Author Archives: Cynthia Gehrie

About Cynthia Gehrie

As a botanical artist, I am inspired by the natural world, and search for techniques of representation and expression. As a professional documenter, I use photography, video, field notes, and qualitative methods to record naturally occuring events, which I return to for reflection and analysis. My work has expanded over the years to include evaluation of arts integration and early childhood grants in universities and early childhood centers. The purpose of this journal is to record and reflect on the relationship between my work as artist and as documenter/evaluator.

Conversation with Gary Mosley II, at Bemis Center – Old Market

Gary is visiting Bemis Center with his art class. He will be a concept artist or animator.

Gary Mosely II reaches for his pen in his backpack, and folds his tall body on the stool to work at the large table. He starts to draw, rapidly moving his pen, explaining that the Flock House reminds him of a lantern – only with more space. Or maybe a chair, like a paper flower, with petals. Or a lounge like a house. His pen races as his mind moves from idea to idea and his pen from image to image.

On Google he saw paper lanterns as flowers blooming. He envisions lounges distributed. Inviting people to chat and relax and paint.

Flower shapes. His inspiration. Light, not heavy. “Light that does not feel humid.”

“I will install a fan on top of the petals.” Flock House. “Nomadic but a hint of technology.”

“Make a heat source to heat the water and then cool it. Energy. Make things move without human hands.” He begins to write phrases next to his technical drawing, flowing down the page.

“I have an idea. For nighttime, paper lanterns above it. We need to look at the shape of flowers for inspiration or more organic shapes.”

Cassidy is sitting across the table looking at a book. Ectopia. A photo on the cover of Mary Mattingly’s Posthuman navigator.

Gary glances over, responding with ink, quickly sketching a human form.

Then envisions an ocean house, more tropical. “One to fit that motif.”

He would like to work more on the Flock House project, but doesn’t know if he “has the time or ability to come down to Old Market.”

Conversation with April Earl at Bemis Center – Old Market

July 2, 1014 at Bemis Center – Flock House exhibit

“What a peaceful place to work.” April says as she looks around the Flock House exhibit, which offers room for study and sketching. April works at the Main Omaha Public Library, where Alex Priest, exhibitions assistant at Bemis, curates exhibits at the Michael Phipps Gallery.

As soon as April finishes writing her responses to the 7 Questions, we talk about what she envisions in a Flock House.

April: Cisterns. I can imagine making a thing to let in rainwater, and then moving it closed when you have enough. There is a new source of water every time it rains.

April: Dakota needs to come here. He lives this way; he knows how to do it, how to survive. I ask her how to bring him here. She answers, I don’t know where to find him, but I will try.

April: The most important idea here is that you can make a house out of whatever you have. I have seen villages of displaced people who make homes, even of cardboard, and they become a village.

April: Another important idea is not feeling the need to fix things up. Still, I still think there is a need to make it your own. (With a Flock House being self-sufficient) you can show how clever you were. How you solved the problem of getting electricity and water. Some would really feel that need for invention, to just create. Others would want theirs as cute as it could be.

April: In a flock of these houses, I would expect enormous handcrafted diversity. Astonishing invention. Yet, sharing the knowledge of these inventions with one another.

April is on her lunch hour, and only has a moment to enter the Flock House and make a quick sketch.

Flock House gives focus to a Ray of Hope

Flock House structure gives focus to a Ray of Hope

Drawing in the NYC Flock House – Omaha Flock House exhibit at Bemis Center

July 1, 2014

“I have been up cycling from discarded materials, and making art from them since 2004. It’s something I really enjoy. I am also a big supporter of the “Tiny Houses” movement.” Tyler Kessel

Cassidy, Tyler and I met at Bemis Center in Old Market to set up the first phase of the Palimpsest project.

Responding to 7 questions

We began by answering 7 questions about Flock House. We hope many visitors will use these questions to think about Flock House, and share their ideas. Our writing fed discussion about Flock House as structure, creative space, and shelter.

As structure: Open and free, Little or No Facade, Constructed of Recycled, Up-cycled for a “New Used” approach in making Functional Art. Flock House is Radical and Useful, Intriguing and Mystical, Exposed Metal and Wood, Organic and Industrial. These qualities are Futuristic Functional. The NYC Flock House is highly Tactile, sculpted wood, a Lantern, Platform, lifted up from street level, a Movable foundation. These are highly Urban structures. This question about using recycled materials, “Is there more waste than structure on the planet?” Useful, discarded materials = Abundance?

