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C'ood
Flood
Nautilus
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C'ood: a democracy experiment
C'ood: a democracy experiment is an outdoor participatory project about searching for the common good. Our diverse nation doesn't share a common cultural background with a long history of what culture should be, like many other countries. But we do share the ideal of working for the common good. This experiment tests whether we can see the beauty in that ideal, the beauty of what that might look like and feel like to do.
Viewers enter a circular tunnel from five different points. The tunnel is woven from T-shirts collected from all around Michigan. The weaving creates a space that can be seen into yet is mysterious. Viewers can roam around the inside enclosed space or enter the central open space. By navigating into and out of this unknown space, by moving among other viewers, they become part of an experiment in how to find the common good. C'ood is a transformational space in which people can see themselves within our communal culture.
Proposal
A freeform circular tunnel is built on a wooden floor with metal arches attached that are covered with fencing. This structure is 24' wide and 10' high, with a 12' wide central opening. The tunnel is woven with Michigan T-shirts, collected from donations. The texts from the shirts are recorded on the floor and become part of the piece. The five entrances to the tunnel are each woven with shirts of one color. As the weaving merges over the arches into the center, the colors intermix. The central opening is surrounded by multicolor weaving.
Participation
This is a participatory project which invites engagement at all levels. T-shirts donated with Michigan or the name of a city or town in Michigan on them will be woven into the piece. Many volunteers will be needed throughout the summer for large jobs or small: builders, T-shirt cutters, weavers, cookie makers, installation team. Viewers who walk through the finished piece participate in the democracy experiment.
To be shown at ArtPrize 2010, at Calder Plaza, Grand Rapids
C'ood will be shown at ArtPrize this year, from September 22 to October 10. For more information check the fantastic ArtPrize website: www.artprize.org
Participate in C'ood by donating a Michigan T-shirt:
Short sleeved shirts, no collars or pockets, with Michigan or a city or town in Michigan on the shirt. Drop off or mail shirts to:
Margaret Parker, 210 S. Ashley St., Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Volunteer to help with this project:
Please contact Margaret Parker, 734-663-1276, mparkerst_gmail.com
Installation Proposal
Floods and the devastation left in their wake have become more common as weather patterns are altered by global warming. If this trend continues, what will we be left with, how will we be living? This installation creates a metaphorical space that holds in suspension the surface of a rising tide and allows viewers to live through it. The water level is a suspended layer of loosely woven cotton T-shirts, as though individuals have shed their skin or been stripped in the water's rising, and are now just sort of floating. As viewers walk through the installation they sense the water's rise as they sink, the situation that overtook the whole city of New Orleans and now threatens many coastal areas and whole island nations.
Cotton T-shirts, cut into strands with neck holes left open, are woven into a sheet that is suspended across the room, hanging from the walls and ceiling in waves at about a 4 foot level. The shirts were collected from communities that have recently experienced floods, especially New Orleans. Visitors walking through a path between the waterline experience both being under water and keeping their heads above it. A dense network of shadows fills the space below the weaving, the open neck holes make circles of light. Snippets of text can be read on the shirts, and the full texts are written on the walls.
Site
The installation is site specific, the waterline fills the whole room except for a path that wanders from one entrance to the other. The weaving is supported with lines of filament attached to the ceiling at various points to create low waves. Viewers are encompassed by the floating layer of weaving. Texts from the shirts are written on the walls like calls for help. Lighting from above casts an evocative underworld of shadow onto the floor.
Installation/Residency Proposal
The Chambered Nautilus is a mollusk whose shell is a spiraling series of chambers which, as the mollusk outgrows each chamber, it builds a larger one. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his poem, "The Chambered Nautilus," had one concluding line, "Build thee more stately mansions, oh my soul...". He captured an essential wisdom of American spirituality: that it doesn't necessarily depend on theology but may be based in nature, personal observation and vision, and the process of growth. This installation recreates the growth of a large scale Chambered Nautilus during the course of the show or residency. Nautilus is a woven structure made of cotton T-shirts, the ordinary chambers that we fit, fill and soon outgrow. As stand-ins for our individual selves they're sometimes used to express our better natures, an urge for spiritual transformation. The process of building the artwork becomes an enactment of spiritual growth - it builds a place of beauty which the soul grows to fill.
