 Good evening. I'm Cecily Cullen, Director and Curator of the Center for Visual Art at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Thank you for joining us this evening for the third in our series of virtual artists talks. Tonight's discussion will center on four artists' responses to the idea of borders and walls. This discussion must begin by acknowledging that we are meeting, live, and thrive on the unceded territory of the Yut, Arapaho, and Cheyenne tribes. We acknowledge this land at this time to draw attention to the indigenous people of this place and their struggle. So this evening we will hear from four artists, as I mentioned, all of whom are members of the artist's collective, the Artnauts, and are represented in our current exhibition, The Walls Between Us. The exhibition features 38 Artnaut members responding to the theme of walls by exploring emotional barriers, physical structures, implied boundaries, or heavily guarded borders that permeate our lives. The exhibition will be on view at CVA through October 17th. The Artnauts is an artist collective that uses the visual arts as a tool for addressing global issues while connecting with artists around the world. The name derives from combining the words art and astronaut, as a way to describe the process of exploring uncharted territory in the world at large. You can learn more about the Artnauts at artnauts.org. So at this point, I guess I will introduce our first speaker, Ju Yeon Woo. Ju Yeon Woo was born in South Korea and came to the United States in 2003. She received her MFA in drawing and painting from the Pennsylvania State University and an earlier MFA from Hong Kong University in Seoul, South Korea. Her artworks mostly consist of drawing, painting, video and photography, and more specifically in the fusing of these media, such as acrylic painting on digital pigment print, video from a still image, photography from a paper cut object. She has also had solo shows nationally and internationally, including 1925 Gallery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Television 12 Gallery, Seoul, Korea, and Art Museum of Hyeong-Puk National University. Ju is an associate professor of drawing and painting at the University of South Florida and has been in the Artnauts since 2008. Please welcome Ju Yeon Woo. Thank you. The thing is, I also try to incorporate two desperate materials and approaches. One is indigenous Korean art forms, could be folk art, could be visual traditional traditions or craft, could be calligraphy, and contemporary technology. Well, CNC ladder machine or laser cutting machine, it's not really high tech, but I try to embrace the images that are rendered by technology. Right now I'm in my studio, so I can show, since I'm in my studio now, I can show the plate. I can explain the procedures and techniques that I use for this embossment print. If you can see it, I can show here, this is my studio, it's a tiny studio, but I can show you the plate that I made, that I made from laser cutting machine. I use laser cutting machines to get this engraved image here. So this is the plate, plexiglass, and then I took a picture of Korean immigrant that I met, and then I changed the color photo image into black and white, and then I used gray scale. So gray scale for black and white image, and different gray, different shades of gray will indicate different depth of cuts. So whenever I have a black area, the laser cutting machine will make a deepest cut, and then all the gray area will have different depth of the cut. And then the white area, it's no cut. So after I make this carved, this laser cut plate, and then I put the piece of paper and then I run through the press so I can make embossment. I try to, I really wanted to make a more deep cut and make it more higher. I wanted to elevate more height of the embossment, but it's really, it's not easy. So I'm trying to try to make it more deeper cut so I can make a more higher embossment leaf. But technical issue, I have a little technical issue so, but we will see if I can make it a little more deeper cut. And this is a testing, this is a testing, I think you, I don't know, it's hard, it's really hard to see, but I don't know whether you can see it. Okay, so yeah, this is a little test cut, test print. So you see, it's very hard to see, but by changing the angle, you see that toasty imprint disappear and appear, but that's the intention. So that's what we are, what I'm doing right now for, for not only for this exhibition, but also my work. Okay, so I think that's it. If you have any questions, I love to, I love to answer some of the questions you have. I'm trying to read, I'm trying to read questions on the conversation chat here. Hi, Gio, this is Cecily again. Thank you so much for being here and showing us your studio and your process, it's so fascinating to see how you create those embossed prints. They're really fantastic. It's been, it's been great to have them and it's difficult to photograph just like it's hard to see. Yeah, I know. It's a from the far, it looks empty. It looks just empty piece of paper. But yeah, it's hard to photograph the prints. But I love the way that implies the invisibility of immigrants and the Gioppo as you were talking about. I think it's such an apt way, such a poetic way to describe the feeling of being both an insider outsider or neither. And I wonder how that feeling of not fitting in entirely and how that is heightened now that we're in so much isolation with the COVID shutdown. I think that I really emphasize in not just immigrants, but invisible immigrants. For example, I can define myself as invisible immigrant. I lived here over, I think, almost like a 20 years, but I don't have a citizenship. So I don't have any citizenship and I grew up, mainly I grew up in the Korea and moved here. So I don't have that personal background, educational background. All the Simpsons, I don't know about that person and because I don't have any person that particular name come up when I have a conversation with my friends and I don't have any knowledge or any experience attached to my childhood memory or my educations or culture. So I believe that many immigrants who live the longer, they feel more like a foreigner who lives in this land and more invisible immigrants. So they don't really, because even for myself, I can't define me as a Korean American because I don't have a citizenship yet. So even I think that many struggle with their identity. We try to adapt this new culture, new location, new land into their identity, but many will struggle with that to define who I am, who we are. And these current situations, Black Lives Matter movement and all the immigrants have this. Now they try to actively participate in this social justice and awareness of this minority and Black Lives Matter movement. And I think we all have to, even me myself, have to think about how I can contribute to my community. Although I'm not a citizen, but a member of the community who lives in here. So yes, that's, I believe, another thing is I believe that although the work doesn't have any strong vivid color palette or very vivid color of the art forms, it doesn't. But I believe sometimes poetic, sometimes poetic, very poetic can be very powerful and political. So, so the subtlety, I can use that subtlety poetic way of presenting image can be very political and powerful. That's what I try to do for this embossment. How long have you been using this technique in your work and part two of that question is, do you always do it on white paper, or have you tried different textures and colors with the embossing technique? Well, I am right now I'm doing some experiment experiments with colors, but I try the color paper, but then it will kill all the