The Installation
ADVENTURE ART CLUB | DAY 11 | 9.11
JOE FEDDERSEN’S SHOW: “EARTH, WATER, SKY”
AT THE MISSOULA ART MUSEUM
MISSOULA, MT
I’ve got the place to myself. How delightful… I’m sitting on a pine bench in a wide open gallery space filled with beautiful objects, carefully curated to create an experience, and I’m feeling it. The cool air that surrounds me is currently permeated with the softest chiming twinkle of delicate glass drawings suspended in air colliding collectively against one another. I’m transfixed.
Museums are wonderful places to discover something new and impactful. Creators and Curators come together through intentional juxtaposition to offer experience, emotion, adventure. Will you cry here? Will you learn something new? Will you stand with your jaw on the floor before someone’s creation and wonder “How, on earth, did they make that?!” There’s only one way to find out.
Museums are also great gatherers, offering art to all people, poor and the rich alike. The Missoula Art Museum takes this mission one step further with free admission, always. Even the building itself ignites imagination.
Inside the lobby, new spaces of slate, glass, and metal meet the red brick and marble exterior of the building beside it (now the interior wall) which was built in 1903. The beautiful blending of old and new personified in this structure compels me to love it from the moment I arrive. I admire this meeting of harmonious “opposites”. In addition, this carefully curated building is filled with small spaces, treasures to be discovered, that beg you to notice the subtle…
Light beams filter in from slivers of window that could have been walls, (but aren’t)! Massive art is set before huge windows with sweeping views of the mountains. Nature feels close here, even though the floors and walls have been left intentionally sterile - waiting for transformation through art of many kinds. Most enticingly, it’s quiet, and I love to drift slowly through the three levels of galleries, taking in something I’ve never seen and letting it change me.
This month’s exhibit is called “Earth, Water, Sky” and features the work of Joe Feddersen - an American landscape Artist of the Confederated Tribes of The Colville Reservation. His statement declares he “has cultivated a fluid visual language that draws upon recognizable signs, symbols, and forms to transform the familiar into a world of juxtapositions to confront how we see, use, and treat the natural world”. Each room has a different theme (Earth, Water, and Sky), and Feddersen’s work on paper, in textile, glass, and ceramics, are commingled throughout.
In Sky, I’m compelled by the texture of multilayered pieces featuring stencils, collage, and quick brushstrokes on massive pieces of paper.
In Water, delicate hand blown glass in the form of fish traps hypnotize me with repeating shapes and colors. In this room, history and storytelling through hand-built ceramic forms laid out on flat surfaces surprises me with what feels like two dimensional drawings or the stuff of dreams that has been magically brought to life. I could say more about these particular pieces, but I’m keenly aware that not everyone appreciates intellectual art discussion of form, function, and impact…
In Earth, where you found me at the beginning, I’m seated before a glass art installation of hundreds of juxtaposed pieces suspended by wires from the ceiling. Though this installation lives in the “earth” room, I think it holds more of the Air element in it. Here, images from Feddersen’s other drawings (reminiscent of petroglyphs on rock faces) have been brought to three-dimensional life in the form of line drawings made of glass. Each one represents a natural being or story or element and are hung in sequence, tilting this way and that, overlapping. The air from two fans up above me set the wires in a soft swaying motion, resulting in the tender chimes of glasses clinking against one another. The resulting atmosphere is mystic and convivial.
More than sound, light and shadow collide here, creating layer upon layer of ghost image shadows on the wall, floor….every surface. The first shadow layer is darkest, darker than the actual pieces suspended. The next is lighter. The next practically disappears into the paint surface. These shadows call to mind cave paintings from our ancient ancestors. The movement captivates…watching them sway feels like watching a fire crackle and dance late into the evening. I’m all at once calmed by this piece, compelled to rest here a while, and shot through the heart with the thrill of my awe at this absolute genius creation.
At its core, this installation is simply pieces of glass hung on wires in a gallery. Yet, through referencing culture and history in the drawings themselves, considering placement, adding sound via wind (essentially inviting nature itself into the gallery as a collaborator), these simple objects metamorphose into something wholly transcendent. That is absolute magic.
I approach this piece with reverence, hoping to capture one small part of the experience through my sketch today. Initially, the idea of drawing these layers seems daunting, but I’m pleasantly surprised with the sketch that comes to me. I think I’ve captured one small part of the vision, and I’m happy.
Art, like adventure, feeds on itself. Inspiration births inspiration. This is why it is so important for everyone to experience art of all shapes, sizes, and formats! These sparks light fires within you, even if your experience of the art is of hating it. Confusion is completely appropriate in spaces like these. Awe is encouraged. The fact that humans are driven to create and to share their creations with others is the very facet of what makes us human to begin with.
Creativity is a divine right, and I will not abide anyone saying “I’m not creative” (though I get that a lot). Do you cook? Have you solved a problem lately? Have you written anything, even a grocery list? Do you sing? Are you a good conversationalist? Did you landscape your garden? Did you choose certain colors for your home decor? Are you raising a child? Did you put on an outfit? I can think of more examples if needed… ALL of these tasks are creative. We are ALL creators, and we need to start owning these beautiful gifts and sharing them more with the world to transform and enliven.
One final rebuttal to that statement I’ve heard way too often: Have you personally tried every single creative endeavor that exists? If not, then I don’t want to hear “I’m not creative”. Maybe you just haven’t found your groove yet. Get out there and try something new! Step forward and engage with something. Listen. Experience. Adventure will find you if you go out looking for it.
On my way out to the street today, I purchase a book from the lobby called “Coyote Stories” - a collection of stories about the natural world written by Mourning Dove and edited by Heister Dean Guie. I’m excited to continue the experience of discovery through this new art form later. Though I don’t know many stories from the nations whose land we have stolen, I know that Coyote is a trickster who shapeshifts. So, as I walk to the corner, I laugh out loud at the sight of a colorful sculpture I pass in front of the Museum…
It’s a series of angular creatures stacked up in a totem-like assembly. This sculpture was created by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and Neal Ambrose Smith, citizen and descendant of the Salish and Kootenai Nations. The name of this piece (that is, the English translation from Salish) is: “Coyote is Seeing All of The Land”.
The sight of this title (another coyote greeting me) feels like a wink from the shapeshifter. I add coyote to the list of creatures who have greeted me this September and continue onward.
Love & Gratitude,
- Christina
