spare room

Fairyland

2009-03-24T19:24:00.000-07:00

Denise Tassin, Fairyland, March 2007

Fairyland explores the myths of childhood through an almost life-size "home" environment, installated within spare room. Through the layering of fairytales, such as Alics in Wonderland, and Hansel and Gretel, and the act of free play, Fairyland can provide the viewer with a nostalgia that is both invented and very real.

This special project at spare room is presented in conjunction with the exhibit Out of Place, University of Maryland Art Gallery, curated by Jennie Fleming.

installation view

detail

Denise Tassin received her BA from McNeese State University, Lake Charles, Louisiana and her MFA from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. She has been a resident at Evergreen House at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, Montgomery College, Rockville, Maryland, and Hand Print Workshop International, Alexandria, Virginia. She has exhibited widely throughout the East Coast and internationally. She has received Individual Artist Fellowships from The Maryland State Arts Council is the 2005 third place winner of The Trawick Prize. Tassin currently resides in Baltimore.

happeningsintime

2009-03-24T19:23:00.000-07:00

Ginger Wagg, happeningsintime, January 2006

happeningistime is a three-hour live installation that physically tracks time and space over a six-month period. From June 2005 until January 2006, Ginger Wagg sent over 150 letters and packages to spare room while traveling inside the US. Performing amidst this backdrop of mailings she will ask the audience to join her in looking back through time and at objects collected.

Whether traveling or remaining in one place, we collect a trail of ticket stubs, to do lists, receipts, bus transfers, used clothing, food wrappers and much more. Objects that would otherwise be left behind, including the personal, meaningless, mundane and precious, Wagg has saved, catalogued and shipped to Baltimore. This paper trail, mailed from New York, L.A., Vermont, Oregon and other places, reflect her choice for mobility and travel versus remaining static as a resident in DC. As the letters are opened and examined by those in attendance, the objects will crystallize as artifacts depicting her specific timeline of events. The immobile state of the gallery space will be transformed into a flowing collection of these artifacts exposing time spent, distance traveled, places and people visited. This transformation will set an already mobile body further into movement. Improvisational movement, steeped in the passing of time and its aftermath, is the language for an open dialogue between Wagg and the audience.

Ginger Wagg is a dance artist focused primarily on improvisation. She performs with two DC based companies: Sharon Mansur/mansurdance and Daniel Burkholder/The Playground. She has performed with Shua Group (NYC), Amber Kendrick (DC), Marcy Schlissel (NYC), and Havana Select (DC) among others. She received her BFA in Dance from George Mason University, VA and has studied extensively at various improvisation workshops and festivals.

Cabinet InFlux

2009-03-24T19:21:00.000-07:00

Leslie Mutchler, Cabinet InFlux, January 2006

Collecting, sorting, organizing and arranging are means by which Leslie Mutchler attempts to make sense of the world around her. In a labor-intensive manner, she accumulates and catalogues the materials of daily life. Mutchler has created half a million replicas based upon the Post-it Note portion of her collection. It is this mass of paper that serves as the impetus for her Spare Room installation, Cabinet InFlux. In its third state, she reorganizes her post-it note replicas into a room-sized cabinet.

Leslie Mutchler earned a BFA from Kent State University in Kent, OH and an MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Elkins Park, PA. Currently, Mutchler is Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, teaching 2D Foundations.

Carry On, Carion

2009-03-24T19:19:00.002-07:00

Ric Royer + Kevin Thurston, Carry On, Carrion, December 2005

Carry On, Carion is a performance piece exploring death, life and pseudo-resurrection written by Ric Royer, Christopher Fritton and Kevin Thurston. A PDF with images and text can be found here.

Passing Notes

2009-03-24T19:19:00.001-07:00

Cara Ober + Julie Benoit, Passing Notes, October 2005

installation view

Passing Notes: A Visual Collaboration features hundreds of small sketches by Cara Ober and Julie Benoit, mounted grid-like to cover all the walls of spare room. Ober and Benoit explore cross-pollination and visual dialogues which emerged when the two shared a studio space.

installation view

detail

A painter, teacher, and writer, Cara Ober layers drawing, painting, and printmaking into mixed media works that examine and reinterpret sentimental imagery.

