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!

We traveled with our friends Chris and Mary to Chicago this last weekend to attend my opening at Northeastern Illinois University, see our friend Julie, and see some art.  I also had the opportunity to take more unobstructed installation images of my show.

Krista Peel is at it again, making another themed calendar with her great photography.  I’m a participating artist once more, and this time the directions involve: the theme “Mystery Mansion,” providing her with some supplies and instructions, and her constructing the rooms around those instructions and objects.

She just sent out glimpses of the rooms constructed so far, and I spotted mine, evident by the objects I sent her: buckthorn roots, smoky quartz crystals and dark agate slices.  I can’t wait to see the real thing!

I have some work in an upcoming show curated by Andrew Thompson (drawings and an installation). Here’s a sneak peak of a new installation in the show, with exhibition info to follow.

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!

Here are a few more shots from the show and last night’s opening.  I really like the way the space was lit.  Cheers to the good folks at Pterodactyl for pulling together the new side gallery (in which my show is situated) in under a week and for putting on a lovely opening.

Here are images from my show Our Improbable Existence at Pterodactyl in Philly.  Here is more info about the show.  The show was made possible by the support of the Philadelphia Art Hotel.  To see individual pieces, peruse recent blog posts or visit my website.  Off to the opening!

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.

I am comfortably set up at the Philadelphia Art Hotel, run by two fantastic people, artists Zak Starer and Krista Peel. Here’s a great article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the residency. I also have become fast friends with my co-residents Danielle Rante and her dog Kanga.

After running around town for two days exploring the Kensington neighborhood in which the PAH is situated, getting groceries and visiting the Reading Terminal Market, dropping my work of at Pterodactyl for my upcoming show, and generally recovering from the 11- hour drive, I have gotten to make some work. Here are some scenes from my urban studio:

I’ll post some work soon. I need to get to more making first. Aaaand a parting shot of my new best friend who keeps me company in the studio while I work (that’s my chair, by the way).

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.

On Sunday, we went to the Fish Festival.  It was entirely interesting and bizarre.  On display on ice were many of the types of fish typically caught in the Icelandic region.  It was fascinating the range of types of sea-life caught as well as the depth to which the nets can access (as evidenced by some freaky black fish with little lights and whatnot coming out of the tops of their heads).  Here are some sights from the day.