As creative space: Inviting. Not a place to live. No storage. Not really weather tight – Exposed. A place you want to enter, do something you want to do. A work space. No where. Non where. A place of Discovery. A place of Creative Solutions. Aquaponics. Water filtration. Rain capture. Growing plants for food and beauty. Why are we so ignorant of these basic systems, so dependent on obscure utilities?

As shelter: How would I bathe, use the bathroom? If many houses installed in a Flock, would these practical issues be solved communally? A shared kitchen, shared dining, central toilets and bathing? Is a completely self-sufficient Flock House a necessity for the first stage? How will this idea evolve as more people build them and discover how to use them? Are we talking about the need for shelter for the Less fortunate? Or about purging our material space to Less clutter and stuff? Is Less a virtue or a loss?

We go to the 4th and 5th floors at Bemis. We find small boxes for the art materials we will place in the Flock House for visitors to use. Cassidy finds boxes to use as screens when she begins to make paper. She leaves us carrying materials for paper making.

Cassidy leaves with boxes, newspaper and recycled materials from Bemis Center.

Tyler is ready to draw inside the Flock House. He selects pens, pencils, markers. He uses 6 x 6 paper cut from a Bristol pad.

“I felt I could mix elements of art and line work that are out of my comfort. I think I’ll build one of my own.” Words and drawing by Tyler Kissel.

Neil Griess interview in Flock House – Old Market

Hi, all!

I wanted to reach out to the group that worked on the Flock Houses to see if there was any interest in being interviewed about the project? While I was only around for the design and construction process here and there, one thing that I did do is take several audio recordings during the install day at the Bemis. My intention is to make a sound piece during my residency at the Bemis location, collaging the material that I have already recorded with new recordings that I will make during my stay. I want the final piece to be a documentation of the project, and I really think interviews with those involved would enrich that!

Neil

I was happy to be interviewed by Neil about my Flock House experience. I was also eager to return to the Flock House in Old Market and participate as a guest in Neil’s residency.

Bringing electric power through window of Okada building.

When I approached at 3 pm on July 27, 2014, I saw Alex feeding electric power to the Flock House for Neil to use for his sound equipment. Later I spoke with Neil about the unfinished structure. It is not yet self-sustaining, with its own electric power, water supply and sanitation. Perhaps this was overly ambitious. Planning, preparing materials and assembling two Flock House Omaha structures was an enormous undertaking. I began to focus on its value as a structure. A sculptural composition of triangles. A shelter to house a series of residencies.

Neil posiitons the recorder on a tripod, then attaches a wind sock.

Neil positions the recorder on a tripod, then attached a wind sock.

As Neil set up the sound recorder and microphones, I sat in a chair looking at the walls. First, I noticed that someone finished painting the wood trim to the triangular doors. I remembered starting this small painting project, working until we locked the doors in darkening light. I remembered my hands working the stain into the trim with the brush. I thought of other hands continuing the following day. I like the idea of an open process, where one person can work, and another pick up the task later to continue. Much is accomplished if many do even a little.

As my eyes scanned the walls, I realized that my brain was organizing the triangles into shapes. Two triangles connected along their base made a diamond. Six triangles joined at the apex formed a hexagon. In this unique structure there are no 90° angles. No rectangles or squares. Only triangles, diagonals, and walls at strange angles to the floor. It was stimulating and even comfortable. I wondered how this environment might undergird creative work we would undertake here.

As I answered Neil’s questions, I began to look forward to spending more time in this space. It did not feel incomplete or imperfect because of what was missing from the original plan. It felt just right. Even powerful.

Flock House as idea and creative space

The Flock House in NYC

I invite you to the Flock House Project: Omaha gallery exhibit in Bemis Center in Old Market to take part in a Palimpsest project of research and art making.

On Tuesday – Saturday, 11 am – 5 pm, July 1 – August 4, The New York City Flock House will be open to visitors as a space of inquiry and research into the idea of Flock House. I invite you to visit and work in the inquiry phase. You will have the opportunity to think about the idea of Flock House and answer 7 questions. This is a warm up to art making.

Open for design work and envisioning Flock House July 1 – August 4

I will supply the NYC Flock House with paper and drawing materials. You will enter the Flock House to imagine a Flock House you would build, and what you would do there. Draw your ideas and write about a project you envision.

Enter to make your contribution to the Palimpsest project archive.

I will add your writing and drawings to an Online archive for the Flock House Omaha: Project.

Return to the Omaha Flock House at Bemis Center Old Market, August 6 – 16 to help transform these ideas and drawings into Palimpsest compositions.

