I was very affected by our sojourn to the Spiral Jetty on our recent southwest road trip. As much as I was taken with the life and death of Amelia Earhart, last year’s oil spill, the Icelandic volcanic eruption, and responded to these events in my recent  work, I am currently working on a drawing in that loosely engages Spiral Jetty and the life and untimely death of Robert Smithson. The book Mirror-Travels | Robert Smithson and History has been informative, imparting the significance of the building site of the monumental earth work: close to the site of the driving of the Golden Spike, where the continent was joined via railroad.  Also today’s Daily Serving article about the potential fate of the piece is quite timely, yet unsettling.

Here are some images of sketchbook collages I made on the trip from the vast amount of magazines we took with us for the long car rides.

So it is happily between the drawing and painting studio that I will spend the rest of the summer, amidst gardening, sun tea making, gathering with friends and planning a large international exhibition for the fall (this time with my curatorial hat on). As I see it, that’s a pretty good place to be.

Last Map: Mirror, Last Map: Beacon, Last Map: Crosslit, each gouache and ink on paper, 11.5″ x 8.25″, 2010

I completed 3 more Last Map drawings in Iceland to total 30, which has been my goal for some time now.  These latest drawings reflect my icy surroundings at the time I made them.  Hopefully I can exhibit all 30 together in the near future.

Although I prefer to display them all simply taped to the wall, the wear and tear isn’t good for the drawings, so I need to get them framed.  I have some ideas for framing them that should provide for some interesting installation opportunities.

In other news:

-I am pleased to have been mentioned in the 12.17.10 Chicago Tribune article about the best Chicago area art of 2010.  Apparently there is an image of Bring in the Light in the print version, though I haven’t yet seen it myself.

-Also, Nicole Pietrantoni (who I met and collaborated with in Iceland) and I plan to be working together again soon under the name Island Projects.  We hope to have a website up and running in the near future.

-Some of Amelia Earhart’s bones may have been found on Nikumaroro Island in the Pacific Ocean.  Here’s the full article.

Thursday, I’m hopping aboard the Wolverine from Ann Arbor to Chicago to see and stay with some good friends. Friday,  I’m giving a lecture on my work (details below) at Northeastern Illinois University.  It’s also the last day the show will be up, so come out if you can!

That afternoon, I board a plane to Toronto to meet Mark and Chris and Mary for Halloween weekend, Canada style.

Then Mark and I get on another couple of planes to head to Iceland again for the month of November.  It will be a whirlwind, but needless to say, we’re a little excited.  I’ll work on some ideas I have had bouncing around in my head and Mark will get his own studio to work on some music projects.  Speaking of which, he has a new album out.  Everything about it is AMAZING.  Here is a link to his new website. Have a look and listen.

Talk details:

Friday, October 29

11 a.m.

Northeastern Illinois University, Fine Arts Center, FA 252

Directions to the talk.

Also, here is a Chicago Tribune review of the show.

Bon voyage!

Amy Sacksteder: We are running…

October 4th-October 29th

The work included in this project is derived from the last moments of Amelia Earhart’s life and is used as a springboard to examine and confront mortality. The title is an excerpt of Earhart’s last words. The work is also influenced by the artists’s June 2010 residency in Iceland.

Artist Talk: Friday October 29th, 11am
Reception: Friday October 15th, 6-9pm

The Fine Arts Center Gallery
Northeastern Illinois University
5500 N St. Louis Ave
Chicago, IL 60625

The Gallery is located on the NEIU campus inside the Salme Harju Steinberg Fine Arts Center. Park in the lot the west side of campus via the entrances Foster or Bryn Mawr Avenues.

Directions here.

To see invividual images of pieces in the show, visit this page on my website.

Museum, Monument (where we can go to save ourselves), transparency collage, sand, painted plaster and foam islands maquette, transparencies on projector, 2009-10

Sub Terrain

What lies below the surface of the physical, the perceptible, and the quantifiable? Invisible forces of the subconscious simmer until they come to a head in subtle circumstances of serendipity or in violent disruption, sparring with the perceived logic of life.

Sub Terrain is an all-media exhibition that invites artists to give vision to the invisible and explore the landscape of the immaterial and its convergence with the physical realm.

