Art - The Good and the Bad

Uh oh. I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I recently had a piece of art juried into an upcoming exhibition. The bad news is, I’m having a difficult time reconstructing it.

Yes. I have to reconstruct it. The piece that was chosen by the juror is an installation piece that I created in the fall of 2008. It’s made of yellow ginko leaves and torn paper from a poetry book. After sending in my CD of digital images this fall, I gathered as many ginko leaves as I could. After all, my installation stood up well into January on its original go-round, so it should be fine being reinstalled in the winter.

Well, here’s the problem. It was a wet fall. I foolishly put my leaf collection in a bag and some jars without first letting them dry out completely. When I dumped them out onto the studio floor it was quickly apparent that they were molded. I was able to salvage a few, but in general, my art materials are decomposing and my studio (also my living space) smells like mushrooms. On top of that, I have only a few short weeks to find yellow leaves if there are any around anywhere. I need to find a solution that will be beautiful and not too far off from the original photos that I sent to the juror. Oh, and did I mention that she asked me to make the piece larger for this exhibition? She would like it “to have more of a presence.” Oh dear. Wish me luck.

If you have any suggestions, or have a collection of ginko leaves that I could have/purchase/trade for, I would be very grateful.