officers, photographs, proclamations from the mayor, essays from local scholars, and the transcripts of oral histories taken from riot witnesses, etc. The books are federally registered as a limited edition with an ISBN, and one volume is now permanently housed in each of the special collections at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, the University of Illinois at Springfield Brookens Library, and the Public School District 186 Central Library.

The 1908 Springfield Race Riot, which involved the intentional censorship of journalism by state and local officials, eventual occupation by the National Guard, and the subsequent creation of the NAACP, was not a “riot” as much as it was a roving band of sadistic European American men committing terrible acts of violence and destruction in the African American part of town. Unfortunately, not altogether uncommon in the United States during the nadir of race relations between the end of Reconstruction and the early 1920s.

This project is a part of a larger series of activities that included the installation of public informational markers, public programming that illuminated this and related histories, K-12 curriculum development, and partnerships with area intuitions including the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, The Illinois State Museum, Springfield NAACP, Springfield School District 186, the University of Illinois at Springfield, various Illinois state agencies, and the City of Springfield.

Aluminum, Archival Board, Ink, Leather, Light, Miscellaneous Hardware, Oak, Hand-Marbled Paper, Parchment, Plexiglas, Silk Ribbon, Miscellaneous Audio Equipment and Sound

20’ x 20’ x 10’

An Expeditionary Journal is a series of three sculptures that exist as a result of a focused three-week open inquiry related to enigmatic things like clouds, fireworks, and magnetic fields.

3D Printed ABS Plastic, 3D Printed and Cyanoacrylate Cured Calcium Phosphate, Laser-Cut Plexiglas, Laser-Etched Graphite-Coated Arches Paper, Laser-Etched Acrylic Paint-Coated Arches Paper, Wood, Fiberboard, Styrofoam and Found Objects

Made in collaboration with Mike Miller

Now! was installed at Tacoma Contemporary, in an old Woolworth display window on the corner of 11th and Commerce Street in Tacoma, Washington’s financial district, also a central hub for city transportation. In this piece an amorphous black inflatable is being immobilized by a heap of MDF picket signs, sign parts, and uncut boards. The picket signs are etched with quotes from people throughout history who have acted defiantly in an effort to bring social equity to underrepresented populations. Quotes were taken from personal writings, speeches, and manifestos in which action and equality are primary objectives.

Laser-Etched MDF, Vinyl, Closed Caption Security Cameras and Monitor

20’ x 14’ x 16’

Download NOW! Texts

A billboard, massive black cloth, scores of model Santa Maria ships, trophies, miscellaneous objects, an adolescent coyote, and the sound of Norteno music coalesce in a crammed gallery space at the Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids, Michigan. On the billboard is a statistical comparison of CEO and worker salaries from 1965 and 2004.

Porcelain, Model Santa Maria Ships, Trophies, Replica Conquistador Helmet, Replica Conquistador Breastplate, Silk, Vintage Belt-mounted Change Maker, United States of America Coin Currency, Radio, Poly/Cotton Twill, Particleboard, Fir Wood, Paper, Ink, Stuffed Adolescent Coyote and Miscellaneous Found Objects

14’ x 8’ x 16’

A building-sized black cloth, cell phone tower, piles of prefabricated roof trusses, and a functional 0-fee ATM are sited in a roofless, early 20th century ice factory (The ICEHOUSE) in Phoenix, Arizona. All elements have the markings of fictitious subsidiaries of Halliburton. Along with every withdrawal, the ATM issues a receipt that is formatted to be a numbered multiple from an edition limited by the last user. Over the course of a 7-day period, the machine logged 19 inquiries, 20 denied transactions, 168 withdrawals, and dispensed $10,440. The edition was limited to 207.

The Craft Emergency Relief Fund’s annual auction and sale was sited elsewhere in the building. That year, CERF’s sales were over four times more than in previous years.

Galvanized Steel, Aluminum, Porcelain, Fiber Glass, Plastic, Vinyl, Neoprene, Fiberglass, Wood, Ink, Simpson Ties, Poly/cotton Twill, Acrylic Satin, 0-Fee Tranax ATM Machine, Paper and US Currency

62’ x 36’ x 30’

A fully equipped genetics lab was built at the Illinois State Museum to mark the centennial of the 1908 Springfield Race Riot. The DNA of two men, Dan and Johnny, were synthesized and translated into code. Lab techs were employed to manually hunt variations in the code through comparison. If a variation was found, the lab tech would compare it to the mitochondrial genome from people of African or European origin to find a conclusive difference. No differences were found.

Dan and Johnny, both life-long residents of Springfield, IL, both Vietnam War veterans, both state employees working at the same institution, and friends for almost 30 years, had no idea that this “riot” ever happened. Something common among the near 125,000 residents of this state capital town.

