This past month, Larry Warnberg and I “harvested” Collector, a sculpture we had anchored under Willapa bay one year ago amidst Larry’s oyster beds. The project was conceived during my artist residency at the Espy Foundation in Oysterville. Barnacles covered the wood surfaces of the piece, accompanied by oysters, mussels and bright lime-green seaweed. From the bay we brought the dripping sculpture to my truck, to be strapped on top for a journey to the southern Utah desert, beginning the following day. The sculpture was designed to slide down into the narrow fissure of a specific slot canyon for a snug fit. My goal was to wedge the piece into place prior to late summer monsoon rains that would scour the sculpture briefly during powerful flashfloods. Part of what is rewarding to me about this process-centered way of making art is an unavoidable embrace with the unexpected. The slot canyon that Collector was designed to fit had been overrun and essentially filled with torn tree limbs and small rocks; the space was walled off with last year’s flood debris. On the mesa above the canyon, I improvised a rectilinear wood frame tied to the sandstone and I strung the sculpture vertically within this frame.

Now the question was “What might happen here over the next couple of months?” Before my return to Seattle, one thing was evident: The desert wrens were already noisily at work and would certainly pick apart all the remaining crustaceans and seaweed (an unusually salty feast in the desert). Windy afternoon sand gusts may play a role in subtly changing the sculpture’s surface as well. Three months from now, I’ll return to see what has become of the sculpture.

On August 26th, Collector will resurface in an exhibition at the Bellevue Arts Museum, John Grade: Dis/integration, Sculpture Through Landscape. Other sculptures in the exhibition were designed to be eaten by termites, contorted by ice or rearranged by animal life high in forest canopy.

http://www.bellevuearts.org/exhibitions/upcoming/index.htm
www.johngrade.com