k e r r y p h i l l i p s

Interactive project hosted by the Girls' Club Collection at PULSE MIAMI 2013

For this project I invited people to bring an object that they valued (though, perhaps no one else would) to exchange with an object that I valued. We then exchanged our valuable objects but also the stories behind them – the origin of their Value. As each object was swapped, we were forced to confront the natural tendency to find/collect/keep, opposed to the deliberate attempt to avoid attachment, embrace temporality, and let go of our Things. Seven objects were consistently on view, and their arbitrary correlations thrown into contrast.

This is an ongoing project where I am building tents in volunteers’ living rooms using what they already have in their homes. I build these wherever I go and wherever I can find volunteers. So far I've built tents in Miami, New York, Texas, California, France, Berlin & Krakow. (if you want to volunteer send me an email:)

While at an art residency in France I decided I needed a job in order to feel a part of the community – to feel I belonged. I also wanted to become fluent in French but found myself with absurd, tongue-tying stage fright (social anxiety?). So my job became to learn some French from everyone I came into contact with. So in a variety of ways with a variety of results, I told people, in French, that I was learning French and asked if they would please write a phrase in French for me. The collection of phrases and results of these mini performative actions became the basis of the work I made.

This is a handmade book with 524 lines on 524 pages drawn by 524 people while I was at an art residency at McColl Center for Visual Art in Charlotte, NC. At the time I had set two rules to challenge myself and the way that I was used to working. First, I would not take any materials with me and I'd use only what I could found and, second, I'd follow those brief but persistent sparks of intuition to the end – no matter how wayward and silly they may appear.

This book of collected lines was one such thought. I got what amounted to a couple of reams of paper, set it up in my studio with a variety of drawing media and as visitors trickled in, I invited them to draw a line. A simple invitation with some expected and some unexpected results. Over the course of the 3 months only 1 person refused, and only a handful did it without asking questions. Everyone else – everyone else – had many questions and qualifiers: What kind of line? How big? How small? But I can't even draw. I'm not an artist. My only response: Draw a line.

I had actually anticipated these. As an artist and sometimes teacher I'd heard many times, "I can't even draw a straight line!" To which I answer that is what rulers are for. The part I had not anticipated was the variety of lines that people would draw. It actually annoyed me. I naively assumed that most people, not being able to draw, would just give a simple horizontal line across the page. And I had already seen this very eloquent book of horizontal lines in my mind's eye. So after the first 20 or so crazy lines and a few horizontal ones, I wanted to call it quits and shut it down. It failed, this isn't what I wanted. But I reminded myself of the challenge, I stuck it out, because what I wanted was whatever would end up happening – not what I thought would happen – and the hard part, the real challenge, was to sit back and ride it out, letting go of control.

After I collected as many lines as I could I had the pages bound by a local bookbinder. It's a giant book: 11" x 17" x 5". And even though there were 524 lines when the book was bound there are now 525 lines because a guy at our opening added his line at his girlfriend’s direction – she had been there a month before and drawn a line. And even though it was no longer loose sheets of papers and there were no pencils around and it was now displayed on a pedestal, she somehow did not realize the project was finished. Which annoyed me but is also kind of hilarious and is sometimes what happens when you invite people to participate.

I was invited to design an interactive art project for the women participating in a weekend conference. I encouraged them to let me collect their shadows & names and invited them to color in the overlapping bits throughout the weekend creating a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes representing & documenting the community of participants.