The 1908 Springfield Race Riot, which involved the intentional censorship of journalism by state and local officials, eventual occupation by the National Guard, and the subsequent creation of the NAACP, was not a “riot” as much as it was a roving band of sadistic European American men committing terrible acts of violence and destruction in the African American part of town. Unfortunately, not altogether uncommon in the United States during the nadir of race relations between the end of Reconstruction and the early 1920s.

This project is a part of a larger series of activities that included the installation of public informational markers, public programming that illuminated this and related histories, K-12 curriculum development, and partnerships with area intuitions including the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, The Illinois State Museum, Springfield NAACP, Springfield School District 186, the University of Illinois at Springfield, various Illinois state agencies, and the City of Springfield.

Human DNA (from Dan and Johnny), Miscellaneous Lab Equipment, Miscellaneous Lab Ware, Miscellaneous Safety Equipment, Miscellaneous Books, Journals and Notebooks, Miscellaneous Signage, Miscellaneous Lab Furniture, Miscellaneous Cleaning materials, Miscellaneous Office Supplies, Miscellaneous Hardware, Digital Prints on Vinyl, Earthenware and Porcelain, etc.

18’ x 14’ x 9’

Made in collaboration with Mike Miller and Jim Bonacum

An arsenal of sashes adorned with the word "VIGILANT" was sent to D.C. for the Women's March on Washington in 2017. 80 sashes, roughly the number of two army platoons, were distributed by 4 people over the course of the event.

Cotton

4" x 40" x .03"

During my time in middle and high school, across multiple institutions in the San Fernando Valley, school was shut down at least once per year for teacher strikes, there were weekly acts of violence between students before, during, or after school, and at least one time per year school was closed because of some out of control violence happening at nearby schools, parks, businesses, or in the greater Los Angeles area. The high school I graduated from had ~3000 students, metal detectors at both main entrances, and a number of full-time police officers that carried weapons. Our facilities were from the 1950s and 60s, our books were from the 70s, and we had no art, music, or shop classes. The architecture, furniture, and food were similar throughout state agencies, including the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

This table displays gang signs from sets my friends were in or associated with while we were students in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) during the 1980's and 90's. Models represent Pyru Bloods, Mara Salvatrucha 13, 18th Street, PJ Watts Crips, Judas 13, Rollin’ 20's, Rollin’ 60’s, Grape Street, Barrio Van Nuys Stoners, Varrio San Fer, Black P. Stones, Asian Bad Boys, and Flip Side, etc. Each piece has a LAUSD property label, and the group is juxtaposed with a child-size porcelain hand embossed with the LAUSD Board of Trustees seal.

Porcelain, FGR, Formica, Glass, Miscellaneous Hardware, Oak, Paint, Particle Board, Plastic, Silicone and Velvet

Dimensions Vary

CHAKA is a mythological graffiti writer who bombed walls, road signs, and buildings from Southern California to Canada in 1991. While one writer was convicted, it is believed to be impossible for only one person to have been so active. These cards were left in public spaces from LA to Vancouver, and in New York City to honor CHAKA.

Sterling Silver

2" x 3" x .015”

Download Discursive Text

Discursive evidences a range of craft practices and ways that these intersect, challenge, and amplify each other through proximity and discourse. The artists and writers in this publication first came together for the 2016 Summer Craft Forum at the University of Oregon. During this two-week event, UO faculty and visitors working in such media as ceramics, metalsmithing, fibers, and print occupied UO studios to make art and think collectively about craft, its relationship to discrete disciplines, and the individual practices of participants. After the forum, these people continued to work together in a number of capacities: lectures and panel discussions at the 2017 National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) conference, a "Conversation on Craft" at the Oregon College of Art and Craft, an exhibition entitled "Made in Oregon" at the White Box Gallery, collaboratively teaching a class called "Object Permanence" at the Ox-Bow School of Art in Michigan, participation in an American Craft Council Think Tank, and a culminating exhibition, "Discursive", at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.

Discursive is so titled to capture the spirit of this group's engagements, which come from a place of expansive discourse, frequently moves from topic to topic without a formal order, and often resolves complex issues and expressions into simpler ones. This publication is meant to operate similarly while providing a space for contributors to show their work and concerns related to their practice.

Special thanks to contributors Rebekah Myers and Tim Berg, Noah Breur, Sonja Dahl, Namita Gupta Wiggers, Yevgeniya Kaganovich, Anya Kivarkis, Danielle Knapp, Ben Levy, Charlene Liu, Ian McDonald, Jeanne Medina, Jovencio de la Paz, Stacy Jo Scott, Lori Talcot

Edited by Brian Gillis

ISBN 978-0-9995080-1-5

© 2018 Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

All content copyright the authors and artists

Published by

Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

1430 Johnson Lane

1223 University of Oregon

Eugene, Oregon 97403-1223

Designed by Mike Bragg

A palletized replica of Plymouth Rock weighs down a Navy grey, inflatable teeter-totter. The rock is made out of unfired clay, the palette is made of fine red oak, and the teeter-totter is made out of military-grade reinforced vinyl.