To create a monumental spiral tent-like structure that grows to 40' high during the course of the show or residency. A steel spiral support structure is suspended from the ceiling that lengthens in sections to the desired height. Cotton T-shirts cut into strands, yet still all in one piece, are woven around the spiral to build the nautilus shape. T-shirts whose text or pictures express spiritual growth are collected for this piece. Visitors watch as I weave the shirts together and the Nautilus grows larger. They're invited to donate a T-shirt to the piece, one that expresses their idea of spiritual growth. Texts from the shirts are written on the walls.
The installation is built on sight and reaches about 40 feet in height. The building of the piece is an essential part of the artwork. Viewers may participate at every stage. They may leave T-shirts at the sight to be woven in to the piece. They may write the text from the shirt on the wall. Viewers are eventually encompassed within the weaving. Lighting from above casts evocative shadows into the shell space as the piece grows. The finished Nautilus is a large tent-like space, filled with shadows from the weaving, where people can rest, linger and meditate.
Estimated building time: 3 months
Escape Return
Escape Regresso
Nest
Fates
Cornered
Crumpled Columns
Back to Spaces
Escape/Return Escape/Regresso
12'l x 7.5'ht x 9'w
45 cotton T-shirts, wire fencing, wood, wire, 2009
Escape/Return Escape/Regresso is a representation of human entanglement in a global age. A tunnel made of T-shirts from Latin American countries, like cast off skins, shows the cross-national struggle of illegal immigration, from poor to rich countries, that is taking place now around the world. The viewer walks through to follow in the footsteps of those caught in the cycle of migration between Latin America and the United States and glimpse the claustrophobic experience of those who escape for their lives and families, in search of better livelihoods. This piece involves both the Latin American and Anglo communities in the expression of an epic migration of peoples.
Exhibited:
ArtPrize, 53 Commerce, Grand Rapids, MI, 2009
Home: Loving It, Losing It, Leaving It, Duderstadt Gallery, University of Michigan, Women's Caucus for Art and Feminist Art Project, Ann Arbor, MI, 2009.
Prices available upon request.
2006-7
40 cotton T-shirts, wire, pipe, 8 ft. ht. x 6.5 ft diameter, hangs 2' above the floor
From a collection of T-shirts from the Women's Movement, Nest became an expression of how women in the 70's gave up old lives to invent a protective incubator to give birth to new selves. These selves could go beyond the patriarchial roles of motherhood and wife, to a human role of their own choosing and their own definition. Nest created a transformational space where viewers from a new generation could participate in the daring experiment that was what the Women's Movement was all about.
In the Beginning, Dallas Women's Museum, Women's Caucus for Art, Dallas, TX., 2008.
Shirts & Skins, solo show, Ann Arbor Art Center, Ann Arbor, MI, 2007.
Venus of Willendorf: Redefining the Goddess, Duderstadt Gallery, University of Michigan, Women's Caucus for Art and Feminist Art Project, Ann Arbor, MI, 2009.
Fates: An Installation
2009, 4 deconstructed T-shirts, wire, filament, scissors, 8'w x 2'd x 7'-6"ht
Fate takes an ambiguous meaning for contemporary Americans who strongly believe that they have some measure of determination over how their life will turn out. Women are often advised to "take their lives into their own hands." Yet, we are still written into a lifeline from birth to death and looking back on one's life, it can be argued that almost nothing happens by our own "free will." The three Fates in Greek mythology were envisioned as women who were weavers. The first one, Clotho, spun the thread of life together; the second, Lachesis, measured one's alloted length; the third, Atropos, cut the thread off at the end. This piece envisions contemporary fate and our passage through it. It re-imagines the female role as an elemental space where shape and time cross and pass through.
Installed at River Gallery, Chelsea, MI until August, 31 2010.
Black shirt 90” ht x 17” w x 18” d, 2009. Installed in artist's home.
yellow shirt 46” ht x 28” w x 25” d, 2009. Installed in artist's home.
Dark green shirt with red 65” ht x 28” w x 30” d, 2009. Installed in artist's home.