dedicated embossment quality. But I do some some experimentations with color washes on top of embossment. So, yeah, I'm doing that testing. So, for example, this ink, this one, this is a color washes, it's a neon pink washes, but this is embossment. You see that embossment, it's hard to see still, but that embossment you see. Yeah, that's incredible. Wow, it's merged, it merged out of this washes, but that's new experimentation from this 100% white embossment on white paper. Now it's a colored, but although it's still that has a texture but it's embossment. So it looks like the ink or the dye paint, whatever you're using is it kind of accumulates in the creases of the embossment and it heightens that the shadows of the embossing. Yes, right, exactly. So, so that's, yeah, that's new experimentations I could go further with embossment, but I'm still very interesting. I think someone tried to talk. Yeah, that was interesting feedback. I think we're good now though. I think you're muted. You hit mute. Oh, sorry. Okay. Now I'm back. Oh, the semi semi had a questions here. She had, she, yeah. Yeah, the text was revised. Oh, yeah, I'll send me and I have a questions on the text to one of the exhibitions shows the text was reversed. And the one shown tonight in your studio displayed correctly. Yes. Oh, the photographs, when I photographs it, when I photographs it the belt, the text on the belt, that was the Korean take on the master I photographed him. When he photographed when I photographed it, his belt the text on the belt was reversed. But this this flag, the Korean flag was was the correct one, but when I embossed it I should switch I should reverse the images. So I didn't, I didn't notice that once I, I didn't know that the text was reversed. That's right. Complete the final prints. But then after I did a final print I realized that the text was reversed. Yes, she sent me, she sent me, yeah, tell that I can read the text to since I'm Korean American. See, same as you find yourself as Korean American me, I'm still not can can really tell Korean American I'm still Korean. Maybe if I obtained citizenship next year, maybe I could say I can define myself as a Korean American. Well, I wish you luck with that process I'm sure that's complicated and oh yes, it will be. Well, thank you so much for sharing with us tonight it's really great to get to meet you over the video screen and see your studio. I love your work and love having it in the exhibition. Thank you so much. I know this virtual studio visit artist talk is new normal, new normal, but I hope that we can, yeah, we can go back to our, yes, receptions artist talk in person. But thank you so much for inviting me for tonight. Absolutely. Thanks for joining us. So I will introduce our next speaker. Beth Krenski. Beth is an artist, activist and educator. She's a professor and head of art teaching at the University of Utah. She received her formal art training from Tufts University School of the Museum of Fine Arts and MIT Center for advanced visual studies. She has exhibited widely throughout the United States and internationally, her work is intended to provoke reflection about what is happening in our world, as well as to create a vision of what is possible. She's a scholar in the area of youth created art and social change. She holds a master's of education, I'm sorry. She holds a master's of education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a PhD in educational foundations from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her writing addresses community based art education, youth activist art and art for social change. Hello, Beth, thank you for joining us. Hi, Cecily. Thank you for so much. I don't know if there's some at some point put up the PowerPoint, but first of all, I want to thank you. I want to thank Jenna, I want to thank the Center for visual art for hosting this important exhibition. Actually, for me, it's been amazing to see the profound work of my partners in the art knots. In particular, I just want to thank the art knots and George Rivera, who is the founder, because I think the exhibition shows that we are strong individual artists but with a very shared vision for bringing people together for looking at issues and unique ways and making change happen. So with that, do you have my PowerPoint? So you can go to the next one. So I guess I just want to start quickly because with this image of me as a child, because I have the privilege of working with a social psychologist, Carol Gilligan, who wrote a book called In a Different Voice, and she was very interested in knowing it's so important to know in whose voice, right, in what body and what time. Cecily, I love that you started out by saying on what land are we standing. It's something I do with all of my own projects, the projects I facilitate with others. But I think it's important to know that I was born in the mid 1960s. So I think the consciousness of that era is part of me and has impacted my whole life. And I also grew up in Utah as a young chubby Jewish woman, Jewish girl, wearing very practical shoes. So I knew what othering felt like. And my own practice, which I consider very broad, as an artist, as an educator, I don't differentiate. It is my practice. It has to do with building these bridges. So if you go to the next image, I'm really interested in, and you touched upon this, sort of these in between spaces, the liminal spaces, the cracks in the wall, if you will. And this idea that we can realign and remake boundaries. And I was very struck by your few things that have happened in my life that have helped me form this idea. But one of them was to listen to a woman named Nareed Pellad Elhanan, who is someone who founded the parent circle in Israel, which brings together Israeli and Palestinian parents who've lost children to violence. Her daughter was killed on a bus. There was a bomb on a bus. And at the time Netanyahu, he was the Prime Minister then as well, came to visit her, and she left the room. And she said this quote that has been very influential. She said, for me, the struggle is not between Palestinians and Israelis, nor between Jews and Arabs. The fight is between those who seek peace and those who seek war. My people are those who seek peace. That shifted everything for me and helped me realize we get to realign these boundaries and borders. We define them, we make them, and my people might not be the Jewish people. My people might, it does it like it can be shifting. And sometimes that's an uncomfortable space. So if you go to the next slide, another important person who's influenced my work and I have the privilege of meeting her was Gloria Anzaldua. And I did an exhibition a number of years ago with Samah Al-Shibi, who some of you may know if you're from the University of Colorado, but she is a Palestinian, Iraqi, American Muslim artist. And we did an exhibition together on dialogue through art. But Anzaldua said in her book, Borderlands, it is not enough to stand on the opposite river bank. Shouting questions, a counter stance, locks one into a duel of oppressor and oppressed, locked in mortal combat like the cop and the criminal, both are reduced to a common denominator of violence. But it is not a way of life. At some point on our way to a new consciousness, we will have to leave the opposite bank, the split between the two mortal combatants somehow healed, so that we are on both shores at once, and at once see through serpent and eagle eyes. So I think this is very timely for the exhibition for what's happening in our world, our divisiveness that has grown. It's a truly a pandemic. And it has influenced my own work. So if you go to the next slide, I'm really interested in this idea of sanctuary and sanctity and