Foot traffic...

Seems like so many wonderful things are happening in Brooklyn while I am away, of course. One of those wonderful things is the official opening and artist talk tonight of the outdoor installation, Foot Traffic, by the beautiful and talented Crystal Gregory.


Press release states:

Brooklyn artist Crystal Gregory has created Foot Traffic, a site-specific fabric installation piece for the chain link portion of the bridge. Foot Traffic is composed of dozens of crocheted hexagons that Crystal will stitch directly onto the fence. The piece will be installed 10/28 & 29 and remain up until next fall.

Foot Traffic was inspired by the “chandelier” of shoes that hung from the wires above the bridge until earlier this year. And guess what? We saved the shoes when the DOT took them down to install the new light poles. Perhaps they’ll make an appearance.

I have had the pleasure of knowing Crystal for almost a year now, wow time flies, and all of her work is gorgeous and inspiring. So I know this piece will be too. So glad it is up for a year so that I can check it out when I get home.

Crystal has also created a new super nice website.

and LinRoForma which funded Crystal's project has very nicely documented her installation on their blog. LinRoForma is a group of business owners, tenants and landlords that work together to make their community better including adding art to their environment. Awesome.

invasive crochet...

Finally, here is my first feature on one of the connective thread artists, artist Crystal Gregory. Crystal makes very exciting work which she calls invasive crochet. Installing crochet on park benches, fences, bricks, and cinder blocks- often responding to the space and environment around her.


Crystal made a an amazing work, Foundation II, just for connective thread in which she crochet cinder blocks and installed them into a wall of actual blocks. She then really turned the work alive by lighting the work from within.


Not only is Crystal a very talented and interesting artist but she is adorable, gracious, and sweet to boot.


Crystal states about her work:

The rhythm of making and the repetition of stitches create a harmony within my art practice. Thread, lace, metal, and wood are the props of both individual domesticity and collective social networks. I join together the points where individual and social systems overlap, and where issues of sexuality, vitality, and death construct meaningful relationships, and find release.

Guerilla crochet projects around New York City involve ideas of graffiti, urbanization, and woman’s work. I use organic webbed shapes and materials combined with hand work to take back the urban landscape. My art challenges gender assumptions by weaving feminine lace work into the crevices and spaces of masculine urban landscapes, such as the fire-retardant metal of a fire escape, the hard wood of a park bench, and the chain link fences attached to bridges. The web highlights the unique and man-made nature of both structures.

I have a feeling we will keep seeing plenty of Crystal and her great work as she as already participated in the Water Pod project and art in odd places in NY. The great thing about NYC is there are plenty of opportunities for temporary public works- something right up Crystal's alley and off of her crochet hooks.

To see more work right now stop in at her solo show which opens Tonight!

Rethinking Home

On view December 17th, 2009 to January 29th, 2010

Artist Reception: Thursday January 14th from 5:30 to 7:30

Manhattan Theater Source Gallery

177 MacDougal Street

New York, NY 10011

(between West 8th Street and Waverly)

www.theatersource.org

Rethinking Home

Sculpture and Installation

by Crystal Gregory

www.crystalgregory.org

Photography

Merav Lahr

www.meravlahr.com

Rethinking home is a project asking questions of interior and exterior architecture combining two bodies of work, Foundation I and Passage. Foundation I explores ideas of pattern, structure, and gender within domestic space. Passage expands on the theme of home through an outdoor installation using written text painted on a door and window to illustrate rite of passage as well as the physical act within a collage of nostalgic still images.

or check out her website.