Stoneware, Canvas, Foam, Graphite, Miscellaneous Hardware, Oak, Paint, Vinyl and Wax

12’ x 5’ x 5’

Porcelain, Cardboard, Hardware, Ink, MDF, Miscellaneous Hardware, Paint and Pine

Dimensions Variable

Produced with Mike Miller

An 18-inch thick, leather-bound book lays open on a velvet, 80-drawer lectern atop a stylized grassy knoll. The book is blank. Each drawer of the lectern is labeled with a different person, place, or thing that serves to catalog important facets of the Abrahamic religious tradition.

Porcelain, Aluminum, Archival Board, Astroturf, Leather, Miscellaneous Hardware, Nylon Flocking, Paper, Pine, Oak and Steel

4’ x 8’ x 11’

Wool, Gold Leaf, and Steel

6" x 18" x .6"

This project convened a group of artists to investigate a range of perspectives related to private spaces within an intensely cooperative domestic environment. Our chief focus was to consider the bathroom, or water closet, through cultural, psychological, and social lenses. Through research, discourse, iterative image making, and other forms of exchange, the water closet became simultaneously a bodily space, an archive of the site's identity, and a catalyst to contemplate interiority and exteriority; its social and cultural histories, related scientific data, physical and environmental attributes, and a record of the activities of Mildred's Lane.

Facilitated with Caroline Earley and Kate Walker, made possible by the participation of Rachel Bordon, Nicole Levaque, Allie Linn, Sarah Malekzadeh, Dana Robinson, Julie Weaver, and Augustine Zegers.

An emergency room triage board, pile of picket fence sections, entertainment center with cardboard electrical components, a plant stand with cast iron shackles, adolescent coyote, and a steeple lay in a dark space. Each element has a tight, bright, spotlight focused on a life-size porcelain housefly.

Porcelain, Cedar, Birch Plywood, White Pine, Oak, Copper, Cardboard Electronics, Hospital Triage Board, Cast Iron Shackles, Coyote, Steel and Miscellaneous Hardware

12’ x 4’ x 4’

My older brother is a heroine junkie. My younger brother is an alcoholic now, after stints in rehab for coke when he was 15 and 16. Both of them are homeless. Both of their lives have crumbled, quickly, catastrophically over about 5 years. They look like completely different people every time I see them. They smell different, and talk different, and walk different, sit different, eat different, smoke different, sound different, and look at me different. I probably do too.

Rides to friend's houses, parks, and pawnshops lead to emergency rooms, detox centers, rehabs, police stations, halfway houses, infectious disease units, the middle of the desert, and psych wards, etc. Missed dinners became missed weddings, and 4am phone calls, car crashes, missing person reports, and meetings with FBI agents, social workers, federal marshals and private detectives, etc. All the while bringing calls and letters from employers, lawyers, old friends, and collectors, etc. I am distraught. I am frustrated, angry, resentful, heart-broken, and in mourning. They are alone.

Porcelain and Decal

5” x 8” x .188”

There is always a bomb dropping. Where they are, what they're doing, and who's looking for them changes constantly. What remains in my life of these two people are mainly memories, and a wake of notes and paperwork that chronicle the mayhem that now defines them to my parents and I.

These pieces of paper evidence our involvement in my brothers’ lives. They also stand as a testament to love, heartbreak, introspection, and impotence. We throw them away as soon as the information on them changes, which is often.

I've been saving these pieces of paper for the last year, without a reason. Somehow they have value to me. Perhaps as proof of our relationship, or to assuage any guilt I have. Maybe I've kept them to remind me of how fortunate I am, or what right I have to be hurt, or maybe just as souvenirs.

The above was written in 2008. So much has happened since: more time in anguish and incarcerated, wandering, finding footing, jobs, places to live, new drugs, relationships, children, precarity, some security, some awareness of life in general and possible futures.

This exhibition evidences the ever-evolving breadth and depth of ceramics in Korea by juxtaposing the work of eight contemporary artists with traditional objects that span 500 years.

