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

Natasha Pestich - Installation

Xylander Exhibition Poster #5, 2011

Natasha Pestich

Name: Natasha Pestich
City/State: Minneapolis, MN
Email: natasha_pestich@mcad.edu
MNartist.org profile: http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=204696


Bio~

Natasha Pestich is a local Minneapolis artist, educator and community artist. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, and her Master of Fine Arts in Printmaking from Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and has spent the last five years developing innovative curriculum in the study of printmaking attracting the attention of the Mid-America Printmaking Journal for whom she wrote an article on the topic of education. Her work has been showcased in both alternative spaces like the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Michigan, and the Generator Gallery in Scotland.

Highlights of her community art work includes several projects, most notably the inter-disciplinary project/performance North & Beyond, in Philadelphia, Sidewalks Saving Lives in Minneapolis, and her most recent partnership with the Pillsbury House & Theater which involved, among other things, the redesign of Pillsbury’s foyer, bringing together local artists, MCAD students and alum, MCAD professor George Mahoney and Pillsbury’s staff and community.

Semblances installation detail, Screenprints and Artifacts for Xylander, 2011

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

Since April 2011, I have been immersed in two projects dealing with site through social engagement.

One is the redesign of the Pillsbury House and Theater foyer in collaboration with staff, community, local artists and Minneapolis College of Art and Design student interns, students and Adjunct Professor George Mahoney. The intent of this project was to create a transformative space or “Cultural Community Hub” reflecting the organizations mission of being “a new model for nonprofit human service work that recognizes the power of the arts and culture to stimulate community participation, investment and ownership.” Through the development of specific workshops using art and word play as tools, the Pillsbury staff articulated what the space should be or feel like, which was then translated into wall and column painting, the production of hand-printed couch covers and new systems for accessing information and interacting in the space. Later in the process, MCAD faculty George Mahoney brought in his Design Environment class to make movable tables and walls that would accommodate the multiplicity of needs in the space (gallery, waiting room, classroom, theater reception area, community meeting place). This project was new for me in that I took on a greater leadership role by overseeing most all aspects of the design and by developing the staff workshops, in addition to mentoring the younger artists and student interns through the process of creative place making.

The second project I would like to share is the exhibition “Semblances” with myself, Jennifer Danos and Marcus Young, currently on view at the MAEP gallery in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Working within a strict white wall prestigious gallery in a museum space was a dramatic shift for me, as I have been working in community settings or much smaller venues. The scale and command of the environment pushed my use of fictional scenarios (a strategy I often employ in gallery settings) to be much more involved, demanding a large collection of artifacts and layers of myth-making.

My contribution to our chosen theme, specifically took the form of a faux exhibition charting the trajectory of a fictitious artist’s exhibition career over the span of 10 years, not through the artist Jan Xylander’s actual work, but rather through the design and display of screen-printed exhibition posters (supposedly made by several different designers, but in fact made by myself) advertising his shows.

Both of these projects mine the potential for design and collective storytelling to influence our reception and interaction with site, whether that be a social service agency/theatre or a respected art institution. For the last few years I have explored how we personally negotiate publicly held ideals for different ends through community projects, site-specific interventions, printed sports jerseys and posters. Borrowing heavily from interior and graphic design, popular printing forms and the history of illustration, I weave stories into carefully constructed scenarios that ask us to consider how experience is culturally and socially mediated, while opening up the field to invent or contribute our own stories.

Semblances installation detail, Screenprints, 2011

"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?

I do not know if I would frame my practice as something that makes “statements”, but I would say I am interested in posing open-ended questions through humor, in some cases sensory perception and the poetic, in a manner that may inspire others to question, invent or exercise their own agency.

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

The best advice I ever got came out my graduate school experience. I actually cannot remember who said it precisely, or if it was a general sentiment filtering in and out of our discussions, but it is boils down to this: Do not try to make art. Meaning, do not try to make your IDEA of what art is. This is not to say you should not absorb EVERYTHING in your midst. It means you need to follow your own curiosity wherever it may lead you, work hard testing out your theories, and take notice when something of value happens.

Tell me about your work space and your creative process.

I work either on site or in my basement studio. Almost all print-based work is done in the print shop at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (where we recently built a fabric printing table you can use to make repeat patterns or large-scale fabric works- so cool!!). But as I am on sabbatical, I am currently printing at Highpoint Center for Printmaking.

Often at the beginning of a community project, I start with listening to stories- how do people occupy or relate to a given space, what kind of memories surround a site, what are the hopes/fears/expectations/needs being expressed? Where is there conflict, where is there agreement? In the case of my individual studio practice, I invent fictitious scenarios that I then create props for (i.e. posters, wearables, artifacts, environments).

I like to play a lot in the studio- so the images or spaces I construct are often one of many possible versions. I mix, re-contextualize, and respond to what is in front of me. I think this is inspired by my history of working with and teaching printmaking. Printmaking relies on multiple stages or layers and printmakers are always recycling plates, prints and ideas. Even when I work in other mediums, my work is informed by printmaking.

