Enter Eden

Selected Details

Black acrylic on metal, 42″ across,
Hole (black or white) changes over time.

Anne Wright Wilson
Fine Arts Gallery
Georgetown, KY

Exploring detours, changing minds, changing places.

Pretty Cages share secrets and speak directly of being and the rich documentation of a community engaged in understanding its own ongoing transformation. Cultural, philosophical and historical passages offer great adventure that nurture awareness and invention. We are always starting anew the pursuit of communication platforms capable of addressing evolving identity in a constantly expanding and changing world.

Art is seldom as expected.

The late comedian, George Carlin noted the hypnotic capacity of simple cyclone fencing to overwhelm perception through overlapping pattern. Add to that recipe contradictory systems and bright color to further undermine stability and you create an “unfence.” In the vortex of transitional overload one can become trapped, disoriented and insecure. (foreclosed)

Pretty Cages are five 6 x 5 foot screen ink paintings on recycled window shades. The cages themselves collectively define the PREDATOR whose natural inherited abilities and skills (mad flapping wings) make for effective unquestioning authority. Manipulating all the elements of hunt and conquest it effectively services its own survival and replication. Ultimately it dominates all and finally feeds upon itself in a fit of completion, fulfilling its purpose and destiny of successful self-destruction.

Bar Code/War Code

Pathetic Monument to commemorate temporal communities. Troop groups, dividers, tragic interactions, grave markers.

(Screen ink, sand on paper, 72 units, 6” x 6’)

Transmigration, elevation, transcendence and dissolution. Expectations and revelations, events unravel in time, snake charmers, magicians and healers.

(Ink on paper, 34″ x 12′)

Honey Island Swamp

(Ink jet toner on paper, 20′ x 10′ x 5′)

Honey Island Swamp in the backwaters of Louisiana is a natural observation platform offering mystery, mastery, transition and transformation.

Terra Incognita. Here be monsters.

Control station for the ignition of swamp gas.

Honey Island Swamp Gas

Systems and subsystems featuring threats, real and imagined, that defy and defend individually and collectively.

Honey Island Detail

Organic demonstration of liquid and gaseous states threading diverse lifeforms in alchemical superstition.

NO

Do you know what it means?

Storm Report

Salvaged objects from post-Katrina home, clockwise:

Enigma

Swan on stilts, plastic lawn ornament suspended in a live Oak tree at flood level.

High Chair

Burnt high chair, innocence destroyed (Scorched plastic) child as leader.

Never Forever

Diamond doorknob to melted home and history (Glass).

Intercession

Lightening suspended, dragon claw (Painted wood).

On the Floor

Mosaic tile, Jello as flesh, glass heart.

Turbulence

Transformation, twisted massive pines, brass arabesque torqued.

Western Kentucky University Centennial Mosaic

TIME AND PLACE – CLOCK AND COMPASS

Location: Plaza between Ivan Wilson Fine Arts Center and Helms library.

Dedicated on November 16, 2006

When the lights go on behind the eyes.

Arthur Koestler’s book The Act Of Creation speaks of the Aha! reflecting the spark of discovery and the Ha-ha! of laughter in the liberation of true innovation. This Celebration of Education is about a time and place made for growing, learning and changing.

The Western Kentucky University Centennial Mosaic features the fountain itself as history carried forward, restored and renewed with a new Centennial logo center plate, designed by our art students. The Sundial Clock, with its water gnomon (an ancient Greek word meaning “indicator”, “one who discerns,” or “that which reveals.”) and two golden face rings echoing outward, note that one-hundredth year. Sundials tell “solar time,” clocks tell mechanical time, and then there is atomic time and digital time and so on. “Hours pass deeds remain,” but there’s no time like the present to acknowledge the past and consider the future.

Western’s explorers go global, confident in their preparation and vision. Encouraging adventure and extension the compass rose appeared on charts and maps since the 1300’s. The term “rose” comes from the figure’s compass points resembling the well-known flower. Originally known as a wind rose, it indicated the directions of the winds. On a rolling ship by the light of a flickering lamp, these figures had to be clearly visible to map points of departure and beacons to return to. Planning today prevails tomorrow in engaging the world.

Embedded in the compass rose is a star map, plotted on a Global Positioning System and computer projected 100 years ahead to November 16, 2106. It mirrors the Constellations overhead. The “unbridled spirit” of Pegasus, the mythological winged horse, rises at dusk. Perseus arrives at midnight. He conquers Medusa by looking at the reflection in his silver shield and overcomes the uncertainty carried in her glare. Plan a head, imagine next and remember that over time dreamers become doers.

My sincere appreciation to the cooperative cross-disciplinary team that made this project possible.

Project Advisors and Contributors

President Gary Ransdell, Western Kentucky University

Provost Barbara Burch, Western Kentucky University

Dr. David Lee, Dean Potter College

Kim Chalmers, Art Department Head, Designer

David and Debra Cross, WKU Alum, Tile Trends, Installer

Doug Ault, Facilities Management

Natasha Smith, Planning and Design, WKU Facilities

Dr. Terry Leeper, Head, Manufacturing Sciences

Dr. Mike Carini, Physics and Astronomy

Jayne Pelaski, Chair, Centennial Committee

David Barnaby, Physics and Astronomy

Dr. Bryan Reaka, Architect and Manufacturing Sciences

Gregory Mills, Construction Management

Perry Hooks, WKU Art Student, graphics support

Doris Ulmann Galleries
Berea College Art Department, Berea, KY

The Recovery of Discovery

One of the more powerful early childhood images is that of Benjamin Franklin flying his kite in an electric storm. It is a wonderful and dangerous fusion of play and scientific inquiry. For the child (“Kinderkite”), this image resists earthbound reality and encourages exploration and imagination as the “key” to discovery.

When we moved near the Bowling Green airport my wife arranged for a flight in a small private plane. The vantage point revealed the bubbled complexity of the geology below but most extraordinary was the experience of flight itself. As the pilot handed over the controls, the natural physics of flight, the exhilaration of realizing that space and movement were gracefully omni directional, challenged previous perceptions entirely.

This grouping celebrates elevation, the ability to dream and imagine alternate states of being. They are models of idealism more focused on fanciful flight and release than laborious maintenance.

Clay Wings

(Screen ink scraped across coins, buttons, bones, Kentucky Red Clay, and PVA on paper, 30″ x 72″)

Newness implies transformation. Community construction requires the soft skin of lush green grass to be stripped away revealing blood red clay, visceral and vibrant. It is the perfect media to address life flow and transformation.

Skins and Shirts

(Screen ink scraped across coins, buttons, bones, Kentucky Red Clay, and PVA on paper, 30″ x 72″)

Spectacle of transformation, inversions, inside outside, spattered conversion/extension, seeding, la vestida/la camisa, buttons and bones, gristle and tissue.