Fraser inspired student sculptures

Last Friday students from Eastside Memorial High School came to get a tour of No Sure Footing. Leslee came in from San Antonio to lead the kids through her show. She gave a truly superb tour. As with all of our field trips (btw we provide free field trips and pay for AISD subs and buses) we let the kids make a piece of art that reflects the work on exhibit. Leslee brought a box full of great stuff from her studio and the dollar store for the kids to dig through and use. We had clay and beads at their disposal and we told them to use all of this stuff to create their own found object sculpture. The students created some awesome sculptures, some more temporary than others. Here are a few.

A Little Bit of Hope for the Arts

Let’s be real, y’all, this economy is scary for everyone. And as many artists (and museums, galleries, curators, and critics) unfortunately already know, it can be almost impossible to make a living working in an art-related field even in the best of financial times. Present economy aside, arts funding has already been hit hard in recent years–states have cut their arts budgets by $100 million in the last two years alone. With dwindling art-field opportunities and a devastating turn of events in the economy, what happens to artists?

Fortunately, there’s some hope: Obama seems to understand the importance of art, artists, and art as a profession. He enters his presidency as the most arts-friendly candidate we’ve seen in our lifetime, having already given lip service to ideas like dispatching “art corps” to schools (an idea W&TW definitely believes in) and tax benefits and affordable health care for artists. You can download his entire arts platform here. Only time will tell if he’s actually able to implement these ideas with so much on his plate, but with tons of arts leaders lobbying for him to increase the presence of the arts in his cabinet (did you sign the Secretary of the Arts petition yet? Do it!) let’s hope he can be duly persuaded to make the arts a priority.

Meanwhile, the National Endowment for the Arts, which has seen its funding slashed by 30 percent in the past 15 years, is slated for a pick-me-up via the American Recovery and Reinvestment bill, which includes a $50 million NEA supplement to be distributed directly to non-profit arts organizations. The bill has been approved by the House Appropriations committee and could make it to the President’s desk by mid-February if it passes in the House and Senate. Fingers crossed.

So we cautiously hope that funding for the arts isn’t going to totally die–in fact, the wretched economy might even be prove to be a good catalyst for examining and redressing the shabby treatment the arts have received in the U.S. in recent years.

And hey, as our country sinks further into the Great Depression II, at the very least we might get some super sweet public art out of it, Works Progress Administration-style! Let’s brush up on our mural painting skills everybody.

Coosje van Bruggen, June 6, 1942 – January 13, 2009

We’ve been so wrapped up in Leslee Fraser and Obamania around here lately that we neglected to mention the passing of sculptor, art critic and historian Coosje van Bruggen last week. Van Bruggen and her husband, the Swedish pop artist Claes Oldenburg, worked together on over 40 large-scale public sculptures all over the world. Though critics often downplayed van Bruggen’s contribution to their projects, the couple always asserted that they were true collaborators.

Dutch-born van Bruggen married Oldenburg in 1977. They met in 1970 when she was a curator at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where Oldenburg was installing a traveling retrospective. Their first collaboration coincided with their courtship six years later, when Oldenburg was commissioned to rework the giant “Trowel 1” sculpture at a museum in the Netherlands. As van Bruggen remembered it years later, “Claes said, ‘I made the trowel for you.’ I said, ‘It is not for me, and I don’t like it!’ ” (Haha, BURN!) Van Bruggen famously told him to paint the trowel a Dutch blue instead of silver, and from then on they collaborated in earnest, producing over 40 giant public artworks together–usually putting their playfully surrealist stamp on mundane objects from everyday life, like knives, garden hose, a flashlight, and a needle and thread. Their 1981 Split Button sculpture at Penn State was even immortalized on the Simpsons.

Spring, 2006. Coosje van Bruggen

Oldenburg was an established art star before he and van Bruggen teamed up, which, in addition to her gender and the boys-club art climate of the 1970s, may have accounted for the way many critics viewed van Bruggen more as muse than creative partner. However, though Oldenburg made the drawings for their sculptures, it was van Bruggen who was responsible for the fabrication and siting of their projects. Spring, the 60-foot tall seashell pictured above, was entirely conceived, designed and directed by van Bruggen for the city of Seoul.

Visit the duo’s website, oldenburgvanbruggen.com for background information and sweet pics of each Oldenburg & van Bruggen project.

My Top Art Moments, People, Shows, & Spaces of 2008

From Texas or Texas visitors (mostly Austin) in no particular order
By Lisa Choinacky

It’s time to reflect….

Ali Fitzgerald: Swan School at Art Palace

Reggie Watts

It’s like a Machine at Okay Mountain by Michael Mellon & Jacqes Lois Vidal

Mass Gallery (especially Corkey Sinks’ work in Harvest)

Elaine Bradford: Fictitious Realities / Realistic Fictions at Art Palace

Monofonus Press

Neal Medlyn: Lionel Ritchie Opera

Trivia Travesty: Rebecca Havemeyer, Silky Shoemaker & Coco the sasquatch.

Cult of Color: Meat Machine

I Be Area by Ryan Trecartin @ Okay Mountain

You’re Not My Father by Paul Slocum

Thank you, Rachel Koper!

No Sure Footing Opening through the lens of Poladroid

We had so much fun last Thursday partying with Leslee and all of her quirky, wonderful sculptures. I took lots of pics with my new Nikon, and found this awesome application (thanks to Rell and Facebook) called Poladroid. It turns your digital photos into awesome digital polaroids, it even has the same processing time as the real thing, and best of all, it’s FREE!!! Check it out and experience the awesomeness yourself.

Beautiful cupcake chocolate bombs made by Leslee

In Our Image

A blurry Leslee

Yes we did!

The Women & Their Work staff, along with the rest of the country, gathered around the television and watched our 44th president give his inaugural address. There were tears and laughs and then we got to work.

Women & Their Work loves Obama!!