I love a good tape measure.  I obsess over organizational flow charts, phone directories, diagrams, and maps.  It must be from my background in political science.  I’ll pore over these charts looking for others and myself — ourselves among others — everything in its place — justification in the world.  I have a desire for action: movement and gesture over stability and inertia.  I love lo-fi, slipshod processes.  I avoid refinement. My work is temporary.

On the one hand, I try to make monumental attempts at interaction.  Here, line and repetition are important.  I want to draw physical lines linking together locations or use line to connect disparate identities.  I look for lines that might induce interaction between viewers or trip lines that might cut them off at the knees.  I like the idea of a tightrope that viewers unwittingly walk over, some kind of path that implicates the viewer within a larger social structure.

On the other hand, I work in themes of insignificance.  Line is still important, but here I want the lines to be pointless and impermanent.  I’ve worked in art therapy programs with the disabled and those near death.  I’m close to those with dementia and their caregivers.  I want to make some visceral connection to the physical qualities of bodies and create a sense of brevity and impermanence.  Like a tightrope walk, the connections are tenuous and the walk is precarious. Missteps are weighted with consequence.  So I want the processes of creation to be obvious and for my objects to perish and for my viewers to mouth,  What’s the point? — What is the point?  Lines with ending points.

Photos and press release for this artist.

Residency: March 2012 - September 2012
Art Exhibition: Friday, September 21  &  Saturday, September 22

Visit Calder Yates' website