Feeding the Tree: Jean Brennan $ Zach Rodgers @ Crotch March 2014

As it happens, spheroid forms nestled in the heart of Crotch became a meme for the first three months of this year.   But whereas Matt Stolle's Concretion was a cleaving alien forcewhitch lodged itself in the crux of the tree and Lorrie Fredette's Balls became the very stuff(ing) within the tree, ready to burst forth,   the balls of orange ice in the frozen orbs of Jean Brennan's and Zach Rodgers' Thaw are at once of and from outside the tree.  In a move that flips arboreal physiology on it's head, these juicy colored "fruits" release their essence back into the treee.  Thaw is gift of nourishment.

 Given long lived winter, Thaw lived in tact for a week in early March.  The piece transformed over the course of a warmer weekend,  disappearing into the core of the tree, one drip at a time.

Wool fibers rubbed into the bark of the tree in the manner of what might be left behind from rutting ruminants constituted another piece component. Together the elements of the piece and the act of installing their work (with shin deep snow still on the ground, much of which was, itself, rubbed into the recesses of bark) speaks to the seasonal cycles and all the changes commensurate with that cycle.

 

Crotch has lain fallow for the month of April. Peter Iannarelli will take his place in the crotch in the month of May.

Spring comes to Crotch in Beacon, NY

The flowers are breaking through at the base of Crotchwith the woolen remnants from March's Crotch Project, Thaw, by Jean Brennan $ Zach Rodgers clinging to the bark.  My blog post on Jean and Zach's work is way late, but will be posted here very shortly.
Crotch is fallow for the month of April, save for the white wool which, through the influence of the weather, is slowly migrating to the base of the trunk.
FYI, Jean will be participating in Beacon, NY's annual Open Studios, taking place during the first weekend of May.

Bubbling up: Lorrie Fredette @ Crotch

Although the forms are similar, the effect of the Crotch projects of Matt Stolle (January) and Lorrie Fredette (February) could not be more different.  Where Matt's black sphere appeared to come from without and insinuate itself in the crotch of this tree, Lorrie's bone colored balls allude to a source deep within the tree, bubbling forth from that source as if forced out by an internal pressure.

The work, simply titled Balls consists of dozens of small balls made of beeswax and tree resin placed in the crotch and tucked into a nearby knot hole in the tree.

 Is this how sap appears before the warming temps cause it to flow?
Like a kind of arboreal roe, Balls reveals the pre-Spring fecundity of the tree ready to burst forth once the hard Winter subsides, an presents a sense of all that might be stuffed within that gnarled coarse bark.

My habit this Winter has been to periodically trudge out to see to what degree the Crotch projects have been obscured by or released from the snow cradled by the tree's branches. 

Buried under heavy snow for the better part of two weeks, Balls reemerged last weekend, cutting thin translucent line in the dark hulk of this tree.

Lorrie Fredette lives and works in Saugerties, NY.

Changing of the guard at Crotch

Matt Stolle's Black Ball is just beginning to emerge from the span of snow that has raised the junction of Crotch with a webbed parabola since Wednesday's storm. 

Next on deck for Crotch is Lorrie Fredette who will be installing her work tomorrow - weather permitting.

If you tune in to the live stream on the crotchprojects.com homepage sometime after noon tomorrow, you will likely catch Lorrie populating the tree with here work.

The ball drops on CROTCH: Matt Stolle

January's offering at CROTCH dropped into the tree this past week.  Manhattan based artist Matt Stolle came up to Beacon last weekend to deliver his work for CROTCH.

Black Ball (Concretion) plaster, enamel, gesso, 5"x5"x5", 2013

Matt's project Black Ball incorporates one of his Concretion sculpture within the corpus of the CROTCH tree.  When deposited in its resting place, this dense, shiny, irregular "cannon ball" of plaster, gesso and enamel became a lustrous black pearl seated in a nest of snow, tightly fitted right in the crux of Crotch.

The rain washed away the snow that same night.  The next morning, the contrast of textures between this ball and bark of the tree became more apparent.

Black Ball is a point of gravity, nailing that moment of splitting and joining.  By its presence in the tree, Black Ball provides the possibility that it was this very projectile which created the cleavage of CROTCH when falling from the sky, lodging itself at its current place of rest.

There's much life within the sphere of a tree which can only be seen on close, patient examination.  Matt's piece, discrete as it is, highlights this nature.

Because, by nature, the possibility is always there, once spied by those more (c)literal minded individuals, this tiny black button might add an anatomical correctness to the physiology of CROTCH.

Nature laid bare, and discrete, all at once.

The ball was dusted with a new coating of snow yesterday morning.  This new layer of white stuff turns the positive into a negative.  It's Black Ball cum black hole.  Even up close, It's hard not to see the sphere as a void.

Another of Matt's Concretion works is currently on view through Feb 2 at et al projects in Brooklyn as part of the group exhibit Visceral Integrity, curated by Bret Slater.

This week in Crotch

It's been a week of weather influencing the venue of Crotch and Matt Kinney's installation. Here are a few snapshots.

RED/GREEN/YELLOW on Sunday.

Frosted on Tuesday.

Covered on Sunday.

Modelling Behavior: the opening of Crotch

When one has something to do in their mind, in art, you have to do it. If you're not an artist, you just don't have to do all of this. And if you can't sleep under your truck, you never amount to a damn anyway.