blurring the boundaries between sacred, sacred space and secular space. And again, realigning these boundaries. If you go to the next image. I research lots of traditions of faith, and I never purport to represent anyone. And often there's a blurring of traditions I come from teaching at a Catholic school in Boston for a number of years and I have my own tradition and I experience and read a lot about other traditions. Anyhow, I read and research, but then I create my own rituals. And this is called baptismal tears with salt from the Dead Sea with the same salinity as human tears. Anyhow, I go into spaces that are not traditional. Well, they are sanctuaries to me and to many in nature. But this idea of baptizing myself of the tears of others. So if you can go to the next slide. I make object. So I was trained as a sculptor. And when I look back on my childhood, I was always gathering, well, frankly trash from the streets of New York City when we'd go every weekend and building things but also doing what I now know as performative gestures. So for instance, after a rainstorm, as a very young child, I would go out take my shoes off and walk circles in the mud for quite a while under large trees. And I sort of existed in this in between space. One could maybe consider something wrong with me. I don't know. But anyhow, so if you go through the next couple slides quickly, anyhow, I built this object with items in it and made bells, gathered bells from sacred spaces. Around the world and then the next slide, and then I performed it on the salt flats. And every performance I do this the land on which it exists is very important. So in this case, the salt flats, I actually thought I would go and be just so beautiful and I walk along and it was very difficult and hot and bugs biting me and I was sinking into the salt. This is where the Donner Party got stuck going across the salt flats. They were slowed down because it was Mormon pioneers heading to California with their wheels sinking in, which led to them getting stuck on the overpass of the winter and cannibalizing one another to stay alive. All right, so the next slide. This is Portable Sanctuary number one if you go to the next slide. It's inscribed it's burned. The 23rd song is burned into it. The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. Actually, when I read when I recite this I say you are my shepherd I shall not want. You make with me to lie down and greet pastures you lead with me beside the still waters. And it goes on to the line that a lot of people know is yay though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil for thou art with me. I recently did a piece with this chair, garb and PPE. And I did it in Emigration Canyon in Utah, where the youth people have walked through the Mormon pioneers came down and through. I did a performance about the pandemics of COVID-19 racism and other current issues that we're having. Anyhow, I wander with it. And again, it's blurring this boundary of where is this sacred space. All right, so if you go into the next slide and the next. This is a piece called Toshly, that right now is a holy time for Jewish people. We entered Rosh Hashanah the head of the New Year with the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which incidentally I just learned that in Judaism, the most righteous die on our Sabbath. And the holiest of holies die on Rosh Hashanah, which is when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. And anyhow, it's a ritual that Jews do on the second day of Rosh Hashanah. And it's when one casts their sins, the directive is we shall let us cast our sins into the depths of the sea. And people throw either rocks or breadcrumbs into a body of water. But I've cobbled together my own vehicle, my own little wagon, and there are stones on there and I'm walking toward the Great Salt Lake to cast my sins. So if you go to the next slide. And then go to the next. So this is my piece for the exhibition called Make Me a Sanctuary. And I'm wearing, actually I'm very interested in the materials I use are chosen specifically. And I use a lot of domestic cloth, things that women would typically be in charge of like napkins or dish towels or embroidered handkerchiefs. And in this case I'm wearing an old linen French nightgown sewn together with a portion of my mother's tablecloth for my mother and embroidered along the back is this excerpt from Exodus and let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. And I'm holding over my head, this cobbled together sewn together tent, my own personal tents. And this idea of tents are important to Jews historically. But when we think about tents and refugees and how they have been employed. And in my hands and what's holding up the tent are two pieces of olive wood. And the olive wood came from trees that were pulled up to build the wall between Israel and the Palestinian occupied Palestinian territories. And on one stick is engraved that saying the statement that Nareep Pellet El Hanan said. And the other stick is engraved these words by Hanan Luba death from Nablus so a Palestinian woman. I've known Israeli bereaved mothers for many years. The mother's pain is similar, no matter if they're Israeli or Palestinian. It does not matter whether she is from Nablus, Shoah Fat, Roche Pinah, or Nofa Yalon. The pain is seared into us and will be with us forever. So this piece I think is about walls and sanctuaries on many levels. One, it's personal. Let them make me, me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. I think it's a difficult time for lots of people in our society wondering if they fit. If they are in danger for their religious beliefs of the color of their skin. And I share the religious beliefs strongly with my Muslim brothers and sisters. And the fear of that, although I do believe that they are more at risk right now, unfortunately. But it's also this idea. It can be used to think about the biblical directive. Is there a place for the divine to be among us and what are we doing to invite or not invite that push that away. And then finally, and the most important for me is this idea of sanctuary as people are coming. Are we offering them sanctuary like all of us or most of us except for the native peoples in this country we all came and had a place and opening and a welcoming. And I am deeply disturbed by what is happening in our country, in particular, but also throughout the world with this, this question that is raised. All right, so if you just flip through quickly the next that one and you can stop on the next image. This piece is called skirt of sorrow and forgiveness. So crinoline from my wedding dress if like there's a, there's something always quite personal about my work but with the hopes that it is provides an opening for others and my experience has been that has happened. Actually, I'm not going to talk about this piece and if you go. One more. Okay, so this piece in terms of boundaries or borders I'm interested in the axis Moondi, the space between heaven and earth. And I've done a couple of recent pieces about that so there's a kite with me so this piece is called when I was younger I could fly and I have spent years trying to return to that place physically and metaphorically so if you go to the next image. I flew the piece so that where I am flying this and my next image are on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. Because of the salinity and tears and that the liminal space between water and sand earth and sky it's very important to me so this piece is called float away. I sewed together with the garments that my mother wore. It was my memorializing of her after she passed away. So there are like old white gloves from the 50s and canker chips but also her pajamas and