Stirring The Waters Part 6 of 6: Back on the Road, Homeward Bound

by Boston Sculptor Jessica Straus

But maybe the most fun of all was our stay at Peggy’s B &B in Ashtabula, Ohio, on our way back home. Maybe it was because the show went up smoothly, maybe it was because we had this whole cute little house all to ourselves and it came with cats.

 

                                     

              

Wait, Hannah, I thought you were allergic!

Peggy brought us the most amazing breakfast ever.

  

And then Peggy drove us to her private beach place on Lake Erie. Julie had actually thought ahead and brought a bathing suit.

 

Peggy and Jessica

Skipping stones

Julia takes the plunge!

A fitting end to “Stirring the Waters/ Between Two Bodies”, first installment, in Ohio. Stay tuned for the 2nd installment, when the visiting Ohio artists come to Boston Sculptors July 5, 2012.

Stirring The Waters Part 5 of 6: Tourists in Cleveland!

by Boston Sculptor Jessica Straus

All but Andy (who stayed up ‘til the wee hours of the morning to trouble shoot a bug in his program) finished our installations with enough time to go touristing around Cleveland.

I swear—we all fit on this bike. 

Our first stop: the Cleveland Museum of Art  then across the street, the Botanical Gardens

                  

                                                        Look who hitched a ride on Hannah!

   

Then we went over to Spaces, an alternative, non-profit gallery, where we were warmly greeted by the staff: Hey, I think they were pleased to have visitors from Boston. 

and they sent us over to a pop-up gallery a few blocks away with a very quirky, ambitious artist from San Francisco who was traveling across the country mounting exhibitions of her “Americana” paintings and making elixirs from urban gardens along the way (It’s a long story…)

Stirring The Waters: Part 4 of 6 - The finished installation and Opening Reception

By Boston Sculptor Jessica Straus

Michelle Lougee’s “Octoplus” hangs in the entryway and leads the viewers into the exhibition and her “Dinoflagellete” holds the platform space visible from Euclid Ave:

Michelle Lougee "Octoplus"

Michelle Lougee "Dinoflagellate"

These works were all in the “Euclid Gallery”:

          

Laura Evans

Hannah Verlin

  

Margaret Swan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Caroline Bagenal

Marilu Swett "Blue Whale Heart" 

(top half)

 

(bottom half)

    

   

Marilu’s niece, Caroline, and her friend, Piper came to help collect heartbeats during the reception. They are both Oberlin students and doing summer intern work in the area—lucky Marilu!

Up in the Main Gallery:

Jessica Straus "Widgets"

Peter DeCamp Haines "Migration"

   

and Andy Zimmermann’s  hard-to-photograph, but amazing, AMBITIOUS installation:

Andy Zimmermann

 

Julie’s work is in the main gallery too—sorry—I guess I only got those earlier shots with the ladders.

We all gave little talks about our work at the opening reception:

 

 

Stirring the Waters: Part 3 of 6 - Installation

by Boston Sculptor Jessica Straus

After a satisfying and fun breakfast (who knew you could laugh this much at 7:30 in the morning?) we all set of to the Sculpture Center for a full day of installation. Intrepid rental van driver, Andy Zimmerman, greeted us in the parking lot. He had begun his installation a couple days earlier with the help of generous and genteel Malcolm.

 

Ann directed the placements of our sculptures and we all buckled down to work:

    

                             Julia Shepley

 

     Marilu Swett                              Hannah Verlin

Here’s Laura Evans, just finished with her installation, stretching out near Peter Haines’s work:

Sculpture Center Director, Ann Albano, made very thoughtful juxtapositions and as the show came together we could see how well the work flowed from one artist to the next. We were very appreciative of the help of the three Sculpture Center interns, Bobby, Emily, and Lauren, all graduates or current students of the nearby Cleveland Art Institute. Oh darn! I didn't get a photo of wonderful Lauren! Well, here’s Bobby and Emily:

 

Here’s Ann Albano and Marilu Swett discussing the placement of Marilu’s Heartbeat piece:

 

Stirring The Waters: Part 2 of 6: Road Trip!

by Boston Sculptor Jessica Straus

There were plenty of things to be nervous about as the date drew near for our departure to Cleveland. Foremost on my mind was the question of whether all of our work would actually fit in the two cars and one rental truck that we had designated to carry the work. After a couple nights of tossing and turning I came to the conclusion that the only way I'd get any sleep would be to do a "dry run". So about a week ahead of time we packed the two cars with 7 artists' work and whew! It all fit, even if just barely (half-obstructed visibility out the back window of my car was better than no visibility)

 

 

At the crack of dawn, well in advance of rush hour on June 6, Laura Evans, Hannah Verlin, and myself squeeze into my car with all our work and head for the Mass Pike.

No need to use GPS--it's a straight shot on Rt 90 the whole way! It's roughly 11 hours each way and we drove it in one day.  Between the drive out there and the ride back we stopped at just about every rest stop along the way-- we think we'd be in a pretty good position to write a guidebook to Rt 90 rest stops--and yes, we had our strong preferences! We can tell you which rest stops have Starbucks and where you'll have to settle for Horton's (a very disappointing cup of Joe), where you get picnic tables and where you can stretch out on a scenic (well, at least it’s green) strip of grass. 

 

Laura was our exercise leader--she came up with this very cool egg-beater, arm-flapping thing that had the three of us drawing on-lookers' attention in the parking lot. No blood clots for us!

We arrived in Cleveland in time to join Marilu Swett and Julie Shepley (who were finishing up their challenging first day of installation) for dinner in Cleveland's "Little Italy" (it is little, but very sweet and several good choices of restaurants right near the Sculpture Center and our hotel, Glidden House. If you go to Cleveland--definitely try to stay at the Glidden House:

 

It's in a turn of the century mansion originally home of the Gliddens of Glidden Paint fame, on the Case Western campus and right across from the stupendous Frank Gehry building (below) on the Case Western campus.