Janet Groenert - Barrier Tape and Wearable Electronics

Janet Groenert

Name: Janet Groenert

City/State: St Paul MN

Email:jgroenert@gmail.com

Website: N/A

MNartist.org profile:  http://mnartists.org/Janet_Groenert

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/PedalBearArtShanty

Twitter: @grownert

Bio~ Janet Groenert was born in San Diego California in 1957. She received a BFA  from  the  Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Janet’s wearable work has exhibited nationally and internationally and was featured in Threads magazine. She recently finished a research and planning grant from Forecast Public art and is working on a commission for Habitat for Humanity. She lives and works in the Twin Cities. 

Tell me about your work? 

In last 10 years have been exploring barrier tape and wearable electronics. 

The barrier tape pieces have the tape hitched to mesh forms as clothing, in embroidery frames  as a bear pelt and as indoor and outdoor installations.

The availability and variety of the barrier tape, its’ temporary intent, the common and uncommon printed messages, the texture that occurs from the cutting or tearing strips then hitching it onto mesh to form a dense area, the drape of the 3” strips when longer, the visual reference to flowers, fur, ribbon and connections to those elements in culture. How the message is obscured when hitched, the linear nature of the material  create  a cloud map of connections for me. People recognize caution tape. It is 

in common usage.

Electronics is a slower process for me. I am exploring Arduino, Lilypad and Aniomagic components.  I am working on  a piece that will have a audio. Eighteen conductive fabric switches will activate the sound elements.

What are you currently working on?

This month I am working on two collaborative projects, the Pedal Bear Art Shanty at the White Bear Center for the Arts and  White Bear Lake and a commission for the new Habitat for Humanity building on Prior and University Avenues in St Paul.

How is this different from past projects?

I tend to work alone at home. Both current projects require the help and input of many people.

Part of the Pedal Bear Shanty mission is to reuse and recycle materials. Our team of 12 artists have collected large sheets of plastic used to envelope scaffolding at construction sites, and shipping wrappers for furniture and protect large merchandise and pallets of items delivered to home building stores.

Many people in Minneapolis and White Bear Lake have spend hours cutting the plastic into strips for many other people to hitch on the the mesh pelt for the bears.

Our Habitat for Humanity proposal has  Ericka Dennis and I interviewing staff, volunteers and home buyers about their experience with Habitat. I have been attending  home dedications to meet the home buyers children and collect drawings from them. I also made a Quilt Block Design game in Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/14358015/). Families, volunteers, and staff have designed quilt block patterns for the project. The Quilt is made of building materials , copper pipe, images printed on Tyvek(housewrap) and survey colors. 

How did you decide to become an artist? 

Since I was a young child I have  gravitated to making things, to express, to acknowledge, to interpret, to understand, to explore. My process of making requires planning,execution and evaluation along with periods of repetitive work. Making is a mind body experience.

Or it could be I liked getting in trouble for getting glue on the wall to wall carpet. 

What was the best advice given to you as an artist? 

Get started, persevere, explore, experiment, try new techniques, have  a community, listen to the world, seek out resources, apply for grants, above all keep working, work every day no matter how little. 

Many artists struggle to find ways to sell their art.  How do you sell your work? 

Exhibitions and publications have generated the most sales.

I have a day job at the Science Museum of Minnesota. It requires the skills I have as an artist and I am exposed to a  ton of things I bring back  to my art work. 

How do you market yourself?

Not much, I have a site at www.mnartists.org/groenert

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy? 

There are so many i can't even remember them all...

Hussein Chalayan   http://chalayan.com/art-projects/ an artist's perspective on clothing 

High Point http://highpointprintmaking.org/  basketball court floor and ironing board prints don’t remember the artists names

Open Eye Figure Theatre   http://www.openeyetheatre.org/ the wide range of puppeteers that they host is awe-inspiring

Liz Miller http://www.lizmiller.com/ for the scale and repetition

Doug Argue  http://dougargue.com/  scale and poetry of the work

Barebones Productions http://barebonespuppets.org/   rawness of  materials and inventiveness

Hottea    http://www.flickr.com/photos/hotandtea/   use of public structures

Erica Spitzer Rasmussen   http://ericaspitzerrasmussen.com/  female body metaphors

Marcus Young   http://www.graceminnesota.org/

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?

