This Place Matters was created with the help of my fellow resident artists and with the poetry of residents Anthony Phillips, Grace Carmack, Sue McNally, and Emma Watt.
The two sides of each drawing loosely mirror the other. The drawings started as a visual response to the poems featured.
After the initial drawings were done the other artists of collaborate create were invited to improve/ develop/ change/ revise/ fix up/ gentrify/ the drawings.
After which I could choose to “restore” one side of each drawing to my original. The other side I had to leave in it’s altered state. In a back and forth process the drawings built into two conflicting sides: one where I was stubbornly trying to maintain control, to “preserve” the image, and the other where I had no say.
During the Your [ ____ ] Neighborhood show the audience was provided with a variety of drawing material and were invited to improve/ develop/ change/ revise/ fix up/ gentrify/ the drawings. Theirs was the last say as to what the drawings looked like, I was helpless to stop the change or change it back.
This Place Matters was conceived and developed during Your [ ____ ] Neighborhood, cycle 5 of Forward Flux Productions’ collaborate create 21 day residency program in Seattle, May 2015. The artists of Your [ ____ ] Neighborhood explored concepts centered around Gentrification.