In the past year, Ober has exhibited in Washington, DC at The Randall Scott Gallery and Flashpoint, at The Riviera Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, at L&M Artworks in Atlanta, GA, and at Maryland Art Place in Baltimore, MD. Ober has participated in numerous international art fairs in the past year, including Art Miami, Aqua Winwood Miami, and Bridge Fair in London.

Julie Benoit currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland where she is finishing up grad school at MICA. Benoit owns a dog walking business that operates throughout the city. She spends her days walking around Baltimore with handfuls of dogs. Through wandering about the city she has developed an interest in all of the small moments that surround her. Benoit has shown her work in galleries in Baltimore, DC, New York, Oregon, Los Angeles, and other cities. She also writes an occasional art review for local blogs and has in the past written for other local magazines. Benoit spends her time wandering about and paying attention to all of the tiny things that are overlooked.

Red Always Wins

2009-03-24T18:18:00.000-07:00

Stephanie Elaine Robbins, Red Always Wins, May 2005

installation view

Stephanie Robbins used spare room to present the interactive sound installation, Red Always Wins. This site-specific installation grew out of a series of sound works on memory and nostalgia. Robbins created a sound collage of her and her father playing checkers. One recording is from 1984 and the other is from 2003, you may listen to the sound collage here.

detail

Stephanie Elaine Robbins received her MFA in photography and digital imaging from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She is currently an assistant professor of art in photography/computer imagery at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Her artwork has involved found imagery/objects, photography, digital collage, video, sound, and installation centered around the hidden narrative. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions, juried/group exhibitions, and video screenings regionally and nationally. Recent exhibitions include spare room, School 33 Art Center, and Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. Robbins currently resides in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

3720

2009-03-24T18:16:00.000-07:00

Jennie Fleming, 3720, from the Domestic Poems Series, April 2005

3720 continues Fleming's series of domestic poems.

The poems are photographic impressions of spaces, collaged together like memories. The Poems are fleeting moments caught for examination, and then sliced, shuffled, repeated and reordered. They scrutinize unseen or neglected aspects of a location- it's mood, level of intimacy, the intricacy of pattern and texture, and the effect of light and time on a space. 3720 is an expression of a domestic space shaped by its inhabitants but examined by a visitor - a welcome outsider who experiences the space as an extension of the personalities of its inhabitants, perhaps more intensely than they do themselves.

-Jennie Fleming from the artist statement for 3720

Jennie Fleming is a cultural worker originally from Rapid City, South Dakota, and currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland. She received a MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), and a BFA from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. She has exhibited her work at the A.I.R. Gallery in New York, Arlington Arts Center, School 33 Art Center, Spare Room, Towson University, Maryland Art Place, Peabody Conservatory, and MICA. Her professional career includes positions at The Baltimore Museum of Art as Curatorial Assistant in Prints, Drawings & Photographs and Assistant Director at The Art Gallery at the University of Maryland, College Park. She also held adjunct faculty positions at Towson University and MICA, and organized a lecture series for the Odyssey Program at Johns Hopkins University.

Trespass

2009-03-24T18:14:00.000-07:00

Lynn Silverman & Glenn Shrum, Trespass, March 2006

Trespass uses light, image, and reflection to explore the changing conditions found in an empty room. Steady and intermittent shadows from a single window animate the space. A photograph records the seasonal transformation outside the window, and a mirror provides additional views of the room. The order of the two inserted elements becomes apparent as night falls in the urban environment. After dark, the wall opposite this display becomes animated with moving light from passing traffic.

Lynn Silverman received her BFA in Photography from the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, and her MA in Fine Arts from Goldsmiths' College, London. She has produced more than 15 exhibitions of work, and her photographs are included in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, the Australian National Gallery, Canberra, and the Middlesbrough Art Gallery, Middlesbrough, among others. She currently teaches at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore.

Spanning the fields of design and art practice, Glenn Shrum's work with light places him at the center of converging professional disciplines. A member of the faculty at the Maryland Institute College of Art since 2001, Glenn Shrum has received numerous awards for his work in lighting design, exhibition design, furniture design, interiors, sculpture, and architecture. Originally trained as an architect at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Shrum completed a Masters of Fine Art in Studio Art with an emphasis on light-space installations and history at Maryland Institute College of Art in 2008. Shrum's interest in the junction of art and design led him to establish Flux Studio, a multi-disciplinary design practice in 2006. Recent Flux Studio projects include the Legg Mason Worldwide Offices with Gensler, the Gateway building at MICA, Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, and the National Aquarium.