Oh god. My personal art mythology is a non linear associative map of connections and influences.

I hear about interesting things on MPR and in City pages and from friends. I am a member of Textile Center, MIA( Minnesota Artist Exhibition Program), the Walker and Support the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, so I visit when exhibitions or speakers interest me. I also attend exhibitions my friends and colleagues are in to support them.

In the last few years have been making tiles at iron pours that brought me to Franconia Outdoor Sculpture last February. I continue to go out and experience the changing sculpture park.

Walk to the Minnesota Museum of American Art. I have enjoyed the exhibitions they hold of local artists and keep tabs on the new gallery space on the corner of Robert and 4th Streets. Sometimes it is just through the window others times inside for shows, talks and events.

Minnesota Center for Book Arts because I have friends who love type and paper.

Forge for the beautiful furniture designs I cannot afford

Susan Hensel Gallery 

Third Place gallery for the work and community, 

Soap Factory --  love to see how artists use of the raw space

I like to see installations, textile work, I went to MIA to hear Nick Cave http://www.soundsuitshop.com

State Fair Art Exhibition

I am curious about techniques artist use. Neighborhood art crawls provide a list of artists.  I pick one or two, usually by their medium, to see. Last time  I visited Tish Murphy, a textile artist who works with rug hooking. I had seen her work at the Textile Center. 

http://www.tishkits.com/

http://www.stpaulartcrawl.org/    

http://nemaa.org/art-a-whirl

http://sewardarts.org/

http://lolaartcrawl.com/

In addition to www.Local-Artist-Interviews.com, where do you go online for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise? 

http://forecastpublicart.org/   Public Art Review

Hit the local museum websites.

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/arts/

http://www.talk2myshirt.com/blog/

http://boingboing.net/

http://www.ecouterre.com/

Do you have any exhibits to promote in the near future?

Hug it Out, at altered Aesthetics  http://www.alteredesthetics.org/gallery-events/exhibitions  at the Republic in 7 Corners / Mpls.  The opening reception is Friday 2/6/14 6-10pm.

http://artshanties.com/ Through out February

https://www.facebook.com/PedalBearArtShanty

Janet Groenert

Image List:

1. Flowers

2. Pelt

3. Caution Tape Dress - Photo by Larry Labonte

4. Danger Dress

5. Obi

6. Pedal Bear

7. Image of artist

Julie Sirek - Paper and Textile Artist

A Family Matter (Installation) 

2010 Handmade gampi

Julie Sirek

Name: Julie Sirek
City/State: Edina MN
Email: jasirek@gmail.com
Website: www/juliesirek.com
MNartist.org profile:  http://www/mnartists.org/Julie_Sirek

Bio~ 

Julie Sirek is a visual artist who lives and works in Edina, Minnesota. She received her BFA in Print Paper Book from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She was the recipient of the 2010 Minnesota Center for Book Arts/Minneapolis College of Art and Design Collegiate Fellowship and the Mary Beason Bishop and Francis Sumner Merrit Scholarship at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Her work has been exhibited national and internationally.

Julie uses crochet, embroidery, handmade paper and Joomchi (paper felting), to create two and three-dimensional works of art that bridge traditional techniques and contemporary aesthetics. The context of her work promotes awareness of domestic violence. By bringing attention to this issue, she hopes to increase awareness and create change.

A Family Matter (Detail) 2010 Handmade gampi, thread

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?

At the age of 7, I witnessed my father hitting my mother. This type of behavior continued and escalated for the next 15 years. I now incorporate my experiences and the violent experiences of women and girls throughout the world into my work.

I am currently working on two projects. The first involves victims of domestic homicides in the United Sates in 2011. I began by screen-printing blank toe tags onto old tablecloths. A toe tag is normally attached with string to the big toe of a deceased person in a morgue. It is used for identification purposes. I am now in the process of embroidering one toe tag for each decedent with her name, age, gender, and relationship to perpetrator, plus the date, place, and cause of death. At the end of this project, I will have embroidered approximately 1500 toe tags that will be combined into an installation.

