I Dwell in Impossibility, a collaboration with John Hensel, is hung

 My friend Marcus helped me hang the show today.  You can visit it starting November 7, at 6pm, at the Larson Gallery in  the St. Paul Student Center, 2017 Buford Ave, St. Paul.  I'll be very excited to go to the opening so I can see my co-exhibitor's work.  Installing photos is pretty fast. I left Jamie Winter Dawson just beginning the long work of hanging an installation.  I saw fungi-forms in thin layers of paper in her boxes.  It should be just beautiful!

 

Prepping the Larson Gallery show with a little help from my friends.

 Accuracy has never been my strong suit.  But Dale, who works at the Bell Museum  on campus and in my studio from time to time, is a master of accuracy.

Monday we inventoried, marked and installed the hangers on all 15 prints of the suite I DWELL IN IMPOSSIBILITY.  I don't know if all 15 will fit in the gallery... I'll find out in a few days.

But come see on November 7.

Art Opening: Form: Inside Out
                      Fri, Nov 7 6:00pm
                      St. Paul Student Center, 2017 Buford Ave, 
                           St. Paul, MN

Upcoming Show Opening November 7

Art Opening: Form: Inside Out
                      Fri, Nov 7 6:00pm
                      St. Paul Student Center, 2017 Buford Ave, St. Paul, MN

Description

Combining her studies in biology and the fine arts, Jamie Winter Dawson brings a new perspective to the inner body.  Susan Hensel uses costume to portray new forms of the body and to reflect on the constraints of age

Opening includes food and music, all are welcomed. 

Gallery Exhibition runs November 7 - December4



I will be showing:

I DWELL IN IMPOSSIBILITY
a collaboration by
Susan Hensel & John Hensel

I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –  Emily Dickinson

I dwell in an aging body:
      emptied of fertility by circumstance and time,
      denied power through chance of  birth and age,
      yet still impossibly fecund with possibility.

I dwell in the creative impossible, choosing to depict the transgression of gender role interacting with age; to create a poetic representation of both diminishment and power, neither male nor female, impossibly pregnant...liminal in all possible ways.  Neither one nor the other, neither yin nor yang.

This suite of photographs is a collaboration of the performer and sculptor, Susan Hensel, and the photographer, John Hensel. When collaborating, Susan sets the parameters of costume and objects to be manipulated and then allows the collaborator to direct the action.  Drawing on extensive study of African masquerade culture, she allows the objects and costumes to inhabit her will, allowing her aged, broken body to dance free in the spirit of the costume.

What is pictured here?

Susan, a sixty-four year old woman, pregnant, wearing a power suit and celluloid collar.

In truth, tired, drugged, in post-surgical condition, constrained from using her right arm but wearing her scars proudly. She channels a sensual force, dancing in a masquerade.

The imagery reveals a transgressive combination of outright sexual power with outright male power. There is a certain shamanistic aspect to this, the mysterious power of birth vs. the physical male strength and political power.

The handmade paper pregnant belly was cast from molds made progressively of a young pregnant woman as her body swelled with life.  It is also a repurposing of part of an old installation called Erin's Belly:Protected Real Estate.

A woman wearing a man's power suit defies cultural expectations.

Pregnancy is an image of creativity, but also an image of youth. Here an aged woman wearing a pregnant belly and exposing false breasts again defies expectations.

"It's hard for me, at the age of 64, to understand gender as construct.  In my days in the college classroom, gender was what you were born with, while behaviors surrounding gender were mutable. Both the language and the understanding has changed. In this new millennium, I can think of gender as a costume, a masquerade, imposed or chosen."                                                      -Susan Hensel

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Also showing in the Larson Gallery is the work of Jamie Winter Dawson.  Please visit her website to get a preview of the sorts of things you might see from her.
Put this on your calendar, too!