embroidered on it is the eulogy that I wrote for her about floating away. All right, let me just see you can go to the next. And I guess I just want to end by saying that for me. I talked about my broad practice early on but Paulo Ferry was a Brazilian philosopher who I also got to meet twice in my life I'm very, very honored and changed by that. He impacts my work as an artist my work as an educator and frankly my pursuit in the world as an individual. And he wrote knowledge emerges only through invention and reinvention through the restless impatient continuing hopeful inquiry, human beings pursue in the world with the world and with each other. And I think in many ways. I'm attempting to do that with my work and create dialogue and an opening and also an inward looking Ferry talked about the importance of reflection with every action. So I don't know my timer didn't work. So I don't know I think I'm, I hope I stay within 15 minutes. That was perfect, Beth. You must just have an internal timer from teaching. So it has come to my attention that I cannot actually see the chat. There were a few questions for Jew that I can't see so I'm going to ask someone else. Oh, you can see that. Okay. So, Kristen asked, oh, she said there's a visual effect of the sand blowing around you as a walk as you walk around the solid on the Great Salt Lake. So that is a great question. It wasn't sand. It was bugs. It was like a sea of bugs. It was actually incredible. I found it incredible as I was walking. It was as if the sea was parting around me and they were these little mats. Frankly that bite. So they're very pleasant. But I mean, I think we can actually explore many levels of interpretation of that as well. Shelter in place. As a comment. Maybe about the tent. Yeah, I don't know, but I do. I mean, it is truly intended in part for me. And my rituals are really the real for me. I'm very interested in outside. Well, I don't define them as outside artists, but I look a lot at artists who are considered mentally ill, because they actually believe if they build something like a pair of wings or whatever it will work. I am in that tradition of I'm actually creating these things that I believe there's great intention and ritualized making for me that I actually believe they impact things and I will say that and I'm not going to go on about this. There are examples of stuff I've done with others and I hear stories for years about the impact it had on them. I don't think there are other questions. Beth, this is Jenna and I do have a question for you. This is such a beautiful piece and, and really I get this sort of ethereal sense of you as of space with you being out on the salt flat so I'm just curious. You know, how you chose this location what was your process with that. Well, I think so. First of all, I want to say that like, it is the whole time I'm engaged in my performances. It's a meditative act. So I, again, I'm not like going out there to like look like I'm doing something I'm actually doing it. For me, this location, I was interested in the wide open space but again the shoreline of the Great Salt Lake and this idea of the history of that place and the beauty but also the hardship of that place. I mean if you walk along the salt flats everywhere you look you see carcasses of birds. It's a, it's a place where migration takes place but there are dead birds everywhere. So there is the rem there are the skeletons of life, but there's also new life happening. And it's also extremely hot. I mean I was like having a really hard time holding these heavy posts sweating, walking through this open space. And it was quite emotional for me I have to tell you like thinking about what does it feel like to like not know your surroundings and come and you have all of your gatherings that you're lugging with you and hoping for a safe place to shelter. And so I guess and also like I, I've read a lot about the salt flats and what historical people have written and I think it's a place of a gender to place for a lot of people. But it's a, it's a place of mostly I related to sadness actually in tears for me. Thank you Jenna. It's so, so lovely to see the work and hear you talk about it and how they, you're in these wide open spaces but you're really talking about this liminal space and a border of sorts. And one thing that really struck me about the video that we have in the exhibition, as it's so seems so borderless that the space seems so endless. Yet, there are these liminal spaces between land and sky as you were saying and the body and spirituality and many many other, between. So, I just was struck by a couple of things you said one, the floating away eulogy for your mother, I thought that was so striking and beautiful. Thinking about what happens to our spirits or our soul as we pass and that really is that liminal space you were speaking of. And then the other thing that I just wanted to talk about briefly was when you said when you were a young girl gathering trash and objects and performing rituals that maybe something was wrong with me. And I thought that was so funny because I think so many artists think that, especially when they're young. Why am I so different. Well, I do think it's interesting I actually started at age five asking my parents to please never put me in the same asylum I have no idea where I've been heard that word. I will say that something happened later in life that I'm unapologetic about it at this point it could be my age, frankly, something happens I think when one turns 50 but this exhibition I spoke about earlier. We make the road by walking that I did with some I'll she be it traveled around the country and we would have these raw dialogues unscripted dialogues afterwards. And at one of them and by the way we had security at our openings. You know here we are talking about building bridges but for some people they're not interested in that. And at the end of our dialogue at once at one talk, someone said to me very angrily. What gives you the right to talk about this to make work about this you're not Israeli. And I will tell you that I had an out of body experience I was, I stood up and I was outside of myself watching my body and it was like I stood up and I said sir. I hold the authority in my bones. I'm an artist and I'm a mother, and I have every right to comment on the death of children and what is happening anyhow was like you go girl. At this point, I feel like I'm doing this work we can call it art we can call it whatever we want it almost doesn't matter. I'm very my mantra for my work and I actually decide where work goes based on this is it goes where it needs to go. So if it's going to impact healing or build bridges between people. That's where it goes not necessarily places that are considered prestigious in the art world. I love that. Thank you so much for joining us. It's been really great hearing you speak about your work and to see images of other works as well, and how they fit together. It's been really wonderful. Thank you. And now. Okay, and our next speaker. I'm just going to pull up bio is Andrew Connolly. Andrew was born in New York in 1963, and has been practicing professional has been a practicing professional artists since the early 1990s. Noted for installation performance and mixed media sculpture Connolly has exhibited his works in contemporary museums and alternative gallery spaces around the US. His works have been published in art in America art week, new art examiner and the village voice in 2010 Connolly spent a sabbatical semester making and exhibiting his work in New Delhi India, and since his return has had works in TV, chili, corn of Aka, Mexico, and Latisha Columbia, along with the art knots. He has shown large large scale installation