Night Light (Isometric Delight)

2009-03-24T18:12:00.000-07:00

Jason Urban, Night Light (Isometric Delight), February 2005

Night Light (Isometric Delight)... a glow-in-the-dark installation influenced by a variety of sources including anamorphosis, op art, and the movie Tron. This installation was about drawing, light, and the relationship of two- and three-dimensional forms. Upon entering the room, the viewer was enveloped by complete darkness from which the glow-in-the-dark isometric cube pattern emerged. The overall effect was disorienting in that the viewer was unsure of where "the room"- its corners, ceiling, etc., was situated.

Urban installing project

installation view in full light

installation view in the dark

detail in the dark

Jason Urban is a visual artist living and working in Austin, TX. In addition to making prints, drawings, paintings, installations , he is also a co-founder/contributor of Printeresting.org -the world's greatest printmaking website. Urban teaches printmaking and drawing at University of Texas - Austin. He studied at Kutztown University – BFA and University of Iowa – MA and MFA.

Cicada

2009-03-24T18:08:00.000-07:00

Jessie Lehson, Cicada, December 2004

Jessie Lehson's site-specific work, Cicada, was constructed of handmade paper made from weeds, grass and cicada wings. Her work transforms mundane organic materials into elegant sculptural forms.

Jessie Lehson received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2002 and will complete her MFA at the Rinehart School of Sculpture in 2008. Lehson lives and works in Baltimore, MD. Lehson’s work has been featured and reviewed in many publications including: The Baltimore Sun; The Washington Post, The Washington Post Express, The Washington City Paper; The Baltimore City Paper, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Colonial, The Washington Times, The Reston Times, The Falls Church News, Hand Papermaking and Mid-Atlantic Art News as well as reviewed on NPR.

Tell Me Window

2009-03-24T18:07:00.000-07:00

Temple Crocker, Tell Me Window, October 2004

The installation consisted of antiquated keys attached to the ceiling by threads, door knob back plates that contained fragments of language, hair, photographs and string, a small curiosity cabinet, hundreds of matches and a collection of freshly fallen leaves. Participants were encouraged to use the scissors that hung in the space to cut down a key and take it with them. A sound score created in collaboration with Carol Anne Perini accompanied the installation.

Tell Me Window began as an exploration of the metaphor of the body as a holding house, a complex and mysterious dwelling place that contains not only our expanding lungs and beating hearts, but the nuances of our dream life and the remembrances of our past. I am fascinated with the unpredictable nature of memory and its constant state of flux. There is a subtle terror accompanying the discovery that a person, place or feeling from the past has faded so dramatically that it lacks any definition in the mind’s eye. Why does one image become soft around the edges to a point of indecipherability and another shine with fragmented clarity? And do we have any influence on what comes and what goes?

In ancient Chinese medicine autumn is associated with grieving and the sound of weeping. The element of the season is metal mined from the earth and melted by fire. The parts of the body associated are the lungs, skin and hair. While creating work in a room with a window that offers a view of the changing season I witness the leaves of the trees brighten to an excess of color before falling and inevitably fading. With this observation comes the insight that the experiences of my past have their own autumnal season and live in my memory as a part of that same cycle of change.

Temple Crocker was born in Georgia, grew up in North Carolina and after earning her BA from the College of Charleston in South Carolina moved to San Francisco, where she lived for eleven years. During this time she performed, designed and created theatre with a variety of directors, writers, choreographers and musicians. Some of those artists include Loy Arcenas, Sean Hayes, Mark Jackson, Philip Gotanda, Tom Ontiveros, Pearl Ubungen, Sommer Ulrickson and Will Waghorn. It was in San Francisco that she met her long-time friend and collaborator Annie Kunjappy. Together they founded Strangefruit Theatre Ensemble with Rowena Richie and from 1996 to 2003 created six original performances, including Heat Death of the Universe based on the short story by Pamela Zoline, and Sewing Lessons based on the art and lives of surrealist painters/writers Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. Both projects were supported by the Zellerbach Family Fund, and Sewing Lessons was honored with a Bay Area Critics Circle award nomination in 2001 for best direction and costume

