Art, An Unfolding Relationship
“Great art smacks you right in the eye, it affects you, it moves you, it changes you.”
Says Smithsonian Magazine's editor and chief, Michael Caruso. Well, the first time I met one of Janet Echelman's installations it did just that. It was 2014, and I was on my way back to LA from a trip to Costa Rica, with a short layover. As I emerged from the walkway at the airport---I was stopped in my tracks by the large organic fishnet chandeliers that draped down in voluptuous tiers from the ceiling in their graceful undulating colors, and could not stop snapping photos of them with my phone in order to try and capture the moment: of how they made me feel, their curves, the texture and weave of the netting, the colors...determined to hold onto a piece of them for myself. There was something at once tactile and traditional about them, and yet magical and playful, that made me fall in love with Janet's work instantly.
I love those moments when I see a piece of art and it opens me up from inside out with a sense of surreal wonder and invites me to connect with it. This is how Janet's hand knotted and magically lit sky net installation "Skies Painted with Unnumbered Sparks" makes me feel, even whilst only being able to experience its interactive sparks of light and color through video. A 750 foot sculpture created to suspend in the air and be attached between pre-existing structures, made out of more than 100 miles of traditionally hand knotted fibers, that is also outfitted with software that enabled viewers to use their smartphones to interact with the visual lighting displayed on the sculpture. Each participant is able to use their mobile device to select a color and make a gesture with their finger, an action that was then translated through software and projected onto the sculpture like a Fantasia light show. The results are absolutely breathtaking.
"I want my art to unfold like a relationship that's always changing."---Janet Echelman
However, what inspires me the most about Janet’s work is its ever changing relationship with its environment, its audience, down to its interdisciplinary origins. Each sculpture begins with a collaborative design process between the arts & sciences: not only artist, but structural engineers, software developers, and lighting specialists whilst it moves through a journey of creation, realization, and technical troubleshooting before it is painstakingly crafted by hand. In the case of her newest piece, rising over the Boston Greenway: building contractors, political officials, the sponsoring committee, owners of nearby properties, and more are involved in order to implement the sculpture into its designated space. Before the sculpture is installed, it first arrives in an impossibly small crate, and is meticulously unfolded and lifted through the use of cranes. The weblike anchoring points are then manually hand cranked and attached to structural load bearing points amidst the encircling of buildings that have agreed to participate in the display of sustaining the 1 ton net + additional 50,000 pounds of force (per cable attachment) that is produced with every gust of wind that funnels through the buildings and rakes through its fibers.
This current installation had been untitled until it was installed. Janet wanted to meet the piece first before she named it. Probably because the final anchoring points of the sculpture plays a hand in the unfolding and final form of the sculpture itself. Surreal in its gossamer aerial suspension amidst the city’s skyscrapers, the sculpture is a study in contrast--both between its own strength and resilience, as well as the opposing brute strength and rigidity of the steel and glass surrounding it. The sculpture’s lighting is fine tuned to shift with the wind at night.
“If you come and lie down in the grass underneath and look up and notice the changing patterns of wind, I feel that you have experienced the work,” she said, “creating your own meaning, finding your own observations about nature and the city.” ----Janet Echelman
That is Janet’s wish, the impact that she hopes to imprint upon those who experiences her art. A live and ever changing relationship between the viewer and the art that unfolds in layers--finding our own meaning as influenced by our personal history, observations, and thoughts. I hope to pursue a similar vision and meaning behind my own work.
*Photos are credited to Studio Echelman (top of post) and Reed Young (above)
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