AMVZHELLOOLLEHZVMA: March 2012

Room 1

Room 2

Room 3

Here is something on the Creature Comfort Residency...

These are images from the artist-in-residence live/work studio spaces that Mary, J. and I worked on during our 12-day residency at Elsewhere in Greensboro, NC. George Scheer and Stephanie Sherman, Elsewhere's Co-Directors, brought us back to work on these spaces because the three of us have worked in Elsewhere on several occasions and have a fondness for the collection and the building. The parameters of the project were to make 7 clean, comfortable, and semi-private studio spaces using items and materials found in the Elsewhere collection.

The rooms we were working in are located on the second floor of the building (this level was a former boarding house). For the 7 rooms of focus 3 are artist residency rooms (pictured), 1 for interns, 2 for curatorial fellows, and 1 for department directors. When we arrived these rooms all had plain large boxes with drawers built into them and a clean new cushion on top, 1 for each person (occupants vary from room to room). These structures were to act as couches/private spots for the people working in each room. For the sake of making this more concise I am only going to go into the process for the 3 rooms pictured above because they became our primary focus of attention. For the other 4 rooms we worked with the occupants to come up with long-term goals on space modification due to their long-term occupancy of these rooms.

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2nd floor plan

The 3 rooms pictured above are the artist-in-residence studios. These spaces will have new artists working in them every month so we tried to keep the spaces free of clutter* and easy for Hospitality Director Kay to clean and prepare for the next artists.

These rooms are located over the 608 side of Elsewhere. In the drawing of the floor plan of the 2nd floor these rooms are colored in purple and are a former suite in the boarding house, room 1 being the bedroom, room 2 being the kitchen, and room 3 being the living room. Each room has a door that opens up onto the main hallway and then a door that opens up into the room next to it (room 2/kitchen has three doors one into each of the other suite’s rooms and the hallway). I could be wrong but I think this was where Sylvia (George’s grandmother and owner of the former store downstairs) and her family had lived at one point. We are hoping the residents will keep the doors open between the rooms to create an inner corridor were they can pass through and engage with each other and hark back to when it was a familial space.

In each room we made the central aspect of the artists’ space their couch/private space/desk combinations. We wanted the walls of their private structures to reflect architectural and collection elements found in the building. Other tasks that needed to get done included the desks and chairs being cleaned and made structurally sound, pushpin boards, coat/bag racks, lamps, and power strips. We also had to do some cosmetic work to the rooms themselves to make them function easier. Oh yeah and finish cutting windows in the wall between room 1 and room 2 (very, very dusty).

Room 1’s structures make use of the lathe that has been pulled out of walls and ceilings in other parts of the building to create new walls. Instead of putting plaster over these walls we used collection fabric to create curtains that can conceal and reveal when desired. For the open side of these spaces we used notched posts that had been used in Sylvia’s store to hold bolts of fabric against the walls. The desks are placed up against the outside of the structures as the exterior can be used as a pushpin board for the collections gathered and work of the artists during their stay. This room has had many coats of paint applied to it over the years and we added another one. The chairs mounted on the wall can act as little closets for the artists.

Room 2’s structures make use of the huge collection of fabric at Elsewhere. The interiors are a plain grey almost burlap material that we hope over time will receive embroidered treatments and messages from their occupants. We painted over the back wall of the room white leaving triangles of former installations that had been in the room peeking through (pig head and wallpaper). We hope that more triangles will be added during the history of Elsewhere. On the green walls of the room where holes were left by nails we sanded through the layers of paint leaving them revealed (a little excavation).

In Room 3 we were inspired by the building’s original wallpaper, and the drawings that Lauren Simkin Berke had made on the walls, that our plans for the structures in the room came together easily. First we had to preserve the wallpaper and drawings by sealing them under a clear coat of poly-acrylic because they were flaking off in large sections. The drawings are blown up images drawn directly on the wall. These images were taken from the large paper archive at Elsewhere and deal with the army surplus era of the building. We loved the juxtaposition of the former living room with these images and lists layered over it. We wanted the structures to involve an outhouse or cabin smashed with a sofa. We used an amalgamation of wood pieces from the wood collection, former floors and walls and furniture and doorways of Elsewhere, to make the structures’ walls. We tried to mimic things happening in the walls of the room in the structures. Under a sheet of glass inlaid into the wall that was crumbling away we left a chunk of each of our hair wrapped in ribbon. Under another sheet of glass we put pieces of wallpaper that had fallen down.

In each room we have a mason jar filled with the dust and dirt from the cleaning process of the room this time around. They are placed high up on a shelf somewhere in each room.

I would also really like to mention Bianca, Jen, Jordan, Lauren, Rob, Ryan, Logan, Walker, George, and Aislinn for there input and physical help (even on their days off!), without it we would not have gotten nearly enough done. Also of key importance: Kay who kept us fed, Brennon who took our pictures, Chris who picked me up from the airport, Martha for her cushion covers, and Steph for the tacos.

Please go to http://www.goelsewhere.org/ to learn more about the history of the building and about Elsewhere as a living museum. I really can't cover it all here even though I want to.

*Free of clutter loosely means free of collections created by us in order for the artists to pull their own interpretations of the collection, space, and history into their room for their time at Elsewhere.

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Personal note on my time at Elsewhere

Everything that had been there, entombed and forgotten between the death of Sylvia and the first moments of George and Steph’s journey into this place has been unearthed and touched by new hands. This is inevitable, interesting and great but at the same time broke my heart (a trapping of nostalgia?). It smells different. Things are in a new order and “like is with like” or moving towards that direction. The order of Sylvia is gone. It needs to be gone in order for new conversations to happen but still in some way it freaks me out. I was not there in the very beginning, I came when the Sylvia order was disappearing and I even have had a hand in that dismantling but for some reason this time I felt it acutely. Maybe I am a romantic when it comes to Elsewhere (which I assure I would not consider myself in daily life)? I think I am just wincing at progress and holding onto the folktale of Sylvia (which is still apart of Elsewhere's narrative).

On the other hand the space is vibrant and full of life and ideas and I am so in awe as to how much cleaner and safer the space is and how it really is an institution, a serious institution. George and Steph have worked so hard with so many other people to create this amazing cultural space in downtown Greensboro (and beyond with ETC). Elsewhere has made it 10 years and is growing all the time and initiating interesting projects.

It felt good to shower inside the building for my first time.

It felt good to use a pneumatic nail gun.

I met so many amazing people.

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Queer Explorer's Club

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