Second Seating Comeback

Second Seating, September 2009

Several weeks ago I received an email from Diverse Works. Second Seating, that full blown installation I created in 2009, has been selected for a rerun in July, along with a dozen other of the sixty projects  DW supported with Andy Warhol Idea Fund grants. Nice.
Especially nice, as I saved so much of Second Seating, most of it packed away at Sonny's place. I can never bear to get rid of an entire installation. For years, I held on to the enormous Styrofoam boulder that Carol Gerhardt and I made for Silicon Stones in 1985. In my back garden, there are at least a ton of the river stones we used in that Houston Center For Photography installation. I've moved them twice. Imagine.

This morning I went to Sonny's to sort through many, many boxes.  Emptied several big trash bags stuffed with filigreed Clorox bottles. Must give thought to how I will reconfigure a Clorox bottle chandelier. Much of the original chandelier was used for a commissioned piece after the exhibition closed. Made a bit smaller version that could be used in a dining room. But enough filigreed bottles remain so that I can create swags. Can the swags be turned into a Maypole on the DW ceiling with that twirling mirrored ball in its center?

Original installtion of Wall of Plates, 2009.

Sure hope that DW can/will actually move the Wall of Plates into their space. We'll have to cut the wall in half and reassemble, as their doors aren't big enough for it to pass through. Days ago, in the back garden, I spread out  the 10 x 20 foot patchwork table cloth that so many women helped piece together from those fabrics damaged during Hurricanie Ike. Sadly, I tore sections of it apart about six months ago for no good reason.  I will figure something out, create a smaller banquet table.

Detail of patchwork banquet tablecloth.

This morning, I covered the floor with plates and other paraphernalia. Just had to see what remained. I have plenty to work with. I sense already that I am going to be in severe edit mode. After all, I am sharing the DW gallery space with other Idea Fund artists.

Here's hoping though, that even a reduced Banquet Table will look something like this. Found the rooster and all the pieces of that glass chandelier this morning. Everything is ready for re-installation. Thanks, DW, for offering literally offering a second seating for Second Seating.

Clorox Bottle Chandelier, Second Time Around

Chandelier looks pretty good in this brand new house in the Heights. Hangs over the dining room table. Smaller than the one in Second Seating and has no mirrored twirling ball, yet it still works. That would be me up on the scaffolding adjusting table cloth knots so the thing is level.
Here's a photo of Carmella Rojas with her grandson with the original Clorox bottle chandelier at Second Seating. She carved so many of the Clorox bottles for the 'big one' at Second Seating. She had a very special talent for designing them with great swirls. She sure had her own signature.

Progress: Pictures are Worth 1000's of Words

Not much time to write, but time enough to share some new photos Laurie Perez took of the pieces for Second Seating that are complete or almost complete. The Clorox bottle chandelier looks ethereal and it's scale is fairly overwhelming, quite frankly. The Houston Dynamo soccer ball chandelier is unexpectedly wonderful - of course, I knew it would be wonderful. The banquet table with its patchwork tablecloth made with fabrics salvaged from Hurricane Ike flood waters is 10 x 14 feet BIG and gorgeously overflowing with a plethora of vintage objects and trash and treasure from the East End community.







Second Seating is four months out. Press kits have been assembled yesterday and today. Thank you, Kathie Easterly. They'll be in the mail tomorrow and totally done by Thursday. Then it's back to making art and checking with all the other artists who are producing beautiful stuff for this show.

Clorox Bottles=Chandelier

Clorox is going to love this chandelier. I'm going to love this chandelier too once it's properly assembled and all the kinks are gone, adjusted, dealt with.
What's not to love once it is truly finished and star dust is practically bouncing off of each filigreed Clorox bottle? Then we're all going to love it. I assembled the chandelier for the very first time this afternoon in a warehouse off Fountainview. Tony Meija, the man with the chandelier business, hung the structure on a chain from the ceiling - after Laurie Perez had photographed it at eye level and from low on the floor. Looks much better when it's 'high' and the viewer is 'low.'
Realized when I was tying the ropes of table cloths on to the frame that I was going to need at least four more. That means about a dozen additional filigreed Clorox bottles. So, students, I hope you are willing to filigree twelve more. It's not over yet. I went through the immediate pangs of 'Oh, God this isn't going to work. Looks terrible."


Then I adjusted the bottles, weighting them to one side for the photographs, Tony lifted the whole chandelier up toward the ceiling and all of a sudden with the mirror ball sparkling through the bottles on to the walls and floor, it began to look like something.
We'll have an image or two for press prints and that's what we need right now. Can hardly wait to see what Laurie came up with.

Second Class Works On Second Seating Chandelier

Midday I was back over at Houston Community College Southeast with June to oversee the second group of students who began to cut designs into Clorox bottles. All worked intently with knives and hole punches. Some of the works in progress' are lovely.

For many, this 'making' of an overall pattern is a brand new concept. Also new for some is understanding the differences between abstract and representational cutouts, a swirly form versus a heart or a cross. All kinds of designs and patterns are emerging.

Today we had enough knives for every single student. I bought a dozen more at Art Supply yesterday because Monday's students had to share knives and hole punches and just didn't accomplish as much in the hour and a half of time.

It's really interesting to see all the different approaches to making the design cutouts. Some students map out their design with blue masking tape and are very methodical, others try out a bit of everything. Still others stick to representations of hearts and flowers and arrows and today, even clusters of dog paws.

One student almost finished work on her bottle. Her swirls were graceful and so wide open that the bottle lost much of its inherent strength. As we ran a table cloth through it, the bottle compressed like a spring. The pattern is lovely and we're going to have to treat this bottle carefully.

We have one more week of class time and then we'll string the bottles on white tablecloths rolled on the bias. It's high time that I come to a decision about a welder and chandelier 'builder' to fabricate the structure on which to hang all of these bottles - and a mirrored rotating ball.

Second Seating Mixes Food and Art

Art and dining? Dining and art? The combination is not necessarily new, but the idea is spawning new venues and gaining devotees. I've just read The New York Times STYLE Magazine, Design & Living Winter 2008, and this mix of art and food sounds a lot like Second Seating to me.

Plans for Second Seating include receptions and parties in the space itself, catered by Irma's restaurant and hosted by a local green groups and real estate organizations.

These receptions will be about people coming together in a fantasy environment, drinking a margarita and eating a flauta or two while immersed in an art installation where almost everything is made with recycled junk or cast-off and vintage objects, including tin can chandeliers and collages made with stained coffee filters.


Second Seating will be a space in which you can ponder a transparent table base filled with East End street litter and remember Hurricane Ike when you spot a table made from trees felled by the storm. You may marvel at the number of stacked coffee mugs that support a tabletop of coffee beans and catch light from a chandelier constructed from Clorox bottles.

Food wouldn't be half as much fun to eat if we couldn't see it and I suspect that art, especially art that conjures up feasts or the lack of, will be more fun to experience with food in hand. So we are mixing art and food all the time with Second Seating.