For the past ten days, art professor Micheal Shaugnessy has been knees deep in hay, and getting St. Louis into the hay as well. His sculpture stands as the inagural exhibition of St. Louis’ Craft Alliance, an anticipated new gallery and artist space. He has worked from sun-up until past sundown since the day he arrived, building his signature structures, and completely covering them in hay. His assistant and intern, Ryland Cook, 2008 graduate of USM has kept tabs on their progress via a journal for the free press. From arriving in St. Louis with just the packs on their backs, to producing an entire exhibit of larger-than-life sculpture, (with the help of local volunteers) in time for a gala event opening that celebrates the opening of the space and Shaungnessy’s work.
lege credit.
In short, it involves flying to St. Louis Missouri to build a large art installation with USM art professor Michael Shaughnessy.
Day 1.
Fly out of Manchester New Hampshire on United Airlines. The flight was easy and smooth, just how we like them. We arrived in St. Louis at 6 pm, picked up up our snazzy rental car, and headed to Craft Alliance where we would be designing and building their inaugural exhibition.
We met the gallery staff at the door, and before even entering the space, were taken to eat. Thank God. I spent our pre-dinner conversation quietly starving and being annoyed by the overly enthusiastic theater people who were our new guides. Finally we ate. I began feeling less airplane-tired, and a bit more alive. I have also begun to realize that this is an unpaid internship. I assume that once this is over it will have been a very cool experience, but I am certainly not used to working for free. Wait, I am not working for free, as I paid around 700 dollars for these 3 credits. At this point I take a deep breath and remember:
A. This is it. You are done and graduated in 10 days.
B. This will look really good on a resume.
C. This could actually turn out really cool.
That night we went to our hotel, which is definitely worthy a hearty description.
We are staying at the Cheshire Inn. It is a ye olde merry style place filled with antiques. Some real, some fake. It’s also teeming with taxidermied animals including a ferocious grizzly bear. Mixed in with these stuffed animals and tacky decorations are some really good paintings. Like, old, beautiful, well maintained oil paintings that are probably worth some money. The best part of our home is the themed romantic suites that the hotel boasts. For example: The Sherwood Forest suite, the Bathe suite, the captain’s quarters, and the Raj suite. Apparently Indian culture was very important in ye merry England. Oh, and they have a sweet bar here, where Michael nearly got in a fight in with a McCain supporter. Can’t say I blame him.
Day 2.
Michael’s process is very specific and challenging to describe with out visual aid. Essentially, His large-scale hay pieces are woven on a loom that we build to be whatever shape he likes. Today I began building the loom. This involves screwing a drywall screw every two and a half inches in the sides of plywood circles. This takes forever as there are 24 screws on an 18″ inch circle, and as of right now we have 35 circles, so lots of drilling with more to come . There are a bunch of volunteers here helping weave the “lines” that eventually become the large pieces that hang on the wall. It is really helpful having these volunteers to build the majority of these lines, as tying these pieces together rips your hands to shreds. I have many blisters on my hands from the many lines I made today. We are so far eating delicious, yet very unhealthy food. This is okay for day 1, but will not be okay if I am still saying this on day 10. Lets hope for some fruits and veggies in our near future.
Day 3.
Today the building of the large form began. Michael has decided on a large spiral shape that will be around 8 feet tall and stretch out around 19 feet. The process that we used to get the spiral was very interesting. We laid out two sheets of plywood side by side, found the center and placed one drywall screw dead center. We then took another screw and placed it 3 inches away from that center. A string was attached to the center screw, and then the string was pulled straight out to the edge of the plywood, where we tied a pencil. All you do then is use the string to make sure that you keep a clean and consistent circle. The screw that we put in acts as a catch for the string, so that every time we make a loop, the string is shortened by the length of the distance between the who screw, resulting in a perfect spiral. (Very hard to visualize without a picture, I know.)
Next I cut the spiral out of plywood, which was then laid on the floor to have the circular ribs attached. Long story short, we left that day with a shaky yet upright and extended spiral.
We left the gallery, went home and changed and headed straight to an opening at the Craft Alliances original space. It was a show of three ceramic artists who each were very talented at what they did. One was a photo realist (trompe l’oeil), one did dark holocaust inspired abstractions, and the third made the very strange dog/alligators with erections. Very interesting. After the opening we were directed to the after party at the main patron’s huge house in the west end. I was a bit nervous, as surely this would be an uppity party and I would get trapped either talking to someone extremely boring or, nobody at all.
However, as the line of guests entered this million-dollar home, we were pleasantly welcomed in with a very high-class jello shot. I immediately relaxed and had a wonderful time. The party was catered by a very fancy place so the food was amazing. They had bottle after bottle of wine, and as I mingled, discovered nine original hand drawn frames from the Yellow Submarine! Very cool.
Day 4.
Today we had a group of local high school kids helping out. I forget that not all high school kids are cocky little bastards. These guys are really interesting people, who are being extremely helpful. The day is not even finished and we already have the majority of the spiral warped (yarned up’) and ready for hay. Sick bro.
Day 5.
Today this large, fragile and awkward spiral begins to change from a skeleton to a sculpture. The weaving has just begun and already one can get a sense of what this frame will become. Not that it isn’t beautiful in is aked form, but the hay really changes it from a fun group of shapes, to a whole until that takes on a life of it’s own. Today the director of the gallery Boo, stopped by with her daughter and invited us to a potluck dinner at Luanne’s house. (Luanne is the assistant director) The gallery people have something planned for us literally every night. It is almost exhausting have so many plans. After working the whole day all I want to do is chill out and breathe. However, all of the events that I have been wishing to skip turn out to be really enjoyable. This potluck dinner turned out to be no exception. That night the younger people from the gallery were all going out on the town to celebrate one of their boyfriend’s birthdays and I got invited along. This boyfriend turned out to be extremely rich and live in by far the largest house I have ever been in. He had rented the party bus and also stocked it with booze for our fifteen-minute drive downtown. The night was a blast and we stayed out late drinking and talking and watching bar fights. I dreaded the fact that I may be woken up at 7 am to get to the gallery to start weaving. Luckily for me, Michael stayed at the dinner until 1 am and slept in himself. Score.
Day 6.
Got to sleep till 9! We got to the Craft Alliance at 11, feeling slow and hung over. I spent the day weaving and Michael decided to head up to Kansas City to visit his brother. It was a nice quiet day. The artist in residence here at the gallery showed me all of their work and the processes that they adhere to and I showed them pictures of my paintings.
As I was leaving the gallery, Stephanie, Dave and Ruby showed up and invited me to dinner at their place (Stephanie and Dave were the potluck holders, and Ruby is their baby daughter.) I gladly accepted, and was whisked away for homemade Indian food.
We played with Ruby, who is as cute as a button, and ate and drank wine and had a really nice time. I got home and was asleep by 10. I was so tired from the long night before, so bed was precisely where I wanted to be.
At press time, there were three more days to go, so stay tuned for tales of the gallery opening night and gala event that ensued.