Thursday, January 14, 2010

THIS! is a pile of elephants



How many elephants does it take to make a "pile?"
In the first photo, of this posting, you can see a pile of stitched, but not yet stuffed elephants, and the weary pattern maker and stitcher. The delighted "Elephant Queen" can be seen with a completed, stuffed friend in the middle image and the third image shows most of the 57 elephants that we created last week. We had Tacoma Art Musuem (TAM) volunteers, some neighbors of mine and some students from Tacoma School of the Arts (TSOTA) to help. Oh and the occasional dabbling staff member who just "had to have a hand in this"!!! James Porter, the senior preparator for TAM, was our support person extraordinaire.
Beginning January 23rd a new exhibition will open at TAM; it is called The Secret Life of Animals.
Jeffry Mitchell is the Seattle artist who created the idea and exhibited a slightly different version of the elephants as an installation at the Seattle Art Museum in 1990. He gave the go ahead, located a couple of the remaining elephants from which we made patterns and the new elephant pile was born. I haven't had the opportunity to ask Jeffry about the reasoning/inspiration/idea behind the work yet: stay tuned. Rock Hushka, Head Curator, has wanted to replicate this installation at TAM for many years. He is to get his wish as part of this new exhibition. It promises to be a very fun exhibition ... do come and see it all. Leroy our pup will greet you, and among the many interesting pieces of art in many different media the elephant pile awaits you! May be the only time my "work" is exhibited in an Art Museum. Look forward to seeing you there.

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