Stray Dogs

2009-03-24T18:05:00.000-07:00

Cornel Rubino, Stray Dogs, September 2004

installation view

Stray Dogs was Cornel Rubino's homage to the downtrodden and often neglected homeless population during the Bush years. He told the stories of the displaced men and women who serve as reminders of the failings as a society. The work was executed in charcoal "alla prima", without sketches, and continued Rubino's series of direct wall drawings.

detail

Cornel Rubino attended Parsons School of Design and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, Italy. He is currently on the faculty at Maryland Institute College of Art. He has exhibited at spare room and Creative Alliance, Baltimore, Gallery FE, Pittsburgh, and Swan Coach House Gallery, Atlanta. His illustrations are seen regularly in The New Yorker, and appear in The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, The Boston Globe, and other national newspapers and magazines. He is a winner of numerous awards including the Society of Publication Designers Award and Communication Arts Illustration Competition. Rubino has created posters for the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, International Habitat for Humanity, Lincoln Center, and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, among others. He currently resides in Baltimore.

Matchbook

2009-03-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

In August 2004, spare room asked local artists to create art on matchbooks and donate the works to help raise funds for the operation of the space. It was a hot and crowded night at spare room, as patrons danced to the beats of Delano Farm Labs and perused over sixty matchbooks.

Artists in the show included: Emily Boismain, Cara Ober, Mimi Shapiro, Jennie Fleming, Pam Rehm, Troy Collins, Seth Adelsberger, Stephaine Robbins, Cindy Rehm, Julie Benoit, Chole Kutun, Carol Galligan, Bill Sebring, Jo Israelson, Paul Wheatly, Jason Sloan, Laura Amusen, Karen Graff, Jessie Lehson, Alicia Byler, Temple Crocker, Cornel Rubino, John Hanlon, Lauren Bender, Jackie Milad, Renee Shaw, Marc Fanberg, Charnan Lewis, Bonnie Jones, Andrea Biller, Barbara Linder, Ric Royer, Taj Vaccarella, Lynn Silverman, Marian L. Savige and Ellen Slupe.

Chance

2009-03-24T16:11:00.001-07:00

Ellen Slupe, Chance, May 2004

The blueprint on DNA remains an unreadable tour book for life's journey. With no preplans and with no guidebook, chance emerges to lead the way. Chance selects love, chance allots heath, chance deals luck.

Ellen Slupe is drawn to straight-sided shapes. Realizing that everything we do is processed by determining the variance from vertical to horizontal, the straight-sided shape became a metaphor for human activity in her work.

Ellen Slupe is an artist and writer.She was born and raised in Lancaster County and of Pennsylvania Dutch and Danish heritage. Her early path in science led to a BS in pre-med biology from Elizabethtown College followed by research at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla CA and at the Penn State University Hershey Medical Center in Hershey PA.

In 1995 Slupe earned a BFA from Millersville University, entered the arts community full of enthusiasm and never looked back. She developed an extensive exhibit history with invitational solo and juried group exhibits at many locations including The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Susquehanna Art Museum Harrisburg PA, Lancaster Museum of Art, the Demuth Museum Lancaster PA, Woodmere Art Museum, New Arts Program Kutztown PA, The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Elizabethtown College, Noyes Museum of Art, Berman Museum of Art, Phillips Museum of Art, American College, Liriodendron Foundation, Suzanne H. Arnold Art Gallery Annville PA, Robeson Gallery State College PA, Spare Room Baltimore MD, The Plastic Club in Philadelphia, Reading Public Museum, Wallingford Center for the Arts, Art Point Black Gallery in Firenze Italy, Gallarie San Vidal in Venice, Fusion Art Institute in Japan and Seoul Korea.

Centre

2009-03-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

Christine Bailey, Centre, April 2004

Centre is one in a series of meditation spaces that simultaneously takes a critical, ironic stance, while attempting to create a legitimate sublime experience. Comprised of painting on canvas, synthetic hair, and cheap lighting gimmicks, Centre straddles the line between art and popular culture, cynicism and sincerity, the transcendental and the utterly stupid.