Concordia College TRUTH TELLING: Jerome fiber artists Nov. 13 - Jan. 3, opening reception November 13, 5-8pm

Changes in the Studio and new shows ahead

They say a rolling stone gathers no moss, the more things change the more they remain the same...etc. There are probably a few more cliches, if I could just think of them.  I am on my own again in the studio, i.e. back to normal. 

My wonderful, wonderful assistant, Melissa, decided to simplify her life a bit.  She was juggling so many balls that I knew our time together in the studio was going to coming to an end sooner, rather than later.  With her help, I re-launched my exhibition career.  REALLY!  I felt like an utter amateur when I returned to the studio to determine what I had been doing all those years the gallery was open!  She helped me discover what I had, think clearly about it, re-write many documents and organize my desktop for applying to shows.  Wow!  I could not be more grateful.  Please support her in her endeavors  with her gallery Flow Art Space.

I have been working away on the Jerome Fiber Project Grant...see The Wearing My Age Blog.  In the background I hear the embroidery machine stitching away.  As a result of the learning process for the Wearing My Age Project, I embroidered a series of hankies with selfies!  I just sent 3 of them off to Seattle, to Columbia City Gallery.  You can see one of them in the poster;-)  Seattle is one of my favorite cities in the world.  If you are out there in the next month and a half, check out the show!

The Ophelia Project comes down from Riverland Community College soon...Marcus and I drive down September 25 to pack it up and put it in storage for a few months.

Upcoming shows are a bit more local:

I Dwell in Impossibility opens as part of a two person show at Larson Gallery U of MN Nov. 7( opening) - Dec. 4Wearing My Age opens as part of the Jerome show, Truth Telling atConcordia College Jerome fiber artists Nov. 13 (opening) - Jan. 3

The performance of The Ophelia Project at Riverland Community College

It took quite a while to upload...but here it is.  The first performance of The Ophelia Project.  The performance was September 3, 2014 with the able assistance of Ellie Dyke, a student at Riverland Community College.

Getting ready to perform The Ophelia Project

I drove down to Riverland Community College to meet and practice with student Ellie Dyke.  We will perform our part of the Ophelia Project Wednesday, September 3, at 1:30 pm.  A few people I know are carpooling from Minneapolis to come and see.  Let me know if you want to be part of that carpool.  The little YouTube video will give you a sense of the installation...sans performers.

The Ophelia Project, completed after 7 years!

It has been a long time coming.  I began the Ophelia Project around seven years ago.  I had hired a model to do some drawings involving suits.  Two big bodies of work grew out of this week long modeling session...and lots of other artwork as well. Much of my current work has grown out of this experience with  the model. see: Wearing My Age Project,

Today, with the able assistance of my friend Marcus Larson,  the project was installed at Riverland Community College in Austin, MN.  What is The Ophelia project?  It's been a little hard to explain.

•The Ophelia Project is fine mixed media drawings on handmade paper.

•The Ophelia Project is an installation of evocative objects that expand the story.

•The Ophelia Project is a soundscape that creates an anxious space. 

•The Ophelia Project is a poem describing a small life. 

•The Ophelia project is a performance.

The Ophelia Project, installed

Marcus and I began the day with wall stencils.  Neither of us had ever stenciled walls before.  We thought it would take us a couple of hours.  IT WAS SO EASY!  We knocked it off before lunch!

Then the rest of the show was hung and arranged.  So many pink things for miss Ophelia!

Lighting as it will be half way through the performance

Ophelia, as she expected herself to be.

One-time Performance Wednesday September 3 at 1:30 pm

Riverland Community College

1900 8th Avenue NW. Austin, MN 55912

Gallery hours are M-F from 9 am - 4 pm.

Exhibition dates August 25-September 25, 2014

Riverland Community College in Austin is just south of Interstate 90 on Highway 218, which is an exit from Interstate 90. The college is south on Highway 218, which becomes 14th St. NW. The college is close to the Interstate. Turn in the main entrance by the college sign and look for the “Frank W. Bridges Theatre” lettering on the side of the middle building facing the parking lot. The gallery is adjacent to the theatre. Look for the doors labeled “E4”.