[Vision2020] Prichard Art Gallery: Allie Feezell's Exhibition "...creation driven by metaphysical speculations and active meditation"

[Joe Campbell]

Thanks for the tip Ted. I'm looking for things to do with my son and
this looks great. Of course, I'll like anything that can be described
as "metaphysical."

On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 1:15 PM, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:
> I talked with Allie Feezell by chance a few times in recent months,
> before her now showing Prichard gallery intallation opened.  I
> mentioned the beautiful multi-colored sand mandalas Buddhist monks
> create, only to be wiped out by the monks within days (
> http://www.essortment.com/tibetan-sand-paintings-60711.html ), as a
> statement on avoiding attachment, among other things.
>
> In our conversation, I indicated I did not think I'd make it as a
> Buddhist monk... I'm attached to the things of beauty (if they are
> indeed this) I create, along with a lot of other things.  And besides,
> I'm glad William Blake did not wipe out his poetry/art creations, as a
> statement on non-attachment... What a loss for humanity this would
> have been!
>
> I discovered last week at the Prichard gallery that the example of the
> Buddhist monks transient sand art was perhaps more to the point of
> Feezell's installation than I originally would have guessed...
>
> I was lucky to be able to spend as much time as I wanted to explore
> this exhibition last week, totally alone in surprising quiet, given
> the city outside, on the upper floor of the Prichard gallery, this
> being a transformative experience.
>
> Knowing as little as I knew about this interactive art allowed the
> experience of it to be without certain preconceptions that can lessen
> the wonder of full in the moment discovery.
>
> Therefore, don't read the following interview, just go the Prichard
> gallery, where the installation should remain till May 5!
>
> http://inland360.com/prichard-exhibition-consuming-art/
>
> Prichard exhibition: Consuming artPublished on April 18, 2012 with No Comments
> Allie Feezell’s master’s thesis is due Friday, and she’s walking on egg shells.
>
> Literally.
>
> Works by the graduate student in art at the University of Idaho are
> part of the Graduate Art Exhibit at the Prichard Art Gallery in
> Moscow.
>
> Feezell’s pieces in the exhibition, which runs through May 5, comprise
> two room-sized multimedia installations. They are constructed with
> broken egg shells, onion skins, strawberry tops, orange peels, burlap,
> tree branches, beer six-pack rings, parts of egg cartons, 2,000 loops
> made of jewelers wire as well as all the varying shadows those
> materials create.
>
> “This was my quiche year,” Feezell said in an interview at the gallery
> on Tuesday. “I ate two or three eggs every day.”
>
> The pieces, which she constructed on site at the gallery prior to last
> week’s opening reception, took her more than 40 hours to complete, and
> she finished just two hours before the reception was to begin.
>
> The pieces, which deal with the ways humans think about subjects like
> life, death, waste, consumption, empty space and silence, are based on
> Feezell’s interest in Taoism and Zen Buddhism.
>
> The end result is an “interactive piece that interacts with movement,”
> she said. “It’s a world you’re involved with, not just a pretty
> picture on the wall.
>
> “To have a static exhibit is not interesting to me. (The viewer) is in
> the midst of change.”
>
> She said a driving force in her pieces was the idea of silent
> meditation — but not only for the viewer experiencing the final
> pieces.
>
> “The act of making it was an act of meditation for myself,” she said.
>
> “The underlying essence of Taoism and Zen Buddhism is to lose the
> sense of an individual self, to understand absence and to have no
> worldly attachments while still understanding the interconnectivity of
> all,” Feezell said. “Absence and nonattachment are nearly
> inconceivable in our contemporary world, thus it seems that only
> through form may we come to understand emptiness.”
>
> Her exhibit is tilted “An absurd creation driven by metaphysical
> speculations and active meditation.”
>
> Like life itself, the exhibits change and move, depending on how
> humans interact with them, Feezell said. In fact, the pieces —
> especially the one that includes strawberry tops and flowers made of
> orange peels and artichoke leaves — are changing by the minute as the
> vegetation continues to dry further.
>
> “As an artist, I don’t want to waste resources,” she said of her
> choice of materials. “This is literally the detritus of my
> consumption.”
>
> When the exhibit ends, she will deconstruct the pieces, and most of
> the materials will go into her compost pile.
>
> The exhibit is free and open to the public. The Prichard Art Gallery
> hours are 10 a.m.-8 p.m, Tuesday-Saturday and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday.
> The gallery is at 414 S. Main St. in downtown Moscow. More information
> is available online at www.uidaho.edu/prichardartgallery.
>
> IF YOU GO
> WHAT: Prichard Art Gallery Graduate Art Exhibit.
> WHEN: Through May 5
> WHERE: Prichard Art Gallery, 414 S. Main St.,
> ------------------------------------------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
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