Palimpsest IV – origins of absorption – The Gates

In winter 2005 I documented The Gates, a massive transformation of Central Park in New York City by Cristo and Jeanne-Claude. It was a study I undertook to prepare for a plenary presentation and workshop at a summer institute for arts integration education at the Peace Center in Greenville, South Carolina. My purpose was to weave artifacts created by the artists into ambient sound and video of the installation. The video preceded my presentation, which focused on stages of accumulating documentation, as well as reflection on the limits of the camera frame vs. the full scope and complexity of an event.

I recalled the experience because The Gates superimposed a complete, temporary layer over the landscape of Central Park, inviting all the city to step into a new dimension of familiar space. It became a lens through which to view the park, to “see” it underlying this new interpretation.

It was beautiful. The color, movement of flags, and rhythmic placement of frames. The fact that you walked under the flags while viewing other flags along the pathways was mesmerizing. Having the experience, and documenting it, by stopping from time to time to “capture” another point of view or set of participants, is a way of seeing intentionally though the camera lens. It adds a documentary layer to the experience. One to recover after the physical installation is gone.

I realize that the Flock House project, of which the Omaha Project is a part, is this kind of art making. A major difference is that the artist, Mary Mattingly, facilitates a community effort to create the lens. The planning group and work groups are co-designers and co-creators of the physical material and objects they bring into the New Market and Carver Bank landscapes. Residents inhabit the objects.

I realized that if I were to have a residency, I would want to open it to visitors, to engage them in making reflective documentation of their response to the Flock House as an object. I would also want to mirror Mary’s artist role by inviting a team to plan and facilitate.

Palimpsest III – origins of absorption

I tried to re-construct the steps that led me to my absorption with palimpsest as a method of composition. The farthest back I can go is circa 2006. I purchased a small condominium in Chicago on Lake Michigan, next to the new Millennium Park. My plan was to fix it up while I sold the one I lived in. Everyone was doing this then.

My son was studying in Barcelona, and I went to visit him for a week. It is a deep pleasure to visit your children and be introduced to a new world through their eyes. We visited a flea market. He went ahead while I stopped to look carefully at some fabric. When I caught up with him, he was holding tiles. Beautiful, hand-made tiles. I bought about 20 and hauled them back to Chicago to use in my next home.

“Verde y Morado” 51GLO XV
Pintado a Mano

I cannot explain what happened next. I started carrying this tile when I made arrangements for flooring (I selected walnut wood floors to match the tile), appliances, (I selected stainless stove, sink and refrigerator,) or paint for the ceilings and floors (I selected only these colors to match the tile: dark brown, blueish green, off warm white and sand. )

Sitting in the living area (there was also a sleeping area), on the shag carpet, I began to see the room as a large canvas. I will make it look old, I thought. Like Barcelona. The pillars at either end of the window walls – antique marble. The window seats over the radiators and air conditioning – painted with a solvent that shrivels paint, leaving it looking like the back of an alligator. The walls – beaten with brushes, stippling tools and rollers until they glowed with a soft white patina,.The boxy kitchen cabinets – green with metallic silver celtic knots lining the edges, and silver mythical beasts stenciled like cave paintings on cabinet doors.

The entire project emerged slowly, giving me about 8 months of freedom. Scribbling, spraying, palpitating, stroking, rubbing, sanding the large surfaces, then refining, slowly adding form and detail. Working big, without limit of frame. I felt liberation settling into mind and body. It was a total departure from my usual botanical painting, which uses medium to small papers, boards or film; focusing on detail in form, proportion and gesture.

Heirloom sweet potatoes, carbon dust on film

As I was finishing up and moving in furniture, the real estate sales manager from the building came to see. She asked whether I might consider selling. I had sold my other condo and was looking forward to being here a while. But then, I was curious. I signed the agreement papers and left to visit my brother in California.

A few days later, I learned that a couple from Amsterdam had made an offer. A good offer. They wanted immediate possession. I only saw it one more time, when I moved out.

Tool Boxes prepared for Flock Houses

June 7, 2014 – Picking recycled materials to support and inspire Flock House residents.

When I arrived at the Flock House at Bemis, I went upstairs to meet Mary, Alex and John on the 5th floor. Floors 4 and 5 are storage areas for recycled materials. Our job was to search these areas for stuff that Flock house residents and design teams might use to complete the houses. So far, we have installed and are sealing the structures. The next step is to invent ways to capture and store water, and design an electrical and plumbing system, merged with plantings.

The items will be placed in tool boxes; and left in both the Bemis and the Carver Bank Flock Houses. When we found something we thought might be useful, we put it on a cart. These boxes (above) were originally for pastels. They are still dusty, but might be handy to organize materials a resident would bring during their stay. Some things are for fun, like a small wooden airplane, a flute, and an Art book.

