When Curator Thelma Golden, director of the The Studio Museum in Harlem spoke at TED2009 she talked about her first curated collection. As a child, moving the cards form the game Masterpiece around her walls with tack. It was as simple as that for her, so when I think about my own childhood and what the driving forces were in shaping my artistic vision I go back to a time when I was my most creative and least censored.
A hunter gatherer of sorts
On a farm in rural Manitoba I spent most summers running through fields and riding on gravel roads. Hunting for interesting forms, textures, colors and gathering items that would eventually make their way to a the attic of a our barn. There I had a makeshift cardboard table and one small window that let in just enough light. On the acherage I particularly remember spending hours sifting through the ashes of a foundation for a shack that burned down in the 50’s. Of the things I collected were glass jars, branches tied with jute, various shades of broken glass, old beer bottles, pieces of carpet and fabric, all things rusty and all things oddly shaped. The real gems would make their way back to the barn and in the way only childen intuitively know how to place things…..with these materials I began to transform my surroundings. Then, I would probably call this “playing” but now I think I would call this an exploration of my curatorial tendencies.
We all have natural instincts that help us decide what we like and what we don’t in the commercial world. Why do we feel that these same rules don’t apply to art? Somewhere along the way the gap between everyday people and art with a capital “A” became far too wide. My mission find some way re-connect those two places.