continuing at last, monday night, 7 june 2010

hello! since last i wrote i have basically been at work 12 hour days in the ceramic studio. YEA!*!* for yesterday, sunday, i reached my goal of making 400 multiples for my installation.

there is still much work to be done, but now it feels doable. the first 200 have been fired, and if dry the rest will be fired this thursday evening.

great news to share: last monday, may 31st, i took half a day away from the studio to meet susanna at the naregatsi art institute. she had arranged an appointment with levon eskenian, director of musical programs and also responsible for bringing visual art opportunities to the members of the visual arts committee. naregatsi is a terrific space that presents very interesting cultural programming. recently susanna and levon collaborated to present ACSL artist in residence, italian/swiss composer willy merz, in a discussion about and a short program of new music. the naregatsi center's programming to date has leaned heavily towards the presentation of traditional material and art and this foot into contemporary music generated a lot of interest and was very well received.

it appears that my exhibit will be the naregatsi gallery's first exhibit of conceptual art/installation art. this new work is a visual interpretation based on:
- the material from the excavation site reports (professor michael stone of hebrew university, jerusalem) of the medieval jewish cemetery "discovered" in eghegis, armenia (1999) and research that i did on medieval jewish communities (particularly women and children)
- the fact that armenians have been the OTHER in the diaspora and the issue of relationships with (& attitudes about) the OTHER in armenia today.

the installation, titled "nothers", comfortably fits the sensibility of the venue. for as stated on their web site, it is the nageratsi institute's belief that "the arts reflect the past, enrich the present, and imagine the future".

today we visited the art institute in gyumri (more on this later) and tomorrow it is back to sanding. thursday and friday we are off to the disputed area of nagorno-karabakh (yes, we got our visas) hosted by the nageratsi art institute shushi branch, and sunday i will visit the site in eghegis.