performances at Crocker Art Museum and Oak Wild Ranch and sculpture, where he currently has a permanent large work. In 2014 Connolly was awarded a fellowship from the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, California for a six month artist residency. He holds a BFA from Alfred University and an MFA from the University of Colorado Boulder and attended the Schohagen School of painting and sculpture. He is currently a professor at Sacramento State University, where he has been teaching sculpture installation and performance since 2003. Previously Connolly taught at University of Colorado Denver, Washington University, St. Louis, and Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. He has been an art not since 2010. So with that, I would love to introduce Andrew Connolly, and hopefully he is able to turn on his mic and camera and take it away. Hello and thank you for that really nice introduction, Cecily, and thank you for hosting this exhibition and certainly the Center for Visual Arts. I'd like to certainly also thank Professor Rivera, Dr. Rivera, who's just been driving force for the art knots and certainly is an inspiration in so many ways. And I also want to recognize certainly his partner in crime when they began this whole adventure, Garrison Roots, who is my professor from University of Colorado Boulder. And I think all of us and many of us in the art knots certainly share that sentiment as being him being one of the founders and we hold a dear to our hearts. Wow, Beth and Jew, you're really tough acts to follow. I'm so humbled by being able to exhibit in the same space as you and I've seen in terms of the art knots, just a wonderful variety of work and approaches. And I think you'll see from my slides is like another whole different way of seeing things in the way that I approach my work. So yeah, let's get into it here. I entitled this talk just, and as sort of considering all of the different aspects of living today in this culture. By the way, I just wanted to mention that I'm actually in my office at Sacramento State and my students are out in the studio watching the talk and I know that they'll have lots of comments about about all the different talks today and I look forward to the dialogue afterwards. So signals of consequence. I was just pondering this curious kind of phrase about how, you know, different things come up in our lives and, you know, throughout throughout our experience this human experience and and how these the signals are, you know, they sort of, they turn and change and move into and morph into a different time or element or space. You can go to the next slide. So the piece that I decided to do for this exhibition, the walls between us is actually a work that I resurrected from 1998, in which I wish I, I first exhibited at the University of Washington gallery at the Kemper Museum in a film Hiko Maki building was built in the in the 70s, a really classic piece of modern architecture and I was struck with the space. And as you can see, if you've been able to visit the gallery, where the current piece is embraces a very similar kind of modernist aesthetic in that way. So next slide I just wanted to take you a little bit on some of what have a journey on on how I got started essentially in, you know, sort of getting involved with making statements about my position and our positions. Like Beth, I grew up and I was born in the 60s and and lived through the Vietnam War and watched, you know, families being torn apart and, you know, young men going off and not returning. And so this, this was a time in 1990 when new campaigns were actually being sort of invented and this was this was certainly the Persian Gulf War. And, you know, we continue to get ourselves involved in all kinds of things and, and, and, you know, as a male. And certainly now it's certainly everybody is subject to being drafted into situations where, you know, you really don't want to be but you're fighting for your country. But anyway, so this piece is called Considering Alternatives. And it was a performance that I did at the University of Colorado Boulder as well as that's actually out on the Pearl Street Mall where I sat for hours in a body bag. And it was a quite an experience certainly interacting with the public and people coming up and asking questions. And, you know, wondering if certainly if there was someone in the bag to begin with, and then, secondly, certainly like what, you know, what are you doing? Is this a body bag? Are you dead? You know, and so the many questions that were being asked and, and some political issues and that kind of stuff and certainly about the Gulf War. I did good questions about that. Are you protesting? I never answered them because it felt like they were asking the right questions. But it was quite, quite an experience, you know, being a performer out in a public space like that being completely vulnerable. So next slide. This next work actually is as a piece that I did at the Arvada Center in Colorado as well in 1997. And so I'm, this is where actually I started to really embrace object as, as being somewhat Duchampian in a way of the ready made. I really became sort of possessed by the idea that containers had had an identity, you know, and the containers themselves may have labels or they may not have labels, and they may conjure different kinds of feelings and experiences. And certainly they're, they're relative to, you know, our scale. At the time, you know, the next slide, I'd actually had gone through and graduated and, you know, was moving through my life experience here in America and certainly in Colorado. And I started to train at martial art called Aikido Japanese art and entering into that sacred space and being able to train and share and be in, be in this harmonious relationship. Aikido has coined the martial art a piece. I wanted to create a this kind of also this this reality scape as well as this non reality scape with these kind of odd looking containers. Certainly there's a, there's a jumpsuit, a snow suit over there. The red buckets actually for made their first appearance on the far wall is actually a Cheshire Cheshire sniper rifle, where as people would come up to the rifle, there, there was a video camera just below it and then the box to the left is a is a video monitor. And so the interactivity of the of the space, you know, the viewer is actually being shot out at the abdomen as they're looking at this rifle. So objects like the motorcycle, you know, slung upside down disorienting is actually there's a pile of lumber there bags of concrete refrigerator that is that you, you know, is way up high. So very just sort of disorienting kind of space that piece was called. Sorry, concealing tolerances. Next slide. So, interesting. I bet they really enjoy your performances and, man, what you're embracing. And, you know, that's what I really love to do in my earlier works and certainly now I've done lots of collaborative works with students and on a larger scale. Who's actually at Metro State Gallery when it was the their former space and pieces called co extension. And so on the far side is actually a fish tank with Japanese Koi that are live in there. My, my, my ex of buckets, and then I would actually get sewn up into this full body corset. And I could stand there for about like 5050 to 60 minutes at a time, and I would have assistance then bolt me into the space. I wanted to create this, this tarpaulin kind of equation and comparative that I could never quite ever, you know, a sort of conjure like, what is the experience of being of swimming around and around in a small tank. And how I could actually have that experience as a human being confined in this other space. So, next slide. As I was beginning