The second project also revolves around the theme of domestic violence. This piece will consist of six to eight articles of intimate apparel created from Joomchi textiles, threads, and yarns. Joomchi is a 500-year-old Korean papermaking technique. A single sheet of paper is formed from many layers of Korean mulberry paper, using water and hours of hand agitation. I will also incorporate spun paper thread and yarn into the work. I will use these threads and yarns for sewing, embellishing, knitting, and crocheting. I will be making a scarf, gloves, panties, a slip, and handkerchief. Each will be wrapped or draped on an individual wire hanger. The items will also show signs of distress representing the hardships women endure in their lives. This installation will bear witness to the atrocities being committed against women all around the world.

A Family Matter (Detail) 2010 Handmade gampi, thread, staining

How did you decide to become an artist?

Art has been a constant element in my life since childhood. After graduating from high school, I went to cosmetology school and became a hair stylist. After doing that for a period of time, I started making made holiday ornaments that were sold nationally and internationally. After ten years of making approximately 10,000 items per year, I was totally burned out. I felt like a factory. One day I could not bear it any longer and decided to become a "real" artist. I had always wanted to go to art school and I did not want to regret that I had not gone. I started taking continuing studies classes at Minneapolis College of Art and Design to develop my portfolio. Two years later, I applied and was accepted into their BFA program.

What was the best advice given to you as an artist? 

The best advice has been to follow your heart, not your head. It is easier getting up in the morning when you love what you are doing. I am consistently motivated by the desire to do the things I love and the success I get from doing them is simply a bonus. We have all heard it before but it bears repeating. You only live once and life is too short to be wasting time doing things you do not want to do.

Femicide Garden (Installation) 2011 Mulberry paper

Many artists struggle to find ways to sell their art.  How do you sell your work?  How do you market yourself? 

Making a living as an artist is the dream of almost every artist. You need to be persistent and learn how to market yourself and your work. In today's world, documenting your work is extremely important. If you do not have good visual reproductions, you will find it difficult to get into juried shows or have a good presence on the Internet. Business cards, postcards and my website (www.juliesirek.com) are vital in presenting my work. I apply to a lot of shows as a way of getting my work seen in multiple venues. Also, I cannot over emphasis the importance of a current mailing list. Everyone in your database is a potential buyer.

I do not sell a lot of art. I tend to make larger installation pieces that are not generally fancied by the casual buyer or collector. At this stage in my career, I am still able to take advantage of the MCAD Art Sale each fall. However, I need to make specific items to sell at this outlet.

I rely on the people that I know in the art world. They know my work, my work ethic, and they are able to recommend me for projects and grants. They know I will not let them down. For example, these contacts help me secure the commission of creating the cover dress for Mpls St Paul Magazine’s 40^th anniversary issue. Without having a network of individuals who know me, it never would have happened.

Dissolving Dream 2011 Mulberry paper

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?  

I respond to the work of Erica Spitzer Rasmussen (www.ericaspitzerrasmussen.com), and Karen Searle (www.karensearle.com). These women use thread, wire, fabric and handmade paper to create 3-dimensional objects. To me one of the most important elements in art is the aesthetic. This is what draws me into a piece and makes me take another look. Not only does their work have an element of beauty, but also it is skillfully constructed and has meaning. Both women's work demonstrates a high level of technical skill. I feel the workmanship put into a piece shows the artist’s dedication and thought process.

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see?

Walker Art Center (www.walkerart.org)

Minneapolis Institute of Arts (www.artsmia.org )

Highpoint Center for Printmaking (www.highpointprintmaking.org)

Minnesota Center for Book Arts ( www.mnbookarts.org )

Traffic Zone Center for Visual Art ( www.trafficezoneart.com)

Textile Center (www.textilecentermn.org)

In addition to www.Local-Artist-Interviews.com, where do you go online for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise? 

I do a lot of web surfing. I am a big fan of the news reader "Zite". I enjoy randomly scanning artists, galleries and museums from artdaily.org  (www.artdaily.org), artinfo.com (www.artinfo.com), and Colossal (www.thisiscolossal.com).

Secrets From My Closet 2011 Mulberry paper

Do you have any exhibits to promote in the near future?

My work "A Family Matter" will be the featured work in the "Family Closet" show at the Altered Esthetics Gallery from December 6, 2012 – December 20, 2012.

I have also been selected to participate in the 2013 Fiberart International Exhibition of Contemporary Fiber Art, at the Society for Contemporary Craft and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, from April 19 to August 18, 2013.