This quote, of De Wain Valentine, lifted from a an conversation with the artist on the national gallery of art podcast from is a lovely analysis of the imperative that rests at the base of the artistic impulse. 

It was this quote, and the better part of an episode of Bad at Sports (no. 416 artist as arbiter panel), that I was listening to on my morning commute which inspired me to follow through on a long harbored idea, and .

The art as arbiter panel discussion from the 2013 CAA conference largely dealt with alternative and unusual exhibition and curatorial projects.  I'm a sucker for this type of discussion,as might be surmised from some of my past curatorial and participatory projects.  I'm susceptible to a type of infectious spirit gleaned from hearing about how individuals have plied the infrastructure of their own lives and situations to design a platform of creation, exhibition and conversation for other artists. This is a type of cultivation I groove on.  Its a compulsion and can feel like a weakness.
The idea lodged free by these audio selections is Crotch, a project space nestled in the crotch of a maple (I think) tree in our back yard.  Crotch was born as a one liner as I was bringing kork to a close in 2011.  kork was a project space situated (for three years) in the office of Bailey Browne CPA & Associates in Poughkeepsie.  A relatively low impact manner of posing challenges to artists, kork provided me with a the privilege of witnessing first hand the generative processes of artists' responses. Crotch promised to be an even easier-to-manage endeavor, but it fell victim to my constant exasperation of my own impulse to cook up these schemes at the expense of my own studio endeavor.
 

The Crotch venue

By the end of that heady morning commute mentioned above, I hashed out the details and the resolve to make Crotch happen over the course of this coming year, lest I regret not having done it after some point when we have left this apartment and this town of Beacon.

The tree in question, which has become Crotch, has been the setting of several works and actions for us here at Kamp MAYKR over the past several years and I thought it the perfect excuse venue to build on. Crotch is available for visits in person, by appointment, but it will probably mostly be "experienced" via a webcam feed embedded on the home page of crotchprojects.com.
Crotch as the point of splitting, of branching out. Crotch as the embodiment of the crude, impolite, make-dirty business that is not discussed in proper company, or in towns that are working to regenerate and rebrand themselves as progressive, creative, tasteful communities attractive to the creative class.  Crotch as the point of departure for creative and procreative and impulses. Crotch as an acknowledgement of the erotic drive in all forms of making; art, place, baby, etc. 

Crotch is informal, private -with an option for publicness- natural, and slow.  Crotch moves on the pace of the changing seasons, and like our neighboring institution, Dia:Beacon, Crotch relies on rhythms of the day and natural light to illuminate its offerings. 

The webcam stream makes me consider the surveillance society we are in, in which so many of us offer up ourselves to surveiling. Also, another recurring theme for me is that of the nature of experience (primary, secondary, first hand, mediated, etc.), and the naturalness of what we frequently see and experience comes to us through a screen and is taken as a true experience and an accurate view.   The webcam's gaze is south facing, and much of the day, the tree of crotch is largely backlit by the sun. At certain times of the late afternoon the feed is bright and washed out by a cloud of glare.   Any particular artists work may be obscured by the limitations of this remote portal.  What can be gleaned is the context of that artwork's current setting.  The webcam's is a long look upon the slowly changing scene modified by the presence of one artist's contribution. 

Angelika Rinnhofer, My Period Piece

Crotch launched quietly in October with a work created, and surreptitiously placed in the tree, by Angelika. My Period Piece is a braid of colorful fabric emerging from the crotch and falling down the trunk to the ground. 

Although not really visible through the web cam, Angelika's ribbon of color activated the moss encrusted trunk....and gave the squirrels something to play with.

Crotch is currently occupied by a work by Matt Kinney; it's another example of the perk of instigating these kinds of projects.  We came home from lunch last Sunday, startled to find this milled piece of timber rising from the ground, strapped  to and at odds with the tree of Crotch.  Its a kind of Christmas to see these artists responses manipulate my surroundings and I feel myself the grand beneficiary of these efforts.

Matt's work is heavy effort and rigid tension but with a delicacy marked by the incandescent ribbon of yellow rope and strapping tethering the two poles.  The yellow rope glimmered in the Sunday Sun, linked to the slightly more earthy yellow leaves which have since been cleared from the ground by the lawn care guys.

Matt's work is an active force acting on the crotch, opening it up, maintaining it as a point of emanation.  I scheduled Matt to be the artist for November.  This current piece is actually his second effort.  Through a miss communication, his first piece was erected in on other spot on the property, a magnolia tree on the other side of the house.

Matt's initial gesture in notCrotch

This placement presented a dilemma for me.  I wasn't sure what to do. It happened. It exists as a manifestation of our communications and it was interesting because of that and it has value there.  It was in the crotch of a tree but it wasn't in Crotch.  Matt was relieved when i told him because he wasn't happy with the work anyway and was pleased by the opportunity to push another idea forward.   I think of that first attempt as a testament to the promiscous drive for an artist to make and do - that any crotch is a viable depository for those creative manifestations.   I hope he doesn't mind me showing this image of it, but I like that it is part of the process that brought this second piece into being.

Matt Kinney's piece will remain on view through December.  January's artist will be Matt Stolle.
If you're interested in visiting Crotch, send me an emaill at info at crotchprojects. com