Christine Bailey received her Masters of Fine Art from the Maryland Institute College of Arts Mount Royal School of Art and her Bachelors Degree from Arizona State University. Bailey is an adjunct professor of fine art at the Corcoran College of Art. Recent awards include a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Photography (2005). She currently lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.

48 Pages

2009-03-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

Andrea Biller, 48 Pages, March 2004

installation view

For the installation 48 Pages, Biller presented a series of drawings on vellum created to act as a see through book. The viewer was able to look through a series of individual drawings, or pages. As the viewer removed each page from its shallow box the layers disappeared and the 'reading' was complete. This installation was part of an ongoing investigation of the physical properties of texts with the marks of the drawing substituting for the marks of a text.

installation view

page detail

Andrea Biller, who lives and works in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, attended Antonelli Institute of Art and recently earned a BA in English. Her work has been shown regionally at the Parlor and Infantree Galleries in Lancaster and the Abington Art Center in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, and nationally at the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh and Women Made Gallery, Chicago.

In 2003 and 2006 Ms. Biller presented a drawing project for the web titled “A Drawing a Day for Lent” at http://www.andreabiller.com/. She is currently working on a new group of paintings as well as continuing with her ongoing series of drawings on vellum.

Pin Drawings

2009-03-24T16:01:00.001-07:00

Renee van der Stelt, Pin Drawings, February 2004

installation view

Devoid of color, van der Stelt's drawings are created through puncturing the surface of the paper with a pin. The drawings seek to describe space in both diagrammatic and topographic ways, and link the two dimensional image with the three dimensional object. They are visual maps or illustrations. The drawings suggest our globe, our galaxy, and reveal the biases and limitations of how we think about space.

installation view

detail of drawing surface

Renee van der Stelt was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and grew up in Ontario and Iowa. She received a Master’s degree in Art History in 1990 and a MFA degree in Drawing from the University of Iowa in 1993. Now living in Baltimore, Maryland, she exhibits nationally in solo and group exhibitions. She has received grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the City of Baltimore, and the Maryland State Arts Council. She was an artist-in-residence at the historic MacDowell Colony in 2008. Her work is included in the Drawing Center’s Artist Registry, NY.

Birth Memorial

2009-03-24T15:59:00.000-07:00

Carol Galligan, Birth Memorial January 2004

painting detail

The 'privilege' of childbirth took the lives of 300,000 women between the years of 1910 and 1925. That's more than all the men who dies in American wars from the revolutions until World War I. - A Century of Women

Carol Galligan's Birth Memorial recognizes all the women who have perished in the act of bringing forth life. This installation functions as a shrine and is composed of forty paintings which utilize female symbology. Images of wings, the fetus, and the egg represent birth, life, death, and transcendence. The project continues Galligan's exploration of cyclical processes and spiritual renewal.

painting detail

Carol Galigan is an artist and teacher in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Her work has been exhibited nationally including the Paula Allen Gallery and Soho 20 in New York, NY; Doshi Gallery, Harrisburg, PA; Vilanova University, Philadelphia, PA; and the Lancaster Museum of Art, Lancaster, PA.

Comfort Panda

2009-03-24T15:58:00.000-07:00

Lauren Bender, Comfort Panda, November 2003

The Comfort Panda is a narrative installation encompassing literary and visual forms. The work relies on input from the viewer, and attendees will be asked to contribute to the room-sized wall drawing.

Fly Catcher

2009-03-24T15:55:00.000-07:00

T. Charnan Lewis, Fly Catcher, October 2003

Eva Hesse, feminist minimalists, and earthwork artists influence T. Charnan Lewis' Fly Catcher. The work deals with the impermanence of life and the power struggles that result in differing groups invested in self-preservation.

installation view

installation detail

T. Charnan Lewis was born in Texas in 1971, and grew up outside Washington, DC. In 1994, she completed undergraduate degrees in Studio Art, Art History and Women’s Studies at the University of Maryland; receiving a MFA in 2004 from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and winning the Graduate Painting Award and a Walter’s Traveling Grant honorable mention. In 2005, Lewis was a recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award and Governor’s Citation, and her work was exhibited at the BAC Arts Festival in Barcelona, Spain. Notable exhibition venues include the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art in Japan, the Takt Gallery in Berlin, Germany and Gallery 32 in London, England. Lewis’ current work consists of paintings, sculptures, installations and videos using candy, stickers and air.