Dark green shirt with red 96' ht x 36” w x 40” d, 2009. Installed in artist's home.
Dark blue mottled shirt, 2009. Installed at WSG Gallery, Ann Arbor, MI.
Peach, "Fonesca Grill Chicago," 2010, 53"w x 82" ht x 26"d. Installed at Beverly Arts Center, Chicago.
2009-10
Ongoing series of various sizes, deconstructed cotton T-shirts, wire, filament pinned in a corner using the walls, ceiling and floor
This ongoing installation series explores individual isolation using cast off materials compressed into the left over space of corners. Each installation is unique, like a three dimensional drawing. Each piece is made from one T-shirt cut in the same pattern: one long strip from the end of one sleeve to the neck to the end of the other sleeve. Nothing from the shirt is cut off or left out so the surface area of the shirt tells it's own story. The piece is stapled into the floor, walls, and ceiling of the corner.
2007
4 Deconstructed cotton T-shirts, 7-7h x 5-9w x 3-9d
Since 9/11 the psyche of our country has undergone a wrenching transformation. Crumpled Columns was one of a series called Shirts & Skins , an investigation in how individuals have been stretched, torn apart and remade into something almost unrecognizable by these events and the wars that followed. The piece begins with the shape of an ordinary T-shirt, a rough stand-in for a human torso, and cuts it apart into a new transformational space. The logos and messages printed on the shirts are cut up along with the cloth, to become artifacts from past lives. Each pair of columns is made from one shirt cut into strips from the end of one sleeve to the other. Yet each shirt is still connected as one whole piece, offering a way to envision the indomitable human spirit.
Like Water on Rock, at The American Jewish University, Los Angeles, CA, 2009
Windsor Biennial, Windsor Art Gallery, Windsor, Ontario, Canada, 2007.
SOLD
Twin Towers
Acts of Nature
Interiors
Daylight
Temple
Back to Papers
2002, series of 7, watercolor, oil stick, stencils, collage 44" x 22"
The horrific events of 9/11 and the chaos that followed led me to make these paintings. Each painting dealt with one aspect of the event, to help untangle the levels of shock and sadness of the incomprehensible act.
National 9/11 Memorial Museum Artists Registry, 2010.
Fabric of Fear: Art after 9/11, 555 Gallery, Detroit, MI, 2005.
Testament, solo show, Ann Arbor City Hall, Ann Arbor, MI, 2002.
http://www.national911memorial.org
2001, Water color on paper,
22" X 30" and 14" X 20"
Mapping the human genome has been a breakthrough of almost infinite promise. Human intervention in such basic building blocks of life also brings up ethical questions and apprehension of unintended consequences. This series of paintings called Acts of Nature attempts to make visible the ecstasy of scientific revelation, and tie together the human hand in the act of discovery with the consequences of those actions.
WSG Gallery, Ann Arbor, MI, 2009
University of Michigan Life Sciences Complex, Ann Arbor, MI, 2004.
1999, watercolor on paper, 30" x 22".
This watercolor series probed the internal physical changes that became pronounced as I turned 50. Instead of starting the painting with the shape of a figure, I started with an emptiness. This allowed all kinds of unknown images and feelings to immerge. Several years later, the Twin Tower series used the same approach by leaving empty paper to stand in for the two lost towers.
Art of Healing, Duderstadt Gallery, University of Michigan, Women's Caucus for Art and Feminist Art Project,Ann Arbor, MI, 2008.
Series of 23 panels, 24' x 13
acrylic and metallic paint on masonite, 1998
This series reconstructs the intense light and shadow of a city block.
Narrow streets pressed between blocks of tall buildings are cast in deep shadow on one side and blinding sun on the other, while all perpendicular surfaces are etched in high relief. In this stark light, scenes reminiscent of Greek drama unfold. Environment overpowers the human, yet character shows in every gesture and circumstance. Individuals act out their personal myths as they inhabit the city streets and their inner lives.
The palette is reduced to the basics of light and shadow: black, white, yellows, and dark blue, as well as metallic gold and silver for highlight and reflection. The painted panels have been grouped by scene, either horizontal or vertical.