Semblances installation detail, Screenprints, 2011

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?

Dennis Lo: http://dloartwork.com/
Jennifer Danos: http://jenniferdanos.com/
Marcus Young: http://graceminnesota.org/
Brett Smith: http://artofthis.net/brett-smith
Paula McCartney: http://www.paulamccartney.com/
Jan Estep: http://www.janestep.com/
Bruce Tapola: http://www.mnartists.org/article.do?rid=173002
Luke Aleckson: http://www.lukealeckson.com/
Andy Sturdevant: http://www.andysturdevant.com/
Andy DuCett: http://www.andyducett.com/
Steven Accola: http://mnartists.org/work.do?rid=247739
Ute Bertog: http://utebertog.com/home.html
Works Progress http://www.worksprogress.org/
Peter Haakon Thompson: http://www.peterhaakonthompson.com/
Seitu Jones: http://www.mnoriginal.org/art/?p=2007
Monica Haller: http://www.veteransbookproject.com/the-people/

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

Walker Art Center: http://walkerart.org/
Rochester Art Center: http://rochesterartcenter.org/
Minnesota Institute of Arts; MAEP Galleries: http://www.artsmia.org/
Intermedia Arts: http://intermediaarts.org/index.php
MCAD Gallery: http://mcad.edu/events-fellowships/gallery-exhibitions
Weisman Museum: http://www.weisman.umn.edu/
Juxtaposition Arts: http://www.juxtaposition.org/
Dressing Room: http://dressingroom-aot.blogspot.com/
Midway Contemporary Art: http://www.midwayart.org/index.php
Franklin Art Works: http://franklinartworks.org/
Soap Factory: http://soapfactory.org/
Hightpoint: http://www.highpointprintmaking.org/
Minnesota Center for Book Arts: http://www.mnbookarts.org/

I Need A Hero, Screenprint on fabric, construction, embroidery, 2005

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?

MnArtists: http://www.mnartists.org/
Contemporary Art Daily: http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/
Printeresting: http://www.printeresting.org/
Art in the Public Interest: http://www.apionline.org/

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

MAEP galleries at the MIA
There is a presentation in the MAEP gallery on Thursday 12/15 at 7:00 PM.
The exhibit runs through 1/1/2012


March 2012: Seerveld Gallery, Trinity College. Palos Heights, IL.
Fall/Winter 2012: Solo Exhibition, Schaeffer Gallery, Gustavus Adolphus College,
St. Peter, MN

Jennifer Danos - Installation

Untitled (On the Ideology of Public Things 1), 2010

Jennifer Danos

Name: Jennifer Danos
City/State: Minneapolis, MN
Email: jenniferdanos@me.com
Website: http://www.jenniferdanos.com/index.htm
MNartist.org profile: http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=64276

Bio~
Jennifer Danos was born in 1975 in Chicago and studied at both the Rhode Island School of Design (BFA 1997) and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (MFA 2004). She has been exhibiting her work locally at venues like the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Rochester Art Center, and Franklin Art Works, nationally at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs and the Peeler Art Center in Indiana, and internationally at Galerie Analix Forever in Switzerland. Jennifer is the recipient of a Jerome Study & Travel Grant (2011), a McKnight Visual Arts Fellowship (2008) and a Minnesota Artist’s Initiative Grant (2008). She currently lives and works in Minneapolis where she teaches in the Sculpture Department at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Untitled (Poured Concrete 6), 2007

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

I just finished a project at the MAEP galleries at the MIA with Natasha Pestich and Marcus Young. This whole project was much different than past exhibitions from start to finish... Natasha, Marcus and I worked on our proposal for the MAEP for almost a year and a half. We knew that we had a lot of overlapping interests and that we were fans of each other's work, but we had to really hone in on what our common interests were to address for the project, and built into that was why the MAEP galleries (and why the MIA) for our collaboration (and by collaboration I mean conceptually - we each worked on our own pieces for the show). We all came at the idea of "Semblances" (the concept we were working under and the title of the show) in completely different ways since our practices are so varied, but we worked hard throughout the year of planning to make sure that we kept the cohesion and the main focus in mind to guide our decisions. So the intense way that our projects were playing off of each other required negotiating so many variables (including ourselves), and that was new for me.

Now that we've finished that project, I'm starting new research... still related to my ongoing ideas and questions (see below), but looking for new ways to think about them and manifest them... maybe (hopefully) make some new discoveries??? We'll see what happens!

Untitled (Poured Concrete 4) & Untitled (Glorified Hallways 1), 2007

"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?

Hm, that is a big question - I'm going to have to refer to my statement since it's the latest version of what I've been thinking about those questions ( I always feel my statement needs to be changed/refined, but this is where it's at right now):

My sculptural interventions exploit the human instinct to filter experience. Our constructed environment contains myriad cues that consciously and subconsciously affect how we think about, feel about, and interact with a given site. A person enters a space and intuitively chooses which details to interact with or neglect. Intuition is not a mysterious sense, but a learned behavior through repeated experiences. I am interested in this cognitive process and finding ways to offer opportunities to more intentionally shape our intuitive response, thus increasing our sensitivity when encountering an environment.