the synonym of hunger

2009-03-24T15:54:00.002-07:00

Cindy Rehm, the synonym of hunger, September 2003

the synonym of hunger was created in response to Max Ernst’s 1930 collage novel A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil. Ernst’s novel conveys the tale of sixteen year-old Marie-Marcel and her vivid and terrifying dreams of sacred and profane desire. Marie-Marcel is a duality and in the narrative she splits and is often perplexed by her separation from herself. Ernst uses the girl’s hysterical displacement to blur the distinctions between Marie-Marcel’s vulnerability and her burgeoning sexual potency.

I borrow from Ernst’s images and words to create my own narrative in the synonym of hunger. My work is the dream/nightmare of a thirty-seven year-old woman who has not dreamed of taking the veil. Symbols within the work reference flight and potency as well as loss and decay. There are many instances of splitting or doubling which indicate a longing toward union. This desire is at once romantic, familial and spiritual.

installation detail

installation view

video still

one of the hundred ink-blot drawings

New LA transplant, Cindy Rehm is an artist and educator. She is the founder and former director of spare room, an installation space that was located inside her private residence in Baltimore, MD. She is the recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship in Media from the Tennessee State Arts Commission and a Learning to Love You More grant. Rehm’s work in drawing, video, and performance has been shown at ARC Gallery, Chicago; Consolidated Works, Seattle; School 33, Baltimore; at Festival Miden, Kalamata, Greece; and at other venues. She maintains a blog at themouthandtheknife.blogspot.com.

spare room

2009-03-24T15:54:00.001-07:00

the empty spare room

In the summer of 2003, my workspace spilled out of my studio across the hall to a spare room. As I worked in the empty room I thought about the possibility of utilizing the space as an installation site. I had just finished reading Virgina Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and I contemplated the importance of time and space in relation to creative activity. I imagined offering the room to other artists who were interested in developing site-specific installation works. The support of my friends helped to qualm my doubts about the feasibility of such an undertaking; in September 2003, spare room opened her doors.

I invited Charnan Lewis and Lauren Bender to join me on a committee to review proposals for the space. We put out the call in the fall of 2003 and myself, Charnan, and Lauren each presented a project in the space while we waited for the proposals to roll in. In 2005, Bill Sebring joined the review committee when Charnan moved to NY. Over a three year span, spare room hosted over twenty temporary works. The works were on view for one night only, to a diverse and supportive crowd. I am eternally grateful to the artists and audience of spare room and hope this archive will help to preserve a project that was a true labor of love.

Gromit, the spare room's resident dog (with a fresh haircut)

Press

2009-01-27T15:08:00.000-08:00

Best Gallery Trend, The Short Show

Baltimore City Paper, Posted 9/17/2008

EVER SINCE CINDY REHM SHUTTERED the Spare Room gallery space in her Waverly home in 2006, we've missed the smart yet off-the-cuff art show, the one-night-only or weekend-only event that felt so special because it was so fleeting. Luckily, some new visual vanguards have rekindled that impulse, from the Current Gallery's In Home: In Response last March to Gallery 2219's Polaroid show last May to the weekend show Erin Cluley curated in her Creative Alliance residency living space this past summer. Here's to looking forward to more short-lived inspiration in the future.

Denise Tassin Review

Cara Ober, Art US, May-June 2007

PEEK Review interview with Cindy Rehm, January 2006.

PEEK: How did you get started?

Cindy Rehm: I’ve nearly always had my studio in my home. In the summer of 2003, I began using an empty room across the hall from my studio as an additional workspace. As I worked in the space, I realized I could install the work in the room where it was created. I liked that the work would grow in the space and then be exhibited there. I also started thinking about the limited opportunities to show installation work in Baltimore. After my project was done, the room would be empty again, so Idecided to open it up to other artists.
I asked Charnan Lewis and Lauren Bender to become part of the review panel for spare room and we put out a call for installation proposals. I asked both Charnan and Lauren to do a project that fall while we waited for the proposals to roll in. In the spring of 2004, we showed our first series of installations selected from the artist proposals.

