Heighten

Heighten album update

Julia Hensley — Wed, 30 May 2012 00:50:47 +0000

You can now view photographs of the entire Heighten installation under Work/Installations. Take a look!

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Deinstalling time

Julia Hensley — Sat, 12 May 2012 04:41:50 +0000

Deinstalling turns out to be a sort of cinematic, archeological time travel.

I wasn't expecting it to be so strange but with each piece of paper I unstick from the wall there's a twinge of memory and a soundtrack too depending which of four albums I was listening to when I was creating it.

I lift the corner of a piece of paper and pull, the tape resists then peels from the wall I take hold of another oh THAT night (long strips of white, the peculiar dream, White Stripes) THAT day (red yellow orange blue green violet, fiddly strips why won't the black bits stick, date gone wrong Gang of Four) THIS part (is this working or is it dumb gold and gold more gold that was an odd text, Beggar's Banquet)...

It's as if the walls contain the temporal, experiential sequence of their making and deinstalling them unravels the sequence.

I've never experienced anything quite like it. You don't get to unmake a painting stroke by stroke not a non-digital one anyway, once it's done it's done, there is no >edit undo<. This is different.

I'm composing the walls subtractively as I go or I suppose decomposing them.

But I'm also undoing the doing of them.

It leads me to think about what it all means I mean what art is ultimately. Once these pieces of paper are gone is the art gone? Oh god there's that question, did it ever exist? If it isn't these pieces of paper then what is it? What did I make?

I took these thoughts to Twitter where I sometimes go to kick a thought around in the void but it isn't a void. A fellow artist responded and what came up for me was that perhaps in the end the most permanent thing about art is the effect the making of it has on the maker. And the viewing of it on the viewer.

The boy in the black hoodie

Julia Hensley — Sat, 12 May 2012 04:40:46 +0000

Are you taking it all down the boy in the black hoodie looks up at me on the ladder with fistfuls of collage paper in my hand, yes I say, even THIS he says pointing to the water fountain looking stricken. Just moments ago I decided to spare nothing on each pass of deinstallation, I would take down parts of everything till all of it was gone including the fountain, well I say I'll leave that whole thing till last how about that. He nods a satisfied nod. He gets a drink of water at the fountain. He steps back, because you know why he says why I say, when you step back at a certain angle it looks like there's water shooting out.

Heighten at its Height through April 21

Julia Hensley — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:20:53 +0000

Just a few more days to see my installation at it's fullest!

I've treated the walls and ceilings of this historic, 110-year old school as art, highlighting the native features of the building from wainscoting to fire alarms, vending machines and water fountains to call attention to them in a new way.

It's been gratifying to hear some of the responses. Thanks to all who have visited and passed along your reactions, I'll be continuing to post them as I encounter them, including a wonderful documentation created by a teacher at one of the schools housed in the building as she led her class through the installation.

Art is for everyone. Art is everywhere. Art is a point of view.

Stop by and visit this week! After Saturday, April 21 the installation gradually begins to disappear.

University Heights Center

5031 University Way NE
M-Thurs 9am-10pm
Fridays and Saturdays 9am-3pm

The girl in the pink coat

Julia Hensley — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 03:43:50 +0000

Excuse me says the small girl in the pink coat, yes I say leaning down to look at her from where I stand surveying my ceiling pendants, what are those she asks. I pause. I kneel to her eye level, brown eyes in a serious face.

What do they look like to you I say, she pauses too, well to me they look kind of like paper lanterns she says. Well I say you know what I think if they look like paper lanterns to you then that's what they are. She looks at me. But you want to know what I think they are don't you I say, she nods. I decide. Well to me they are abstract I say.

What is abstract she says, well I say it's when it's not a pig or a goat or a chair or something you can touch those things are concrete, abstract is something you can't touch. She looks at me.

You see I say to me they are really bits of color that connect the ceiling to the walls, do you see what I've done to the walls I ask pointing out the rest of the installation. She looks. She nods. She looks at the ceiling.

When I look at them she says they kind of look like triangles I mean rectangles.

That's cool I say, I love that you see paper lanterns and you also see rectangles, that's abstract. It's art, you know? We look at one another, I like to make art she says. The sun comes suddenly through the windows blinding both of us, too bright she says.