to, well, when I was presented with the idea of doing this exhibition and the walls between us and I was immediately struck with, yes, I have a piece for the show and, and how important this piece would be to exhibit it again, and in the current context. So, the next slide is actually in the next few slides are actually just more about the construction of the project. I will say that one of the things that's, it's, that's important to the way that I've that I've worked is, I certainly I come from a blue collar background and building is a really important part of my upbringing. My father was an auto mechanic, but, you know, we did all kinds of building projects and one of the things that was really important to go back a little bit go back to the previous slides. Was that previous slide. Yeah, yeah, was that the dimension of this work actually fits exactly to the dimensions of standardized materials, just like an architect embraces the the dimension of a brick as a part of the block of the whole. And so this being really sort of part of maybe the, the DNA and the, you know, and the sort of the heart of, of blue collar working of working with your hands of building things, you know, from the ground up. So what this illustrates here is basically and you go to the next slide, you can see that the process the the the work is created with these slotted boards that gets fit that gets fit together. And you go to the next slide. And so if you look to the left slide there that in the previous work I had to use some braces on each one of the intersections of the piece and so to really bring in and embrace a more modernist aesthetic I wanted that cleanliness of the architectural space to be really nice and open so what you see on the right is is actually the I had to create these, you know, these custom cleats that would then be fastened underneath the structure so that it would it would stay in place to go the next slide. So from my building experiences. I came to learn certainly a lot. And actually had part part of my my personal journey was going through a house fire in 2006 and and rebuilding my family home. Well the house for my family. I learned about sheer and how sheer strength of the building and how a building certainly can shift from one side to the other and it being earthquake resistant sort of speak. So it becomes critical to engineering to have this star pattern. And so the just the distribution of the the way that things are fastened together comes again it's kind of another kind of metaphor for joining and for for embracing and this kind of work ethic that I'm very used to and accustomed to next slide. So, and so then here comes the real fun part is then really be being able to experiment with light and seeing how, you know, the buckets would react and certainly that was the intention with the first work was it to be seen. You know, in front of a glass window, which for most artists is not really the most desirable place to show work, but it but the the illumination is really what excited me and certainly. The space for the for this piece in the exhibition and it's so appropriate for the work. Next slide. So part of the process also was that I was embracing this idea of being a cabinet maker as well. And so this is a process called edge banding, which using an iron and specific kind of strips of a very thin veneer would you iron them on and and they become a part of your work. A part of the surface is I hear my bell sounding and I didn't put my timer on either. So then those that gets trimmed and and then reassembled and so then we can go to the next slide. Then we can see that the final work in the show and I was really wanting this to have a very clean, crisp museum quality. You go to the final slide where it just has this. It takes on different different personalities and different kind of feeling throughout the the light of the day and certainly the experience in the gallery. And this work certainly conceptually really is so much about about commodity and about and but also about these red buckets of of human blood of being representation represent. Yes, the human body and certainly getting back to the these war campaign references. These become just the the bodies that are taken off the shelf and used and discarded and then essentially replaced with new recruits. So with that I'll just leave it there. Thank you again for having me do this talk and it's really great to be part of the exhibition. Thank you so much Andrew it was really cool to see some larger body of your work and especially that work at Metro State Gallery. I've never seen that space it must be at least two two spaces back before my time at CVA for sure, but really interesting to see the trajectory of your work and how the red buckets have been a character and many of these pieces. It's really cool. So I'm going to, I'm going to ask my colleague Kristen to read any questions because I cannot see the chat for whatever reason. It's good to see you. Hey good to see you too. So I'm going to start with my question I kind of jumped in there first. I have a question and I watched you kind of erect this structure in the space. So my question is, in your artist statement you mentioned the importance of construction and building materials in wall. How important is the performative aspect of the repetitive action and patterning and constructing the wall to create an emotional response within the viewer within yourself as the artist human any rector. Holy mackerel that's a really good question. You know, the studio and I think that the other artists here share this and I think a lot of other artists to share this is, you know, I always talk about performance in terms of public or private. I mean, as artists, I mean, and I feel that this is such a, it's a performance going into the studio. And I, you know, I often talk about with students and and I engage in in ritual. Before I enter into the studio. It's oftentimes I'll spend, whether I'm a lot of times I'll actually do some yoga or stretching or breathing exercises or do some meditation to actually have that that transition. You know that that sort of full body transition and mind transition to get into the state of creating. At the same time though, there's also that that kind of Factory like, you know, mechanical part and organizational part that I really that that I think as humans and certainly I think, you know, I agree with you. Well, I don't know about I'm certainly insane. So, you know, I think I could have been committed. Many times, but that I think that that's where I can put together order and and bring together ways of organization that when the visual world around me is organized. Then then I actually feel more organized inside. And the funny part about that is is my wife is who I love dearly her her form of organization is very different than mine. But she but that but that, you know, so it's a it's a personal kind of thing of how you how you proceed that level of organization outside, as well as inside. But it is, it is, it is a continuous performative act. So thank you for asking that question. Thank you for answering that so thoroughly. Jasmine winter has asked that each bucket presents itself with an absence of person name, age, etc. Was it your intention to present the loss and erasure of humanity and individual that comes with accumulated violence. You know, there was such a hate to be comparison and well I don't mean to be comparing but I was certainly like there was there was parts of Beth's talk and and Jews talk versus this such this heartfelt warm sense of of the, you know, of the of the performances and the rituals and the imagery. And I this work is actually one of the coldest pieces I think I've done, and where it is, it is at the absence