Fairyland

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.

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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

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

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

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

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.

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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

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.

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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

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.