“Art is kind of scary to people,” acknowledges Franklin, “and I wanted to create a 3-D participatory experience. As a sculpture, I wanted people to experience it, to touch things…to do a show that speaks to everyone in some fashion.”
And she certainly succeeded. When you enter the Constance Art Gallery in the Helene Center for the Visual Arts, no thought is required, you feel as though you are entering a secret garden. All your senses are bombarded simultaneously: the floor is an expanse of live, green lawn, the humid air is heavy with the rich taste of moist soil, and the muffled acoustics only serve to accentuate the sound of crickets. This place is alive.
The entire exhibit could be described as a case of unintended consequences or simply a matter of returning to one’s youth – or both – because both the process of creating it (see Artist’s Statement) and the exhibit itself has been a surprise to the artist.
Professor Franklin, an Associate Professor of Art and Fine Arts Division Chair, joined the Graceland faculty after receiving her MFA in Sculpture from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, TX and working at the Dallas Museum of Art.
Franklin grew up in the Wichita Falls, TX area and it is from her childhood there and from the unique aesthetics of that region – the red dirt, the mesquite tree thorns, the magnolia blossoms – that her exhibit draws its inspiration. She explains that her starting point was simply that she “wanted grass in the gallery” and then, like a mosaic, all the pieces began to fall into place.
The inspiration for a lawn? “My grandfather had a lush green yard. It was the one green yard in the area, no one else had one, just him…and I would go there every day after school.” Julia described the moving experience of visiting that house again last summer with her daughter and finding the bench he used to kneel on when clipping the grass by hand.
Even though he has been dead for 15 years, her grandfather still influences her work. “I think all my sense of order and control is due to him,” reflects Franklin. “I think he taught me about putting everything in its place, about work ethic and discipline. Even though the rest of my life is chaotic, so crazy and frenetic,” confesses the profess-ional mother of an active three year-old, “there is an underlying grid structure in my work.”
And while the process of putting the show together was a series of “happy accidents” and unintended consequences, Franklin sees no coincidences in it. “Everything is connected,” she says, and “even though there is a connection to the past for me in it, my daughter showed me that everything is new.”
Landscapes is indeed new and full of unintended consequences because the exhibit is literally alive. “I’m still learning things about the show. I never expected the grass to grow. It gets watered daily now and I will mow it this weekend. Someone asked me if the cricket sounds were a tape,” laughs Franklin, “and they are not. We’ve always had some crickets in the building but within four hours of laying down the sod, the crickets moved into the exhibit. And they have been multiplying.” Crickets, worms, spiders, beetles, this exhibit is as much an ecosystem as a work of art.
Some people may find the title of the work misleading. “When you say ‘landscape,’ most people think of an oil painting of barns and corn and rolling hills,” says Franklin, “and I wanted to change their perspective. I wanted to use pieces of nature to create my own landscape.”
The artist encourages people to take off their shoes and walk around. “The greatest compliment is when people touch it,” she says. As an example, “My daughter brought in a book one day and sat and read. No one has had a picnic in the exhibit yet but no doubt it will happen.”
What are Franklin’s own personal childhood memories? “I am reminded of using aluminum pie tins to make mud pies and then trying to get my younger sister to eat them. Even though I decorated them with dandelions and tried to make them look like real food, she never ate one. I did get her to eat worms once though,” she reminisces proudly, “and I used to collect acorns so I could pelt her with them.”
The exhibit is open roughly from 8 AM to 8 PM daily in the Constance Art Gallery of The Helene Center for the Visual Arts and closes late in the afternoon of Friday, September 22nd.
Those who allow their busy daily schedules to keep them from seeing this exhibit are cheating themselves. Landscapes is something rare that you should go and experience yourself. And do yourself a favor: even if you don’t bring a picnic lunch, when you walk in, be sure to take off your shoes and walk around. I did.
(Doug Jones is a free-lance writer who lives in Lamoni.)
And she certainly succeeded. When you enter the Constance Art Gallery in the Helene Center for the Visual Arts, no thought is required, you feel as though you are entering a secret garden. All your senses are bombarded simultaneously: the floor is an expanse of live, green lawn, the humid air is heavy with the rich taste of moist soil, and the muffled acoustics only serve to accentuate the sound of crickets. This place is alive.
The entire exhibit could be described as a case of unintended consequences or simply a matter of returning to one’s youth – or both – because both the process of creating it (see Artist’s Statement) and the exhibit itself has been a surprise to the artist.
Professor Franklin, an Associate Professor of Art and Fine Arts Division Chair, joined the Graceland faculty after receiving her MFA in Sculpture from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, TX and working at the Dallas Museum of Art.
Franklin grew up in the Wichita Falls, TX area and it is from her childhood there and from the unique aesthetics of that region – the red dirt, the mesquite tree thorns, the magnolia blossoms – that her exhibit draws its inspiration. She explains that her starting point was simply that she “wanted grass in the gallery” and then, like a mosaic, all the pieces began to fall into place.
The inspiration for a lawn? “My grandfather had a lush green yard. It was the one green yard in the area, no one else had one, just him…and I would go there every day after school.” Julia described the moving experience of visiting that house again last summer with her daughter and finding the bench he used to kneel on when clipping the grass by hand.
Even though he has been dead for 15 years, her grandfather still influences her work. “I think all my sense of order and control is due to him,” reflects Franklin. “I think he taught me about putting everything in its place, about work ethic and discipline. Even though the rest of my life is chaotic, so crazy and frenetic,” confesses the profess-ional mother of an active three year-old, “there is an underlying grid structure in my work.”
And while the process of putting the show together was a series of “happy accidents” and unintended consequences, Franklin sees no coincidences in it. “Everything is connected,” she says, and “even though there is a connection to the past for me in it, my daughter showed me that everything is new.”
Landscapes is indeed new and full of unintended consequences because the exhibit is literally alive. “I’m still learning things about the show. I never expected the grass to grow. It gets watered daily now and I will mow it this weekend. Someone asked me if the cricket sounds were a tape,” laughs Franklin, “and they are not. We’ve always had some crickets in the building but within four hours of laying down the sod, the crickets moved into the exhibit. And they have been multiplying.” Crickets, worms, spiders, beetles, this exhibit is as much an ecosystem as a work of art.
Some people may find the title of the work misleading. “When you say ‘landscape,’ most people think of an oil painting of barns and corn and rolling hills,” says Franklin, “and I wanted to change their perspective. I wanted to use pieces of nature to create my own landscape.”
The artist encourages people to take off their shoes and walk around. “The greatest compliment is when people touch it,” she says. As an example, “My daughter brought in a book one day and sat and read. No one has had a picnic in the exhibit yet but no doubt it will happen.”
What are Franklin’s own personal childhood memories? “I am reminded of using aluminum pie tins to make mud pies and then trying to get my younger sister to eat them. Even though I decorated them with dandelions and tried to make them look like real food, she never ate one. I did get her to eat worms once though,” she reminisces proudly, “and I used to collect acorns so I could pelt her with them.”
The exhibit is open roughly from 8 AM to 8 PM daily in the Constance Art Gallery of The Helene Center for the Visual Arts and closes late in the afternoon of Friday, September 22nd.
Those who allow their busy daily schedules to keep them from seeing this exhibit are cheating themselves. Landscapes is something rare that you should go and experience yourself. And do yourself a favor: even if you don’t bring a picnic lunch, when you walk in, be sure to take off your shoes and walk around. I did.
(Doug Jones is a free-lance writer who lives in Lamoni.)
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