New Work: Scene

Today, I completed a new series of work called Scene. The six panels of the series are individually titled, and the title also appears as the first sentence on each panel. Each panel is particleboard coated with acrylic white paint. (A few months ago, someone was throwing out an Ikea-esque shelf in my building, so I took a few of the shelving boards knowing that I wanted to use them for something at some point.) On each board is text written with a Sharpie marker. On top of the text, I glued a digital inkjet cutout of me. I then wrapped the side of the three-quarter-inch thick board with electrical vinyl tape that matches the color of the Sharpie marker. The written text describes a scene — or environment — that the character exists in. For detailed shots, please click on the image below.

Scene 1: A rooftop in Brooklyn.
mixed media
10 1/4″ x 30″ x 3/4″

Two things directly inspired this series:
1) reading the stage directions for Darcy Fowler’s play, The Bird and the Two-Ton Weight.
2) Chip Kidd’s memory about a professor teaching good design.

The first inspiration has been a long time coming. For almost a year, I’ve had the pleasure of being part of my friend’s play reading. Darcy has written this amazing play called The Bird and the Two-Ton Weight, and so far, it’s only been presented as a reading (though there was one staged version in Syracuse which I don’t know anything about). A reading of a play is very simple: the actors are standing in a room with music stands in front of them, and here and there they glance at the script and basically read the entire play out loud without any sets or props. A reading of a play is the first step of a long process that ends with the play being produced for millions of dollars. A reading is a way to get the work out there, create some buzz, and hopefully attract some investors. Think of it as alpha testing! Beta testing might then be an Off-Broadway house or even a huge theatre on the west coast, and then finally Broadway. (This is all of course, just one path, of many, that a play can go down.)

Scene 2: A studio in Brooklyn.

I came into Darcy’s project because I was always hanging around and wanted to be involved. I also came into the project because I have a nice voice! So I’m not an actor in the show, but rather, I sit to the side of the actors and read the stage directions out loud. In a script, the playwright may have specific stage directions for the actor. However, during a reading, there isn’t a set with a door for the actor to enter, or a prop like a phone, for the actor to use. When a character picks up a phone, I literally say out loud, “Chelsea picks up the phone and starts dialing”. Easy, right? Another big part of reading the stage directions comes with the description of the scene the playwright envisions. Again, there’s no set that the audience can see, so during the reading, I would read Darcy’s description of the scene out loud. It was through these words that the audience was able to visually see something for the actors to be existing in.

Scene 3: A dance club in Pittsburgh.

Okay, the second inspiration was something that Chip Kidd briefly mentioned during his lecture a week ago. He said that when he was an undergrad, he had a professor that drew on the blackboard a picture of an apple and then wrote the word ‘apple’ underneath the drawing. The professor then covered up the drawing of the apple, pointed to the word ‘apple’ and said, “you either write this,” and then covered up the word and pointed to the drawing, “or you show this”. To the prof, there was no reason to both visually and literally say something.

Scene 4: A music venue in Manhattan.

So the combination of both inspirations brought me to Scene. I asked myself, “what if I literally described the scene that I’m in, rather than visually photograph it”? So I did it!

There are a few things I think about when I look at this work. First, the title, which is also the first sentence of the scene, is really the most important element of the text. The viewer can read the title and automatically begin to visualize the scene. The rest of the text describes certain elements that I believe are in the scene, but because the photograph of me is pasted on top of the text, that suggests that what is underneath isn’t that important. The viewer can pick up descriptive words here and there, but as long as they get the title, I think that he/she will be able to place me in the scene.

Scene 5: A porch of a house in Pittsburgh.

Second, the idea of color is apparent. I decided once again to commit to my signature element of sequencing my work in rainbow color order. It also makes me think about a show that is at the MOMA right now, which I haven’t seen yet but read a review in the NYT, titled Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today. The review mentioned that the show revealed the commodity of color — today’s artists can buy color. Hell yeah, I bought these colors and I love them! Other than that, I really have to research more on the show. Also, the idea that Conceptual Art was based on text, but only if it was in black/white/gray, is confusing the hell out of me. Do ideas and thoughts come in color?

Scene 6: A living room of a suburban home in New Jersey.

Lastly, I love that I can step back from the work and still see the scene. The words may get blurry and the lines of text simply become lines of color, but after the initial view, the visual scene is engrained in my mind. But what can also be neat is that the scene can change! While I am specific in describing certain elements, I also omit the description of so many other things. The work relies a lot on the viewer’s imagination.

Links Cited:
MOMA exhibition, Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today.