We’re just getting into August today in our retrospective, and I’ll be talking a bit about our second thematic month, the Bird Sanctuary. About seven years before Portlandia requested that we “Put A Bird On It”, Nomadic Studio dedicated a full month to our winged comrades as a hat-tip to their flight, mobility, and beauty. We were ahead of our time, man. That, and we knew a whole flock of artists whose work focused majorly on the fine feathered ones. Besides, this month we also moved in the Convertible Stage, and were re-creating our first venue, A\V-Aerie for a revival later in the month. It was all fitting and locked into place.
Today’s entry (number 20!) is a double dose of Portable and Event, and came together for the opening reception of the Bird Sanctuary. Mike Slattery’s “Mobile Silk Screening Cart” is really something to behold. It’s a sizable, yet totally portable silk screening studio. It has storage for inks and screens, papers for printing, a complete set of tools, a collapsible storage rack for drying, and a pop-out work station that all folds up into a studio on-the-go. It was on loan from Ed Marzsewski and the folks at the Co-Prosperity Sphere. For scale, the work station is right about waist-high, and was fun to have for the whole exhibit, because we could easily roll it somewhere new as the space changed.
For the changeover to the Bird Sanctuary, we had moved out some of the first-month artwork, and brought in several dozen new pieces to decorate and define the space. Of those, it included four new pieces by the Bird Machine, which is helmed by the superstar of screen and stage, Jay Ryan. I’m not kidding, we put the cart up on the stage and he taught people how to screen prints. It was super. We’ll for sure look at his Nomadic artwork in another entry. Jay brought a screen of one of his pigeon prints, and people lined up to give the squeegee a pull on the Cart. Everyone participant got a one-of-a-kind one-color screen print that they could take home. Jay shepherded about 60 people through their first silkscreen. Ever the consummate showman and teacher, after every silk screen reveal, Jay shouted “It’s A Pigeon!”, and everybody laughed. Every time. Great energy, great teaching, and it was wonderfully on-the-nose that one of Jay’s regular collaborators, Andrew Bird showed up to take it all in. More on this month shortly, there’s a lot to cover!
Faiz