PEEK: Why did you choose Charnan Lewis and Lauren Bender to work with? How did the selection process work?

CR: I respected both Charnan and Lauren’s work and I knew they both had good critical sensibilities. Mid-way through the spare room shows, Charnan left town, so I asked Bill Sebring, my fiancé (who also shares his private space with spare room) to join Lauren and I on the review committee. I thought it was important to have at least three voices on the panel and everyone had an equal weight in the decision making. We would put out periodic calls for installation projects. After the deadline, we would sit down and review the proposals. We weren’t so concerned with the artist’s prior experience making installation works, but we did seek proposals that would be temporary projects. I would use the term site-specific, but it doesn’t really apply to all the projects.
PEEK: One of the most innovative things about spare room was its freedom, gained by the way it circumventing the usual alternative gallery "system"-one that is always bogged down by financial concerns and bureaucracy. Was this your plan from the beginning? Did you receive grants or donations or did you take on all financial responsibilities yourself?
CR: I’ve always had a sort of do it yourself attitude. It’s something I encourage in my students…if you have an idea, you can’t always wait around for an institution to come to you, just organize and do it! Money is always a concern, but there are lots of things you can on a small budget. Spare room didn’t cost much. I didn’t have to pay rent on the space, so my only other costs were promotion, opening costs and general installation materials. Spare room was not established as a non-profit, so we weren’t eligible for grants. We did a benefit the start of the second year. We sold artist made matchbooks for twenty dollars a pop. It was a great show and we made nearly five hundred dollars! That money went to the production of a general spare room postcard and helped to defray opening costs. I covered the costs of opening beverages and the artists supplied the food.

PEEK: Can you speak to the history of "parlor" arts performance/installation/discussion spaces. Particularly the role they have played in Baltimore.

CR: Hmmm…I’m not really familiar with a history of informal spaces in Baltimore. There were a series of performance works in private spaces, when I was a graduate student at Towson. In some ways, a more significant precedent to the spare room was the 1970’s project Womanhouse. A group of feminist artists staged a series of installation and performances within a house they had collectively renovated. While Womanhouse was more of a singular event, I was inspired by their use of a private and intimate space for showing art.

PEEK: How active was your role as curator. Did the artists have total freedom to pursue their project once it was accepted? What kind of work was presented over the three years? Did your concept of the space and how it worked change with time?

CR: Once the proposal was selected for spare room, the artist had complete control. Part of my inspiration for spare room was drawn from Virgina Woolf’s Room of One’s Own. So, once they had the space, they were free to let the work grow in response to the environment. Spare room showed a diverse range of materials and processes. There were works based in painting, drawing, sculpture, fiber, glass, photography, performance, and sound art. There is an archive of past spare room works at http://userpages.umbc.edu/~rehm/spareroom/ The site hasn’t been updated in the past few months, but there is some information there, for folks who may be interested. When I started the space I was a bit idealistic about how much time the artist would spend physically inhabiting the space. Some of the artists did make work in the room, while others fabricated pieces which were later installed.

PEEK: Besides being an innovative arts project and altruistic action, did you hope spare room would embolden others to follow its example and open small spaces. Do you know of any who have done so.

CR: Yes! I hope other will follow my lead an open art spaces in their basements or hall closets! A few people have contacted me for support in starting their own spaces, so I am hopeful this will happen. Who decided that artists could only show work in the white cube? I think it’s important to question and expand upon the places where art can be shown.

PEEK: There was a great "buzz" surrounding spare room and wide knowledge of what was happening there each month. How did you make sure the word got out and how would you describe your audience?

CR: Much of the press for spare room was done via e-mail. We didn’t have a budget to do mailings, so we relied on our audience to spread the word. We did have nice reviews in the Urbanite and Radar and picks in the City Paper helped too.
The audience was always an interesting mix of regulars, strangers and folks who came specifically for the artist on view. There were usually a group of wide-eyed students amongst the more initiated art crowd. The openings were always very lively. I feel very lucky to have had such a supportive audience.

