Artist Spotlight - Lauren Fensterstock

At my internship, I get a unique (and totally awesome) opportunity assisting artists with their installations. Lauren Fensterstock is one of those artists! I was even able to ask her a couple questions while we were working. Before I get to those, I'll give you a little peek at what she's done in other institutions.

Yes, that's paper.

Yes, it's hand-curled and formed.

Yes, it's amazing.

For the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Lauren Fensterstock did her largest installation ever! It's called "Celebration of Formal Effects, Whether Natural or Artificial" and in it, she's created three separate gardens using ornately quilled, cut, and sculpted black paper. As beautiful as those pictures above are, it's nothing like being there in person, especially when I feel like I've been stuck inside for ages because of the Wisconsin winter. 

Fensterstock has been inspired by victorian art practices (like quilling) and more importantly, nature. She gardens at her home in Maine, and through her garden discovered a connections between natural and fabricated in her garden. She set out to create a "wild, overgrown" garden. When done, her garden looked "natural" yet did not have any plants that were native to Maine. 

In her art, this natural-yet-not look is also employed. The ribbons of paper look like they fit right in with the curling petals and quilled leaves. 

I was only able to get a couple pictures of the one at JMKAC, so here's one of those...

Here's a picture from the arts center for a less instagrammy view of the exhibition currently on view.

jmkac.org

It's on view through August 18th at JMKAC, so check it out!

Artist Spotlight: Mary Nohl

The Fox Point Witch!

Just down the road from my university, down a curving hill and past the blue waters of Lake Michigan lies the Mary Nohl Art Environment. (Also known as The Fox Point Witch's House and the Mary Nohl House) 

Born in 1914, Mary Nohl graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago and taught in junior high schools around the area and eventually opened her own ceramics studio for 10 years. 
After her parents died, Mary Nohl received an inheritance which allowed her to create a massive collection of folk art, including statues and architectural features. After Mary Nohl's death, the Kohler foundation acquired the property and began cataloging the hundreds of pieces that she had made from 1961-2001, the year of her death. Although she donated many of her pieces to the John Michael Kohler Arts Center when she was alive, they've also acquired her house after her death and are working hard to preserve and conserve it (as well as make it available to the public - fingers crossed!)

The whimsy of the home jumps out at you when you drive by. The house has bright, wooden reliefs of blue, turquoise and red.  The house is surrounded by concrete sculptures with different natural elements mixed in- like driftwood, rocks from the beach and glass. She drew much of her inspiration from the lake right outside her house. One of the things I admire about Mary Nohl is her perspective that everything could be a medium. She transformed everything from her lawn to the inside of her house; making it go from drab to expressive. The house is a private residence and the other people in the neighborhood don't really like having people hanging out and looking at the house. That's why it isn't open to the public, unfortunately. 

Although she is most known for her concrete sculptures outside fo her home, she also worked with...

Wood
She carved faces out of wood and made them into a playful fence. She eventually hung the wooden faces from the trees surrounding her yard, because vandals were stealing them.

Metal
She created jewelry! Often depicting people in boats, likely inspired by her home on the lake. You can actually still buy her designs at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center store page.

Woodcut & Printing

In the book Mary Nohl: Inside and Out, there are many pictures of her woodcuts. I was unable to find any pictures online, unfortunately. They are of people and rooms and streets, likely to be Maryland; where she was an art teacher at the time. If you look at Van Gogh's bedroom painting, they look a little like that. With wiggly, expressive lines and energy bouncing from the images. 

Ceramic

After she traveled and taught, she became a potter and opened her own studio and sold her own designs. You can see the clear beginnings of her whimsical style that would later define her concrete works: curious faces and expressive bodies.

This is an intern for the Kohler Foundation making an inventory of some of the ceramic items in Mary's home after her death. 

Mary Nohl also painted, drew and experimented with all sorts of mediums in between. She truly is an inspiration to artists who want to try everything. There is much more that I can say about Mary, but instead I will end with a quote from her:

"No amount of disorder will induce me to give up my front row seat on the changing moods of Lake Michigan- the ice hills against the blue water in the winter, and the afterglow of the sunsets in the summer, and the infinite variety in between."

Artist Spotlight - Rob Mulholland - Vestige

Deep in the forest of Aberfoyle, Trossachs (Scotland) there is an installation by Rob Mulholland. This is definitely one of my favorite pieces of installation art. It combines the beauty of nature with a voice of ecological responsibility. Throw in some really cool mirrors and BAM! Art! 

Scottish sculptor Rob Mulholland creates these eerie mirrored sculptures out of Perspex, a kind of acrylic glass. The pieces blend into their surroundings, at times appearing almost completely camouflaged and then they become visible as your perspective changes. The mirrors reflect the forest and distort the reflection, making the human (or animal, like below) outline barely visible. 

Rob Mulholland with one of his mirror sculptures

From Mulholland's website: His work explores the human relationship with the wider environment. His approach is not judgmental, more reflective and questioning about the ever-changing world around us. The human desire to leave a trace of ones-self for future generations has always intrigued him. It's a driving force to create and leave a semblance of our-selves as individuals and as a society. The reflective figures ask us to look again and consider the symbiotic relationship we have with our natural and man-made environment.

I find this dialogue that Mulholland creates between man, our made environments and our natural environments extremely fascinating, as well as vital to our future. This installation says to me: "You reflect your environment, you are your surroundings." 

Here is one question from an interview with Mulholland: In what way do you think your installations, ‘Vestige’ being a good example, teach us about the world, and why is ancestry so important to you?

I have always been interested in history and how the past shapes our present and future world. ‘Vestige’ gave me the opportunity to express some of my own feelings regarding ancestry. I wanted the visitors who came across the installation at the forest trail in Aberfoyle to reflect on how much has changed in a relatively short time and to consider and ponder the lives of those who lived and worked on these hillsides in the recent past. On reflection ‘ Vestige’ could be adopted in many locations throughout the world. It’s a common theme of lost communities and displacement.

As someone pointed out - before you see them, you see you.