Series of 16 limited edition prints, 11" x 11", 2004. Printed on archival paper with Epson Stylus Printer using archival inks. Printed by the artist.
The Temple series reflects my recent trips to China and India when I visited Buddhist, Confucius, Taoist, Hindu and Jaine temples for the first time. Mixed in is my response to growing fundamentalism in many religions including Christianity. This series expresses the thirst for spiritual transformation.
River Gallery, Chelsea, MI, 2010.
WSG Gallery, Ann Arbor, MI, 2009.
Pool Miami, Miami, FL, 2006.
Sync06, Duderstadt Gallery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 2006.
University of Michigan Hospital, Ann Arbor, MI, 2005.
Pakzieski Gallery, Dearborn, MI, 2005.
Henry Ford Community College, Dearborn, MI, 2004
Ford Assembly
Bridge of Sighs
Sojourner Truth
Stations
Back to Volumes
8 bronze sculptures on wood bases, ranging from 3" x 3' x 3' to 5" x 7" x 4", 2009
The fluid motion of the assembly line made it possible to combine
the flexibility of human beings and the power of machinery. It
became the backbone of industries, around which whole cities and states were built. This group of sculptures celebrates that culture.
Price available upon request.
2003
Bronze on cut wood bases in 4 movable parts, 10" x 10" x 8" (variable)
Another experiement in how the participation of the viewer is an inherent part of an art work is evident in Bridge of Sighs. This sculpture is made up of 4 movable pieces which are meant to be moved and rearranged by viewers. The pieces gain new meaning, they lose their separate shape and take on new suggestions with each arrangement. Nothing has given me more pleasure than to find this group in a new placement I've never thought of before.
WSG Gallery, Ann Arbor, MI, 2010
Bronze, 11" x 11" x 5"
This piece is a model for a series of
gates, large outdoor installations,
inspired by the Underground
Railroad sites in Ann Arbor and
Ypsilanti, Michigan.
Sojourner Truth has a green
patina on the flat surfaces while the
edges are polished to a bright
bronze to accentuate the curving
line.
1987-88
Series of 14 terra cotta reliefs mounted on wood. 18" x 16" x 1"
In the late 1980's the epidemic of homelessness had taken over our neighborhood of westside Manhatten. Someone was waiting on every corner, sleeping in our subway stop, riding on the bus. The contrast between those of us rushing between work and home and those who had nowhere to go was monumental. I felt I was witnessing, with my two year-old daughter in hand, the unraveling of democracy. I began a series of terra cotta reliefs to document these scenes, using the dramatic tableau of the Stations of the Cross to encompass the step by step nature of the human drama.
Dan Berrigan, poet, activist and priest, wrote a series of meditations to accompany photographs of the reliefs which was published as Stations, the Way of the Cross, by Harper & Row, in 1989.
The reliefs have been shown on their own, paired with readings of the meditations, and as multimedia works with readers, music and dance. Larry Cook of Northwestern University wrote an original organ piece for their presentation at Northwestern University Chapel in 1994.
Exhibitons (selected):
Institute for the Humanities, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 1998.
Northwestern University Chapel, Chicago, IL, 1994.
Waterville Unitarian Church, Waterville, ME,1993.
Franciska Needham Gallery, Damariscotta, ME, 1992.
Chapel at H.O.M.E., Orland, ME, 1991.
National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C.,
Riverside Church, New York, NY, 1990.
University of Michigan School of Art & Design, Ann Arbor, MI, 1989.
Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York, NY, 1988.
Tapestries
Shirts and Skins
Back to Threads
TAPESTRIES
Night in the Forest, 11'-9" x 9'-4", wool on linen, 1978 (in the permanent collection of the United States Capitol, donated by Dr. Michael Papo)
Summer Rain, 9' x 6', wool on linen, 1979 (private commission)
Gates of the Sun, 4'-2" x 5', wool on linen, 1978
Leaves on Water, 4' x 4'-6", wool on linen, 1978
From 1974 to 1978, I had the oportunity to have several of my designs woven into tapestries in Egypt. Paul Melton, a friend, art lover and travel agent, saw the oportunity to use the weaving families in the outskirts of Ciaro to make tapestries from my painted designs. With a small investment, he took a design a year to their village and after a year, returned with their weaving. I liked their interpretation of my rough gouache sketches and, folowing Picasso and Braque, I aimed to use all mediums to express my visions.