it is that that sense of that. These, these are just, yeah, they're devoid of a person. You know, and I think that I mentioned in my statement certainly about that, you know, there's so much of humanity that is, you know, sees humans as just objects is just things to be able to to use and, and I think we see examples of that in all kinds of parts of our culture. And, thankfully, I think we're making some progress but we have a long, long way to go. And I think that certainly from from this perspective, you know, and I just I remember, you know, graduating high school and having to register. You know, what was it to try to remember. It's, it's, it's your registering essentially for the draft but there was no drafts the time. But, but the fact that I had to actually, you know, be a number and in line for in case of an emergency. You know, I would, I would, you know, my number would come up, as well as many other citizens of the US so yeah, good question, really good question. Well, we are a little behind schedule so I'm not sure if there are more questions but we need to move on. Thank you so much Andrew for joining us and sharing your work with us and your process and thinking that goes into it it's been really great to hear from you. Thank you very much. So, I am happy to introduce our next speaker. Sammy Lee. Sammy is an interdisciplinary artist in Denver, Colorado. Her work focuses on spatial narrative and sequential qualities in personal history, as we incorporates her diverse explorations in art and architecture. Lee was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea and moved to Southern California at the age of 16. She studied media art at UCLA and architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her work has been exhibited internationally and can be found in collections at the Getty Research Institute, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Spencer Museum of Art, and the Spanish National Library in Madrid, Spain. Finally, Lee is a resident. Oh, actually are you still a resident artist? This might be an older bio. Formerly, Lee was a resident artist at Redline and serves on the board of directors for the Asian Art Association at Denver Art Museum. She operates a new contemporary Asian art residency and project space called Collective SMLK in Santa Fe Art District, Denver. Sammy has been an art not since 2018. Thank you so much for joining us, Sammy. It's great to see you. Thank you. Thank you for tonight. And thanks for everyone who is still here listening. Yeah, I'm very excited to be part of Art Not. It has been a very empowering experience being part of Art Not. I think first exhibition was at, it was called Liminal Space at DMZ. And since then, like, yeah, I really learned so much through this network of other amazing artists, you know, outside of Denver, everywhere, I guess in the world, around this idea of social justice. So it has been good. And thank you, also CBA for, yeah, arranging this exhibition and this artist talk. So, yeah, you know, my identity as a Korean American, and there is a dash between Korean and American. So that has been always kind of the subject of my, you know, exploration in my art. Recently, I had a chance of reworking my artist statement. And there was this Sage Korean proverb. It says basically, what use is three bushels of beads if none of them are threaded. So just how it's threaded, how all these fragments are connected, how those are, you know, we unite, you know, unified all the fragments and becoming something has been kind of main practice in my studio. So I just arranged the chaotic piles of bits and pieces to make art, you know, object as a whole. And usually those are turned into installations or like a sculptural object or artist books. So those are kind of the formats that I work with. So this piece called Mama Bot that the photo that you see on the presentation is the one in the back. It is kind of the project that came out of the pandemic. So I have my, I'm a mom, I have two kids 111 12 and one, five. And just juggling just the, you know, momhood and being artists career has been it's been, you know, tough, but it's been very rewarding. But this pandemic actually made me realize more about the motherhood just being full time mom, like 24 seven because, you know, you know, you're just during the pandemic in the lockdown, like daycare is not available, museums and playground parks, everything was not accessible and you are in this kind of boundary of home, and you are the caretaker for 24 seven. And that was, I guess, the highlight and kind of heightened experience of being a mom and got me really think about that role of mom as well as my identity as an artist. So I mean, it was like already very hard. So I wanted to approach it, you know, with a light heart in this with some sense of humor. And also, this project was kind of collaboration and a serendipitous collaboration with my 10 four year old son. So if you can go to the maybe it's on the third slide I only have four pictures in there. But I think maybe one yes this one. So originally about this wall project I had different idea of maybe it but you know I it all kind of had to do with the frames and images inside. So I laid them down on the floor. And I think I might have just went away for a little bit to answer phone call and came back and my son peers had arranged them kind of in a robot form. And so during the lockdown we also watch a lot of robot, you know, movies and animations together and so I and he put it in this format. With a robot with the penis to as you can see. But so I instead of kind of going back to that I decided to use that because I like this test synergy and there was a one robot episode that smaller robots kind of come together and transform into big robot with all this like you know power all you know it becomes very super power robot. So there was one thing so I'm like okay you know I'm going to make this kind of collaborative and I kind of took off from there. So I'm the title is called Mama bot. If you can go to the next slide one more one more please. Yeah, so that was the very first one that I made. And that is actually currently in display at Arvada center to so that was a version one and the one at the CV is a version two. So it has images inside but what's wrapping all the frames are actually what I call a paper skin. So paper skin is something that I've been creating like maybe for the past 10 years. And it is actually layers Korean paper it's a mulberry fiber and I soak it in water and kind of go through a labor that is very similar to laundry process. I am soaked and squeeze and need and pound and end up creating this one like single substrate that is thicker and it kind of transforms a quality of paper that is like fragile and delicate into very thick but depends on how you know manipulated but it has a skin or animal height like quality. So I've been using those paper skin to create a lot of my artwork as small as like artist book like I said to like installation and objects. So these are kind of on this project it is very kind of thick skinned and it is flesh tone it's warm and overall the robot. It looks like kind of friendly analog not the AI that will that is about to destroy the whole humanity but it is something that will come through the wall and help you to for laundry or something you know will be very helpful and friendly. So this one actually the all the images inside it relates to my mother so that the version one is actually talking about my mother and her femininity maybe loss of femininity as being mother for a long time and but celebrating you know her her life through this. Then this led into my second version which I call it it's a mom about 2020 through the wall which is currently at