Here is the press release for my show at Pterodactyl sponsored by the Philadelphia Art Hotel.  Install Thursday, opening Friday.  I’m pasting the text below for better readability. Here’s hoping the five people I know in Philly and the rest of the city make it out to the opening!

The Philadelphia Art Hotel and Pterodactyl present an exhibition:

Amy Sacksteder – Our Improbable Existence

August 13th, 2010
8pm
3237 Amber St.
5th Floor North
Philadelphia, PA 19134

Amy Sacksteder attempts to reconcile vitality and mortality (and the accompanying celebrations and mournings that reality elicit), both her own and with that of others’. To quote Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, “we try as best we can to do justice to the tremendousness of our improbable existence.” She thus distills momentous experiences into and through her artwork, which in turn, becomes a place for mourning and celebration; a place to explore and engage the tension between vitality and mortality. Her work has been sited on contemporary art blogs such as my love for you is a stampede of horses, and has been published in New American Paintings. Amy Sacksteder exhibits regularly nationally and internationally. She has attended residencies through the Ragdale Foundation in Illinois, the Pouch Cove Foundation in Newfoundland, the Residential Art Centre of Cantagal in France, and the Hungarian Multicultural Center in Budapest.

Most recently, she attended a residency program through the Association of Icelandic Visual Artists (SÍM) in Reykjavík to prepare for a solo exhibition at Northeastern Illinois University in the fall. She will return to Iceland in November to continue the research and creative work she began there in June. Amy Sacksteder received her MFA from Northern Illinois University in 2004. She lives and works in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where she is an Assistant Professor of Art at Eastern Michigan University.

Here are some images from our group show, SKIPTI / SWAP at the end of the residency at SÍM.  On Monday we installed the show, had the opening, followed by a picnic in the garden, and de-installed the show.  Then I had to pack and say my goodbyes.  What a day!

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.

People keep asking me about my trip, so I thought I would post some photos.  I mean, it’s hard to describe chicken pants…it’s something you just have to see for yourself.

a typical beutiful day in Budapest, gorgeous statuary and all...

strangely, wearing chicken pants and being hoisted in the air was very soothing to these little gals

a sweet courtyard in an atists' complex

the courtyard has some pretty wonderful murals on the walls

Mitsy the Hungarian forest cat, friend to human and chickens alike

Nannette in our "office"

Nem nem... what???

chickens are inside the castle walls! (when I give Nannette my jump drive to transfer video stuff, it comes back with some extra little gifts- like this photo)

the courtyard at David's studio

Happy Gum

my little studio corner with David's mini statue park

a close-up of the statue park

opening night

Here are the drawings that were in the show in the order in which they were exhibited, from left to right.  Again, these are snapshots I have only futzed with slightly in Photoshop.  I will post better quality images to my site as soon as I get them scanned and color corrected.

Last Map: Vacancy

Last Map: Dig

Last Map: The Science of Air and Space

Last Map: Islands

Last Map: Align

and also Last Map: Osolith.

I didn’t really want to write any details about my and Nannette’s exhibition until all was said and done in case we didn’t pull it off in the way that we wanted.  But now that a successful opening has come and gone, I am happy to tell our tale.   I went to Budapest with only the goal to finish a video project Nannette and I began last summer, do a couple of drawings, and see a few museums…maybe hit the spring baths.  In short, I was going to take a break over break–treat it like a mini residency.  Instead, pretty much as soon as I arrived, we started hatching major plans.  We planned to both make work for the entire week and put a show together in addition to the video (which quickly transpired into an installation).  We had hints of possible venue spaces at the beginning of the week, but it wasn’t until Monday (or Tuesday?) that we secured the venue (for a Thursday night opening…).  Nothing like cutting it close, right?

Nannette’s background is in photography and video, but she is a closet draw-er and makes these gorgeous ink drawings on crayon resist with faint, meticulous etching which she never shows to anyone.  I was flattered that she showed them to me and excited she was considering exhibiting them.  So she got down to work on a larger-scale series of those drawings and a photography project based on rivers.  Meanwhile we were going to the office every day and working on the video together, and I was furiously drawing in the mornings and evenings- (into the mornings again).  It turns out that the venue, Chinese Characters, has the perfect back space for video projection, and was the perfect width to create a reflecting pool for the video (which contributes enormously to the content of the piece).  We we aided immensely by David, who did a lot of the heavy-lifting during the installation, including making the structure for the pool.  Working collaboratively all week was wonderful, as even our 2D work influenced each other’s to a strong degree.  We brainstormed titles for awhile and came up with fekete leves (where the sky used to be). Fekete leves literally means “black soup” in Hungarian (Magyar).  When used as slang, it implies a sense of foreboding or bad things to come.  Where the sky used to be is the name of the video project, upon which the rest of the show hinged.

Here are some snapshots from the show.  Sorry about the quality of these images.  I only had my aged point-and-shoot, but Nannette got some great install shots with her camera, so as soon as I get those images, I’ll update this post.  Thanks to everyone who came out to the opening!  For those who didn’t make it, the orb-looking images on black are C-prints by Nannette, and she also has the black ink drawings (installation) on resist with scratching.  We each made one of the white “north” drawings and collaborated on the video and installation.  Mine are the small gouache and ink drawings on blue paper.

front right corner

entrance from Vittula into the gallery space with two of Nannette's C-prints flanking two of my drawings

a C-print and my other four drawings- along the left wall

her drawing installation

the near and far left walls of the space

view from the entrance (the video installation is through the black curtains)

North 1 and North 2 (Nannette-left, me-right)

Where the Sky Used to Be- video installation with reflecting pond

Thank you to Nannette and David for putting me up (and putting up with me) all week, to Tim of Chinese Characters/Klub Vittula for providing the space, libations and an open mind, and to Fabian for DJ-ing and acting as impromptu photographer.  Next I’ll post images of the six drawings I made while there and maybe a couple of shots from the opening.

Here’s a new one that will be in the show…

Fekete Leves (where the sky used to be) is a two-person installation that engages aspects of disorientation and loss of control by Budapest-based artist Nannette Vinson and Detroit-area artist Amy Sacksteder.  Sacksteder is exploring mortality by channeling the last moments in Amelia Earhart’s life through mostly drawings, paintings and installations.  Through her ink drawings, Vinson is revisiting the turbulence that accompanies loss of innocence.  Her visual art background is primarily in photography and video art; Sacksteder’s is in 2D media.  Through this collaboration, each artist is working in an as-yet “foreign” medium to her, thus each is experiencing her own lack of control.  This is their first collaborative endeavor.

Chinese Characters Contemporary Art Space

1073 Budapest – Kertész u. 4

Thursday, March 4, 6 – 10 p.m.

David and Nannette were kind enough to loan me a space in their flat to use as a drawing studio while I’m here.  So far, we’re spending a lot of time editing video and making work–with some feasts here and there for good measure.  Tomorrow we’re off to the hardware store to get installation materials.  Then we’re headed to the Glenn Brown exhibition at the Ludwig Museum.

the entrance to our "office"

I wanted to write a long-ish post (with photos) about all of the fun I’m having during my week-long stay in Budapest, but the wireless network in my and Nannette’s “office” (i.e. a large, decadent cafe) won’t deign to allow the uploading of a bunch of images. So for now, I will just be posting one image per visit to the office.  A longer post will have to wait until I’m back in the States.  Some highlights so far include lots of artmaking, insomniac house chickens, a completely affectionate little cat named Mitsy, plenty of good food, and BIG BIG plans.  More to come!

I updated my website, and that’s no mean feat, considering how behind I was.  Head on over there and check it out, won’t you?