Julie Sirek

Altered Esthetics

(Gallery Profile)

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight

Kim Matthews - Sculptor

Colony II

Kim Matthews

Sculptor

Name:Kim Matthews
City/State:Minneapolis, MN
Email:kim@kimmatthewsart.com
Website:www.kimmatthewsart.com
MNartist.org profile: (id #28872)
Facebook page: (Optional) kim matthews

Bio~ Born, Anchorage, Alaska, 1965. Grew up in Belfast and Hampden, Maine, attended University of Maine at Orono before moving to Minneapolis in 1984.

Tell me about your work? What are you currently working on? How is this different from past projects?
I’m a mixed-media sculptor of the monochromatic, postminimalist variety: that is, I’m concerned with process, materials, serial forms, and an idiosyncratic, handmade geometry. In terms of content, I’m interested in consciousness. I’ve been a daily meditator for the past twelve years, and this work documents the process of awakening—on a subtle level, anyway.

I’m currently working on a Jerome Fiber Art Project Grant, which involves learning how to cast paper. I haven’t worked with multiples in this way since I was a printmaking student at the University of Minnesota. The show in September (at the Textile Center) will be a combination of composite forms and single-element reliefs, which will be editioned.

AquaBoogie

"What is Art?" is certainly too big of a question to ask here, but what do you hope your audience takes away from your art? What statement do you hope to make?
Although my work has a lot of rhythm and suggests vital forces, it’s ultimately about silence.

What was the best advice given to you as an artist?
“You’ll make it.”

Tell me about your work space and your creative process.
I work in several places depending on what I’m doing. I process pulp at MCBA. I make molds in my basement.
Re: process, I do a lot of reading: art theory and history, artists’ biographies, science or Eastern philosophy sometimes. I keep composition books next to my bed and sometimes I wake up abruptly from sleep or suddenly have a thought while meditating, and it will produce little ideas which may or may not become something. Sometimes I have a fairly formed idea of what I want to do and other times it starts with materials or making models. One of my goals for the Jerome project is to learn to be more willing to experiment.

Relief VI

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?
I know I’m going to leave someone out! But:
Tina Blondell is an extremely skilled and hardworking painter and a friend. She got me my first solo exhibition. (http://www.tinablondell.com www.tinablondell.com);

John Rummelhoff is the most prolific artist I’ve ever known, and his drafting skills will make you weep (http://www.johnrummelhoff.com);

Lisa Nankivil’s work is great for its materiality and stripey goodness (www.nankivil.com);

Kyle Fokken’s work is so smart—well-thought-out and beautifully made. (www.kylefokken.com);

I also really admire Karen Searle (www.karensearle.com) and Erica Spitzer Rasmussen (http://www.ericaspitzerrasmussen.com ) They’re both using traditional craft media and techniques and dealing with women’s issues but they’re not “identity artists”--nor does the strength of craft come at the cost of content.

None of these people have much in common except one very important thing: dedication to technical and conceptual excellence. In my world, that’s nonnegotiable. Karen, Tina & I are in a traveling show next year curated by John Schuerman called Lace & Gunpowder along with Lynn Speaker, Nick Harper, David Aschenbrener and Ron Taylor, and we’re all looking forward to it. The show is subtitled “the Male-Female exhibit" because we’re paired up as a way to ask questions about the relationship of gender to artmaking.

Colony

If I were to follow you around to see art in Minnesota, which places would we go? What would we see? (Links)
Uh, probably nowhere unless you got me on just the right day! I’m horribly introverted and trying to get out more but it usually takes a special event like a lecture at the U of M or MCAD or an opening at the MIA or MCBA. I tend to be more “institutional” than a gallery scenester.

Where do you go online for good art resources, whether to find a new artist, or to see what is going on in the art world locally and otherwise?

http://www.artdaily.org

http://www.artinfo.com
Jerry Saltz in the New Yorker
http://www.joannemattera.blogspot.com
http://www.artslant.com
http://www.minusspace.com (for those of you who like reductive art)
http://www.yatzer.com
http://www.artlog.com
http://www.royboydgallery.com
and of course, Facebook!

Relief

What can we expect to see from you in the future?

I think I covered that already: there’s the Jerome show in September and the two scheduled Lace & Gunpowder shows early next year. And more, I hope! Hope I’m not too busy to submit for the State Fair. It’s one of the best venues we have in terms of sheer exposure.