CBA so if you can go back to one slide or two yeah this is good so overall picture you will probably see it and another slide but you could kind of see the detail of it. But this one is kind of dark. But this one. You will see all the textures textures are made one on the left you could kind of see it it's through. It's it's made because of the you know little toys like a rubber lizard and snakes and things like that that I embedded under the skin that you know visually makes looks like those like bumpy scars and you know just the draped how it's draped and varnish it looks very much wet but it looks like kind of hairs falling forward and it kind of feels more of that kind of. Darker kind of the sense of guilt trip and fears and all this. Feelings that I have. You know negotiated you know as a as a person as a woman as an as an artist as a mom so but if you maybe go back to one more go back slide yeah but what's actually showing through is just this. The kids photo my kids what you know the kids who makes me mom it's there you know just price miles that kind of sustains me but that really contrasts with what it seems to be overall very dark and. Yeah piece of art so and and and and I've been kind of continuing that. Path of making recreating the series of mom about so the third one that I'm making it's also about it's called mom about but first ma in parentheses and that is really about just me. Before mother and and and I've been creating different narratives around that yeah so. It's interesting and kind of ironic that this pandemic you know lockdown time has given me. Opportunity to create new body of work. While I was like you know. You know always kind of using. I'm not using but you know just a juggling many different like a responsibility as a just excuses you know for. Not really like you know I you know like I talked about a little bit about the guilt trip but whenever I go to kids school and I feel like I'm not volunteering enough at school when I you know meet my old artist friend and I feel. You know bet that I'm not able to like show up at their evening. Like a evening time like receptions and openings and so there's a lot of things that I feel like you know as the piece was showing like I wanted to kind of hide behind my hairs you know and just like full of kind of those kind of guilt. It's interesting that I'm collaboration and spending ample time with my kids help me to create this you know body of work. So that's one thing and. Yeah. Let me go back to the first one just so that people can see the overall. Yeah photos. So this is a side view so you know all those like a photo frames of my children's photos are laid down in a form first then I use this paper skin in this case layers black sheets of paper and I over. I put it over a place over that composition then the process of. You know putting it together is basically like with the brush and. And. It's it's like a glue varnish but really thick one I stipple over it and let the you know glue material just like penetrate through the paper layers of the paper to adhere to the. Photo frames so that's how it was overall made and. Yeah so I'm going to I know it's a seven o'clock I'm little time pressure but I'm going to look through or if someone can read the questions then I'll have to answer. Yeah I'm going to ask Kristen if she could read the questions for you so you can just think about your answer. Kristen are there questions there. There are so we have a couple. I'm going to start with one from April and she says hello thank you for sharing this experience what is the significance of the water rings on the paper I see them surrounding the images I think she's referring to the lighter. Yeah so water is actually very important material I guess because like paper you have to have water to make. The paper but once you put the paper into water will fall apart to and actually what I'm doing the very process that I go through is actually putting layers of paper into water that's how I start the process. So it kind of letting go back to kind of reverse in that cyclical cycle you know. But so I nearly let them go through kind of destructive process. But so that's kind of how everything starts you know paper itself you know was made with the water and my beginning of my process involves water. But also you know when I work with the water and the glue it has the water mark marking and just the wetness it's usually to do with the emotion. So it looks like it up here like a dried up tears or in because of how the black paper works in in the version to the one at CDA the water and. Also with the varnish it makes it exaggerates that sense of that wetness and water and also how it sculpts the paper how it sculpts of the above the surface you can definitely feel the sense of water the weight of water that was once there. And it has been dry so it kind of connects me through the process the whole water and the presence of water that is still showing at the final product to. Wow incredibly stated. So we have one more question. Jasmine asks the texture and the structure of the piece gives me the sense that there is absence of person that in order to be the perfect mother you must dispose of the human aspect that allows you to make mistakes but also allows you to be compassionate in some sense was that your intention. Yes I'm still kind of trying to you know learn more about becoming a good mother for my kids right so I need much wisdom for people who has gone through that patch but it's daily it's been struggled but I almost like I just load in Netflix and just give the tablet so I can talk and they still came through my you know right in like in the middle of my presentation. So it is daily struggle. But that is something all those aspects that you mentioned in your questions. Yes, I am thinking about those a lot. But initially like with them. I wanted to approach this light heartedly because usually when I bring the motherhood subject into my project. It always kind of turned into humorous and comical and I enjoy that and I think that's kind of how I wanted to approach it. When the reality can be very like you know difficult to. So that was at least my approach. Yeah to make to choose to you know contrast with my kids just like sweet as photo against those dark you know darkness or you know in that version to or in my first version about my mother. I really want that to overall be very warm to just show that warmth of the motherhood side. Incredible. That's all the questions that I see there are tons of comments in the chat if you're able to see those I a lot of people are really wanting to give you praise for your work. Thank you. Thanks for reading those Kristen. I just want to close with one comment that I noticed reflection I have about the mom about that represents you and your experience now with younger children and how it's a darker time. And contrasting that with the mom about that represents your mother and it's the softer warmer maybe the intensity of motherhood has softened a little bit. So I thought that was really interesting and and I love the way you talk about the darkness of motherhood because we're not supposed to you know we're not supposed to Have any negative things to say about being a mother so I commend you for doing. Thank you. Talk with you and with all the artists. And you're. So with that I would like to just thank everyone for joining us and I hope that you will be able to come down to CVA and see the exhibition we are producing a video tour which should be done in a week or so which we will post on our website but it's just not the same scene in person so if you can please come see us. And we have one more talk next week, same time next Tuesday we'd love to have you back. Thanks so much everyone.