Installation plans

I am planning to include an installation at the upcoming clay exhibition, "From the Ground Up" at Larson Gallery.

I have experience with installation work but I am starting to fret about this one. I'm mostly just fretting because that's what I do at this stage. The work is made, I can't really make any more pieces before the deadline but the installation isn't up yet so I fret. To ease my own fretting, I'll plan, or, in this case, write about installations.

My first wall installation was created for my senior show in college.

The installation consisted of 100 "bulb" shapes arranged in a 10 x 10 grid. The piece took up the short wall of the long gallery. The pieces were pinched and raku fired. Later I recreated the installation with different bulbs, different arrangements, and different surfaces for firing methods. One installation in a window display of Higher Fire Gallery in Madison was hung from strong fishing line with pieces "evolving" onto the floor. 

Later I recreated a version of the installation in my parents' living room.

During graduate school I created several different installations using clay and one using handmade paper and fabric.

My Master of Fine Arts Exhibition was a large installation in the Allen Centennial Gardens on University of Wisconsin-Madison's campus.

  

  

One fall I even had my Art Appreciation students create installations after watching Andy Goldsworthy's Rivers & Tides.

I haven't done an installation myself in some time. My plan for this installation is to use a variety of different pieces arranged together on the wall in the gallery. I was expecting to use about 10 or 12 medium sized pieces and several small forms. I laid out my plans on the patio outside my home studio before the works were glazed, but the installation will look different fired and installed on a vertical surface.

Here are some of the pieces I intend to use in the installation.

    

  

Ironically, this week when I was preparing to present on my trip to NCECA last March and was going through my images from the conference. I found this picture from the NCECA Biennial that I had forgotten about. 

So, I'm not sure that writing about installations made me feel much better, but it allowed me to think and plan my installation a little more. We'll see what happens in February.