Curated in collaboration with Anne Rose Kitagawa, made possible by the participation of Chung Hyun Cho, Soon Jung Hong, MyungJin Kim, Hoon Lee, Jaewon Lee, Steven Young Lee, Sunkoo Yuh, and Young Ho Lee at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Eugene, OR

16 ft. Penske Truck, Hon Four-Drawer Filing Cabinets, Xylenes-Based Paint Marker, Lag Bolts, Stainless Steel Bolts, Stainless Steel Nuts, .25 in. Plexiglas, .125 in. Plexiglas, Steel Rivets, Aluminum Rivets, Mild Steel, Aluminum, Photocopies, Stapler, Staples, Epoxy, PC7, Superglue, Wood Glue, Household Glue, Loch Tight, Fix-All, Silicone Caulk, Rubber Cement, Bondo, Disposable Dust Masks, Respirators, Respirator Filters, Ear Plugs, Ear Muffs, Eye Goggles, Safety Glasses, Welding Goggles, Welding Gloves, Rubber Gloves, Latex Gloves, Peter Voulkos Poster, Voulkos Signature, Ursula Hargens’s Bowl (Earthenware and Majolica), Maris Grosbahs’s Piglet (Stoneware and Paint), Michael Jones McKean’s Drawer (Clay, Shrink Wrap, Plastic), Sinisa Kukec’s As I explode I Reach A Maximum Intrinsic Luminosity One Billion Times That of the Sun (Porcelain, Platinum, LCD Motion Detector and Magnet), Pablo Picasso’s Earthenware Pitcher (ca.1970), Ming Dynasty Kiln Disaster (ca. 1368-1664), Books, Files, Slides, Job Applications, Rejection Letters, Richard Burkett’s Hyper Glaze, Buffalo China Scrap Porcelain, Silica, Aardvark Clay, Steel Brackets, Set Screws, Copper Wire, Steel Cable, Aluminum Ferules, Assorted Periodicals (ca.1978-2000), Alfred MFA Poster (ca. 2002), Clipboard, Mini Legal Pad, Architectural Terracotta Tile (Ca.1900), Accordion Mirror, Venturi Burner, Pyrometer, Thermocouple, Thermocouple Sheath, Pilot Switch, Canthal and Nichrome Heating Elements, Soft Brick, Hard Brick, Silicon Carbide Kiln Shelf, Stilts, Posts, Alpine Bag Wall Tile, Bailey Catalogues, Test Tiles, Labels, Plaster Molds, Latex Molds, Mold Straps, Rubber Bands, Inner Tubes, Sure-Forms, Rasps, Brass Screen, Aluminum Screen, Vinyl Screen, Air Nozzle, Viscometer, Hydrometer, Pressure Treated Pine, Casters, Drywall Screws, Simpson Ties, and Printed Vinyl Sticker

First driven around San Diego during the 2003 Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) conference, then back and forth between locations in Los Angeles and San Diego for various occasions.

Porcelain, Graphite, Steel, Maple, and Electrical Components

42” x 24” x 8”

21 Sojourner necklaces were left in public spaces from Los Angeles to Seattle during 2018.

Download The Margins Text

This exhibition uses innovative approaches to a tradition-laden medium as a point of departure from which installation, performance, and mixed media sculpture have as much of a voice as more established methodologies have had for generations. By highlighting artists who make work that is unfettered by genre specificity and in favor of such that is intended to be seen for its own merit within the tradition of Art, this exhibition substantiates the an expanded field of Ceramic Art.

Curated in collaboration with Nate Betschart, and made possible by the participation of Elissa Armstrong, Jessica Bader/Heather Coffey, Dan Bare, Susan Beiner, Brian Benfer, Timothy Berg/Rebekah Myers, Jason Briggs, Vincent Burke, John Byrd, Rebecca Catterall, John Chwekun, Chad Curtis, Bryan Czibesz, Marc DeBernardis, David East, Neal Forrest, Jennifer Forsberg, Erin Furimsky, Dell Harrow, Jeremy Hatch, Alex Hibbitt, Jeannie Hulen, Hoon Lee, Tyler Lotz, Ian McDonald, Michael Jones McKean, Gregg Moore, Christine Rabenold, Greg Roberts, Brian Rochefort, Anders Ruhwald, Paul Sacaridiz, Carlo Sammarco, Joanie Turbek, and Julie York at the Ice House in Phoenix, AZ

Download Connective Conversations

The Critical Conversations Curator and Critic Tour is a program that brings prominent curators and critics from outside the Northwest to conduct one-on-one studio visits with Oregon artists, deliver lectures, and join in community conversations. This book, Connective Conversations, represents the 115 Oregon artists who received studio visits between 2015 – 2019.

Edited by Brian Gillis and Kate Wagle

ISBN 978-0-578-61957-6

© 2020 The University of Oregon, Center for Art Research

All content copyright the authors and artists

Published by the Center for Art Research

5232 University of Oregon

Eugene, OR 97403

Designed by Aaron Bjork

Porcelain, Decals, Ceramic Plated Bullet Proof Vest, Aluminum, Vintage Change Maker, Plastic Cistern, Miscellaneous Plumbing

A series of studio-made road signs referencing social, economic, and cultural statistics related to life in the United States were left in locations across Oregon and California.

Pencil on Paper

22” x 30”

These images represent a series of drawings that evidence time learning an analog system to calculate complex numbers.