“We need something for gutters” – to direct the rain into a storage container. We do not find anything, until someone spots a large aluminum pipe that could be cut in two. I find white ceramic tiles, a metal weight, cut fiber board rectangles, an enamel bowl and a baby’s spoon.

Then we wheeled the cart over to the Okada facility.

Earlier, Mary found cooking and eating utensils. That box is already in the Flock House at Bemis (see below), because Dwayne Brown will be staying there tonight. He will write a piece in edible OMAHA magazine.

We set out the tool boxes for both Flock houses and the materials to conduct an inventory. (below)

I pick out items that are dusty, then take them to the sink and spray faucet. Then I set them outside to dry. Later, Alex divides the materials into the boxes (below).

This is when I notice that the tomatoes have blossoms and two sets.

Flock House – Omaha Project at Carver Bank

June 7, 2014 – First visit to Carver Bank to see the Pentagon Flock House

Turning north from Dodge to 24th street, skirting the eastern edge of the Creighton campus, entering an old and somewhat deserted part of town. Moving north, it begins to dawn on me that the environment is changing. The landscape was sleepy and residential, but now the street signs are eye-catching. Large, bright, celebratory. By the time I reached 24th and Lake I was in a jaw dropping zone of transformation. I imagined myself entering Brigadoon, and looking at another (unseen) sign, “Genius at Work.”

I turned into the (free) parking lot at Carver Bank. There was a 5 sided Flock House. I reached for my camera, got out of the car into damp air following a hard rain, and started shooting.

The raised planting beds had beets and tomatoes. A newly planted oak tree framed my shot. The environment framed the Flock House and drew me to enter the Carver Bank building. Amanda saw me through the widow and pointed me around to the front of the building. The former bank front, sandblasted, has a new surface with older words still visible. Palimpsest. A sign that I recognized as part of my Flock House journey.

I entered a gallery. The art on the walls was colorful geometric painting on wood, cut into pieces and reassembled with electric energy. Carefully crafted, fitted like stone walls at Machu Picchu. A collection of collages drew me closer for study. Each collage, a curation of pattern and color. An imaginary world. My jaw now hung helplessly from its hinges.

Then J appeared, like a temple virgin, with quiet, warm welcome. She was holding her drawing of the Flock House at Carver Bank.

She drew it with Amanda, the Curator of the Flock House Project at Bemis and Carver Bank, who sat in a warm wood-paneled library adjoining the gallery.

Who are these people in your drawing? “This is me” (green dress), and that’s Amanda (bright red hair).

Is that a fire? “Yes. They are cooking marshmallows. They burned it. It is better that way.”

Later, I noticed that her drawing also included the raised garden beds with a plant.

Amanda joined us and we went outside, to the Flock House.

It was beautiful to watch these two in this space. Playful and happy.

J began to take photos with my camera. When we went inside I saw the artist’s studios where 3-D, life-sized roses formed a grid pattern on a board. Was this the work of one of the resident artists at Carver Bank?

Before leaving, I stepped into Big Mama’s Sandwich Shop, an extension of Carver Bank. I could not leave without tasting their famous sweet potato ice cream. I was wise to follow my intuition. Scrumptious.

A plant project with Peter

While Mary and Alex caulked the seams between the large TRIANGLES, Peter and I installed the plant containers around the base platform of the Flock House at Bemis.

At first Peter and I wanted to hang the planters on the walls of the Flock House at Bemis. Then Alex pointed out that putting holes in the walls for so many planters would let in water and weaken the structure. He then suggested we use the periphery of the foundation platform. We studied the back of the container, finding two holes below the dirt level that could hold a screw head. Peter designed a jig that let him mark with a pencil the place to drill holes in the foundation wood. He then spiraled the screws into place.

I hung the plants and helped him distribute them evenly along the periphery of the south and east walls.

The building next to the Flock House is the Okada Sculpture Facility at Bemis. The main gallery building at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts is in the tall brick building in the background, across the paving stone street found in the Old Market.

At 4 pm a KMTV news crew arrived to interview Mary and Amanda. If you look in the background of some of these clips, you will see me wearing my wide brimmed hat, helping Alex grout the TRIANGLE seams.

http://www.jrn.com/kmtv/news/up-front-at-4/New-York-City-Artist-Brings-Art-to-Life-in-Old-Market–262038801.html

A group of children taking a tour of the Bemis galleries, later visited the new Flock House. This photo documents the first group of visitors.

Flock House – Omaha, Documentation

Cynthia Gehrie's journal of participating in Flock House – Omaha