In 1976, we decided to have a large design woven and found a patron in Dr. Michael Papo, from Chelsea, Michigan. The design came from a backdrop for a short play, Return to Myself, which I'd written and produced one performance, for which I'd painted this backdrop. I traveled to Egypt with Paul to meet the weavers and discuss the project. This was a major step in my development as an artist for I was able to connect with this long weaving tradition and also see the ancient Egyptian culture and the monumental art that it produced. The simple humanity that sufuses all their forms in a timeless space became the backbone of my artistic vision. The tapestry that was produced by this partnership was called Night in the Forest.
In the next year Night in the Forest was aquired by the United States Capitol to be part of their permanent collection. It was installed in Room EF100 for several years, one of the few pieces in the Capitol by a living woman artist.
Shirts & Skins
2005
Series, various sizes, deconstructed cotton t-shirts
Cotton t-shirts, cut apart and deconstructed, has become my medium to explore how the individual has been swept
up in the aftermath of 9/11 and the conflicts in the middle east that have followed. Each t-shirt is kept as a whole, nothing is cut off or left out. So the size, shape and color still evoke the original shirt and, by inference, the person who once wore it. When pick-up basketball games choose up sides, one team pulls off their shirts while the other keeps theirs on, becoming, shirts and skins. Here it takes on the "them or us" mentality of the war on terror. As a basketball playing girl, I was acutely aware of the outsiders stance, always a shirt. For those of us who want to live, work and play ourselves, individuality, in all its shades of meaning, faces a reckoning.
2008 Human Rights Exhibition, South Texas College, TX; traveling to University of Texas Pan American, TX; Universidad de Monteray, Mexico; Progreso Art Gallery, Progreso, Mexico, 2008.
Contemporary Women Artists XIV, Mad Art Gallery, Womens Caucus for Art, St. Louis, MO, 2007.
Shirts & Skins: Margaret Parker, solo show, Ann Arbor Art Center, Ann Arbor, MI, 2007.
All Media Show, Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit, Detroit, MI, 2007.
Reflections of War, Threads of Peace, Woven Arts, East Lansing, MI, 2006.
Shirts & Skins, Lloyd Hall Scholars, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 2005.
Sun Dragon
Art Pro Tem
Urban Courtyard
DNA of Blue
Back to Places
Sun Dragon, A Partnership between Renewable Energy and Public Art
2004
Fuller Pool, Ann Arbor, MI; plexiglass, 60' lg x 5' ht x 6'-6"w
The Energy Office of the City of Ann Arbor designed and built a demonstration project at Fuller
Pool in 2000, a solar heated shower that cycles pool water through solar collectors on the roof. To highlight this innovative use of renewable energy in an imaginative way, public art was the answer. David Konkle, then Municipal Energy Coordinator for the city, says, "We built the
shower and the kids and adults loved to play in it, but no one knew it had anything to do with solar energy. It really needed something more to distinguish it from the rest of the pool facility. We envisioned a public art element to bring the whole process to the public eye."
Artist Margaret Parker was commissioned to create a design. She selected transparent plexi
glas, light weight and permanent, that would reflect the sun in splashes of transparent color.
"Sun Dragon" is 60 foot long and extends from the shower-head up to the solar panels on the roof. Heidi Bishop, then Director of Fuller Pool, was delighted with the Sun Dragon, a symbol of the sun's energy put to good purpose that would be especially attractive to the thousands of children that attend the pool every summer. The design was accepted by the Parks and
Recreation Department and the Energy Office t hen passed the Peer Review process set up
by the Ann Arbor Commission on Art in Public Places. Chair Bob Elton said, "The Sun Dragon project is a great example of how City Departments can solve problems using public art."
The State Energy Office awarded the project a Renewable Energy Demonstration Grant in 2001, and the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation and a Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs Minigrant helped complete the project in 2003. For more information contact Ann Arbor Energy Office,City Hall, Ann Arbor, MI.