Artists:
Debra Broz, Mira Burack, Ginger Chase, Susan Evans, Rachel Frank, Matt Frieburghaus, Lauren Harlowe, Megan Heeres, Melissa Jones, Julie Lambert, Amanda Lechner, Ryan Molloy, Barbara Neri, Manisha Patel, Judy Rushin, Audrey Russell, Amy Sacksteder, Madeline Stillwell, Cedric Tai, Sally Schluter-Tardella, Amanda Thatch, Christopher Ulivo, B.J. Vogt, Scotty Wagner and Morgan Morel, Graem Whyte, Audra Wolowiec.

Work: Ann Arbor, 306 State Street, Ann Arbor, MI

Exhibition runs September 10th – October 5th
Opening Reception: September 10th 6-9 pm

Come out to the opening if you can!

Out of the Blue and into the Black 2.1, liquid gold leaf and ink on photographic digital print, 15″x20″, 2010

I sent this piece off to a group show in Budapest today.  It is the first of a group of drawings on photographs.  Although I know of plenty of other artists doing this, my friend Abbigail Knowlton Israelsen, for one (who does it quite well, I might add), it’s a new turn for me.  I am going to work on them at my residency in Philly, for which I  leave in the morning.  Since its such a long drive, I am going to make a pit stop in Pittsburgh to eat at a veggie diner and see what’s on at the Mattress Factory.

Also, in addition to the drawings I made at the residency, I worked on a couple of photo-based projects and along with many of the other artists, became quite the collector of maps, stamps, postcards (new and vintage) and objects from the land such as shells, stones, sea glass, lava rocks and the like.

On Sunday I did a photo shoot of one of the Amelia Earhart islands in the Icelandic landscape set against the sea.  Here are a few images from that shoot.  I wonder what they’ll become when they grow up?

I am, once again, so grateful for this phenomenal residency and the opportunity to see breathtaking sights in a remarkable country, make work unimpeded, and become friends with such a fantastic group of artists.

The state of the studio:

The state of the art:

a run on a georgeous spring day through Gallup Park

So this post is less about art, and more about running.  Running was very important to me throughout grad school. For me it is an experience that is wrapped up in the particulars of place and music; simultaneously it evokes solitude and engagement with the world around me.  DeKalb, Illinois, where I went to grad school, had a network of wonderful bike paths.  Some of my most compelling memories involve exploring that town on long, rambling runs.  Come to think of it, some of my most personal, cherished memories involve running or hiking in certain places: in the mountains in Cantagal, France, at mid-night circling the campus at Interlochen, on hot summer days at Chautauqua in western New York State, on my family’s land in the mountains in Georgia, on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic in Newfoundland.

Sadly, I have always had problems with my right knee.  I have done some research and think I have an issue with my IT band.  I thought it would keep me from running distances ever again, but my friend Jason (who is also a marathoner and track coach, not to mention MAJOR inspiration) thinks I can do it!

new yellow shoes (Brooks Launch- a neutral trainer)

I have not run with any regularity for awhile, but with the help of new shoes, baby steps, and some coaching (via Facebook) from Jason, I am chugging away.  I have always had a hard time balancing regular artmaking and regular exercise.  That is my primary goal this summer.  With residencies in TWO cities that are new to me (Reykjavík and Philadelphia) that should provide for a lot of great exploration.

Two books are my friends through all of this: Haruki Murakami‘s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is one of them.  He is one of my favorite authors of fiction, but this work of non-fiction, his autobiographical love affair with running, is incredibly compelling.  I read it in a day.

The other one is Christopher McDougall‘s Born to Run.  It is an epic, exciting, narrative surrounding an amazing footrace in the canyons of northern Mexico.  It’s fast-paced, and somehow also filled with riveting scientific studies on proper running form–a form that is natural to the human body and prevents injury.

Before I began my most recent foray into running (which I have been doing very regularly for about three weeks now) I was trying to think of a name for my solo show in the fall at the Fine Arts Center Gallery at Northeastern Illinois University in October.  I have been working with Amelia Earhart’s last words in my work (and last words in general).  The work is about life and death, so I am using part of her last words as the title–simply: We are running…

Here is a piece that was exhibited at Paint Creek in January.  Her last words included the phrase We are running north and south. Which is what is projected and fades out across the canvas of this painting.

In Lights, oil on vanvas with glass window blocks and gobo projection and theater light

In short, quite literally, I am running!