By calling attention to material qualities that are likely to be missed through this filtering, my work subverts the expectedness of private and public spaces. Entering my installation, one is confronted with elements that are familiar, but most likely outside of typical notice: those things in the periphery that one is conditioned to look past when entering a particular environment. I take advantage of architectural details that are physically evidenced through different activities: from construction, to human use (proper and improper), to care and repair. Or sometimes these details are the product of chance. Each artwork is made for a specific space, addressing the subtle features in the physical site. For example, I have re-created debris that accumulates on windowsills, re-imagined patterns made in the process of constructing building surfaces, and re-presented throw-away objects left behind in a given space.

I am concerned with how these subtle cues can aid in, disrupt, or hopefully form our instinctive decision-making. In addition to all of the effects of the physical cues, we bring our own personal history to the space, which further complicates our interpretations and subsequent behavior because of our individually biased expectations and assumptions. This is where the everyday collides with the aesthetic experience. These interventions serve as metaphors for larger experiences concerning the blurred boundary between seemingly incongruent categories: natural and artificial, accidental and intentional, real and perceived. The demarcation between elements, such as between objects and surfaces, or features that “belong” and do not belong, becomes flexible, malleable, un-fixed from traditional rules. Ultimately, I want to engage the conscious and subconscious nature of observation to encourage individuals to actively see each space by questioning the constructed intentions of the space and reconsidering habits and definitions.

Untitled (Architectonic Obtrusion 1), 2008

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

Well, two things. The first was early in my career as an undergrad. My professor at the time, David Frazer, told me that when he graduated college he did what he needed to do to support his studio practice by seeking out a job that would pay the bills and also afford him time to think about his work while on the job - and not have to take his job home with him mentally or otherwise.

He said he worked as a truck driver for the first few years out of college and the whole thing made sense to me - it freed me up from the stigma attached to not getting a job "in your field" right out of college, and it made the art practice the priority. Of course, over time, I began to find work in my field (teaching at MCAD, for example), but that came naturally and when I was ready.

The second thing came much later and came as a surprise when I took my class to see a lecture at MCAD by comic artist, Kim Deitch (I believe it was in 2006). Kim said that he got in a rut with his artwork and felt like he wasn't making anything interesting. It dawned on him that he couldn't make interesting art if he wasn't an interesting person having interesting experiences. So he set off on some travels and changed the way he lived. I absolutely agree with what Kim said, but had never been able to put my finger on it, much less articulate it - so I try to pass that on to my students semester after semester (and keep it in mind in my own studio).

Tell me about your work space and your creative process.

My work space is my home office and whatever site I'm working at for the project. I don't have a studio (but am fortunate to have MCAD to fabricate things as needed). I do a lot of research on-site (photos, measurements, observing), reading about relevant ideas/artists, thinking, note-taking, thinking, re-thinking... and then most of the work happens on-site. It's hard for me to speculate on how something is going to look and feel until it's actually installed (or at least some test version is there), so it's often a mad rush at the end.

Untitled (Wood 2), 2008

Who are some of the Minnesota artists you enjoy?

Natasha Pestich (working on website now!)
Marcus Young http://graceminnesota.org/
Ruben Nusz http://www.rubennusz.com/
John Fleischer http://www.johnjfleischer.com/
Scott Nedrelow http://blog.nedrelow.com/
Bruce Tapola http://www.mnartists.org/article.do?rid=173002
Luke Aleckson http://www.lukealeckson.com/
Scott Stulen http://www.scottstulen.com/
Chris Larson http://www.walkerart.org/archive/E/AB736D0D2766EA406161.htm
Margaret Pezalla http://www.mpezalla.com/
Kate Casanova http://katecasanova.com/
Andy DuCett http://www.andyducett.com/
Aaron van Dyke http://aaronvandyke.com/
Ute Bertog http://utebertog.com/home.html
Jan Estep http://www.janestep.com/

Hmmm, there are so many, I'm sure I'm missing a few...

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

Walker Art Center http://walkerart.org/
Rochester Art Center http://rochesterartcenter.org/
Minnesota Institute of Arts & MAEP Galleries http://www.artsmia.org/
Dressing Room http://dressingroom-aot.blogspot.com/
Franklin Art Works http://franklinartworks.org/
Soap Factory http://soapfactory.org/
Location Books http://www.locationbooks.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?

e-flux (mailing list): http://www.e-flux.com/
re-title (mailing list): http://www.re-title.com/
art agenda (mailing list): http://www.art-agenda.com/

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

I am currently showing in the MIA's MAEP gallery...

"Semblances" Jennifer Danos, Natasha Pestich and Marcus Young

MAEP galleries at the MIA

Artist Talk - Thursday 11/17/2011 - 7pm in the Gallery

The show runs through 1/1/2012

February 2012 Johnson Gallery, Bethel University. St Paul, MN.

March 2012 Seerveld Gallery, Trinity College. Palos Heights, IL.

July, 2012 Spaces Gallery. Cleveland, OH.