won't you be my neighbor pictures

The opening for the Won't You Be My Neighbor show was pretty exciting. Quite a few people had a riotous time adding layers to the initial layers that Sam and I fed our our piece with. Several of those people were ten years old or younger. Not so much has happened since the opening but still we're pretty happy with the reception. The show is on its way out of the gallery, with the next show opening in early October.

Sorry I don't have a late-stage picture with straws and paper sticking out as well as rocks and terra cotta pieces and clay infill. There are more pictures of Sam's and my work -- Time Becomes Us: Theses about Materials and Persons -- at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/56294332@N00/albums/72157710911254072

The little booklet includes a title page and a statement of our intentions as well as instructions encouraging comments with, again, some starter material. We haven't gotten too many comments but we did get a good comment about fossils. We had talked in our statement about fossils on some of the shale we had as fodder and wondered how some of the other materials (like plastic, for example) might or might not leave fossils for future generations. And what about fossils that are getting "buried" inside the artwork? And are people similar to materials? Do we sometimes leave legacies that resonate with future generations? Do we sometimes disappear without a trace?

Justin Grigg, participant in the show and former mayor of Alfred, did a creek walk yesterday. We didn't walk in the creek bed, we walked near the creek and talked about how Alfred doesn't use its "waterfront" as effectively as a lot of other places. Sometimes the creek even disappears under a parking lot. We did walk across that parking lot. It is Parents' Weekend at Alfred University so there was an interesting crowd for the walk, locals and some folks new to Alfred. Justin and I both live on the main fork of Canacadea Creek, Cohen Gallery is on the fork that comes down West University Street and joins the main fork near the village stoplight, Andrea lives on a tributary near the north edge of town.