PEEK: Tell us about your own background as an artist and why this kind of endeavor would appeal to you.

CR: My art practice has become pretty diverse over the years, from drawing to performance, video. and installation. I’m very interested in art as an experience, as opposed to art as a static object. I often make art in private spaces. I’ve filmed video works all over my private residences over the years, including my bathroom closet. I rarely make work in my sanctioned studio. Normally I’m spread out all over the living room. Working that way just feels more organic to me. The thought of going to a neutral studio space isn’t terribly inspiring. The same is true for installing work. I’ve been most satisfied responding to found spaces as opposed to making an installation in a neutralized gallery space.

PEEK: You are closing spare room for the time being, correct? Can you explain why?

CR: Yes, sadly spare room is closing. Last fall I started a tenure track teaching position at Middle Tennessee State University. I’ve been splitting my time between Baltimore and Murfreesboro (just outside Nashville) so, it’s become increasingly difficult to maintain the spare room. I’m very grateful to Bill for picking up some of the slack while I’ve been away! I hope that I may be able to pull off a few projects at spare room in the near future, but I need a more flexible timeline. Also, I’m working with a group of artists in TN to start an artspace or series of projects there.

Home Is Where the Art Is

Alice Ockleshaw, Urbanite, #7, January 2005

Cicadas are back, but now they're art, A short-lived exhibit includes their wings

Annie Linskey, The Baltimore Sun, Dec 4, 2004, 4.D

Jessie Lehson's newest work pays homage to cicadas, those noisy, flighty creatures that last summer emerged after having spent years underground. So it is appropriate that, like those short-lived insects, her art will have only a brief time in the light.

Lehson's piece will be on view tonight only at the spare room on Greenmount Avenue, an exhibition space that is dedicated to single- day works of art. A new creation is displayed each month. The space is really an unused bedroom in a home owned by Cindy Rehm, who teaches art at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The temporary nature of the installations adds to the excitement of viewing art, Rehm said.

Lehson's creation is an elongated sculpture built of narrow strips of handmade paper embedded with real cicada wings. The work, which stretches the length of the installation space, is shaded in hues of green from forest to leaf. The wings are bare and untreated, and Lehson has no idea how long they'll last. Called Cicada, the sculpture begins at a coat rack in a tiny closet. The papers, glued together in a band, flow to the ground where the sculpture widens and moves across the hardwood floor to an oversized window. There -- seemingly defying gravity -- the paper travels up about a foot to the window sill. The effect is eerie -- like a creek bifurcating a room.

"This is a departure for me and my work, I almost always work with grids," said the 25-year-old artist as she surveyed her efforts. "But the architecture of this room provided a grid," she continued, gesturing to a tall radiator in the corner and a single oversized window.

Lehson, who graduated in 2002 from the Maryland Institute College of Art, made the paper used in this project from weeds and grass near her home in Hampden. "I walk around collecting bags of weeds, I get funny looks, but surprisingly few people say anything," she said with a laugh. The Ellicott City native often creates art that uses weeds, dirt and garbage -- substances society disdains. She's used gum wrappers, plastic bags and Styrofoam cups. But this is the first time she's added bug parts to the mix.

"Cicadas were such a huge part of my summer," she said. "I spent so much time whacking them off of my tree. They became the bane of my existence."

They also became her focus. In June, when she began designing this piece, she recruited an 8-year-old neighbor to help collect the insect parts. The two spent days seeking the transparent wings.

"They were everywhere, I mean the grass was littered with these little wings," she said. "I tried to litter my work with them the same way the grass was littered with the bugs."

After gathering the debris, she boils it in batches for three hours. The resulting gooey substance is stuffed into a blender, strained and set on a mold to dry. Because Lehson has only one mold she can make only one sheet of paper at a time. The wings disintegrated rapidly and disappeared into the fiber as she made it. So the artist saved several hundred in a box and stuck them in clumps on the paper as it dried.

"It seems like an inordinate amount of work for a one-day show," she admitted.

But it's not the result that she really cares about.

"I do try to do pieces that are visually interesting, but it is these really laborious processes that interest me," she said.

Rolling up this piece of art after one night seems right. Lehson's work illustrates how beauty can grow from patience and that anticipating the ephemeral can be worthwhile in itself.