Carrie Minikel

During quarantine I was part of an artist group that remotely supported each other through project prompts, conversation and critique. These pieces were made for a show that explored the impact of that group - its conversations, connections, and meaning.

For many, the pandemic was a time to reconsider our homes and immediate surroundings, as well as the direction of our lives. I was curious about creating a physical reminder of what we already have, what we are proud of and want to grow in ourselves. I envisioned quiet personal trophies. For my project, I asked each member the question, “What part of yourself would you like to be more in touch with, or have more present in your everyday life?”

In response to my conversation with each artist, I made an object for each person using only what I already had in my studio. The title/poem below is a rearrangement of selected words and phrases from each person’s response to my question:

Dreaming awake, staving off intent

doing nothing, ordinary miraculous

Thrill of physical

cannonballs in sandstone

burning focus, animal calm

Strange mental blank spot

a bigger circle, core of warmth

Disappear and reappear

Flexible, strong, surrender

Elemental

Ancient

Necessary

Beautiful

These objects are tools for staying curious and engaged with the world. They vary in degrees of function and metaphor but are always addressing a vital need to stay curious and playful as an antidote to the many pockets of darkness and anxiety that we can fall into.

All collected within a 10 mile radius of home, these objects speak to the persistence of both nature and artificiality. Surprising formal and textural similarities arise between objects. Nature and culture become conflated when a manufactured object exposed to the elements takes on the quality of a natural object.

Pink (verb): 

1a. to perforate in an ornamental pattern 1b. to cut a saw-toothed edge on.

2a. pierce, stab 2b. to wound by irony, criticism, or ridicule.

In To Pink, photos of pink areas of my body become spikes. As shown in the definition above, this symbol of rigid gender norms that can connote passivity, and frivolity, can also embody a necessary ferocity.

Similar to the pieces in Arsenal, these are meant to arm or empower. The scale and relationship to the body refer to the self-defense weapons women are encouraged to carry. 

I had the opportunity to have the Hill Street Country Club/Linksoul LAB gallery space for a month to do some more experimental, process based work. I wanted to make something at a scale I couldn’t at home. I had been thinking about a giant presence as witness, and wanted to make that physical. As I layered cheesecloth and plaster on a giant inflatable ball, I thought about how we aren’t our bodies, but our bodies are ours. They are expressions of us, tools, a medium through which we experience the world and often a large part of our identities. We are also trapped in them and increasingly limited by them as we age. As I watch my daughter grow, and my parents age, I am increasingly aware of my own mortality - it is becoming a palpable presence, a kind of witness. This piece is about sitting with that solidity and gravity in physical form and on some level, accepting it. This common truth is larger than me, too big and unwieldy for me to control and somehow beautiful.

This body of work is the record of a quest to answer the question of what a visual record of wind would look like.  This includes a series of devices made for the purpose of recording wind, as well as the recorded results.

This box/table holds physical space for treasures found while walking. The things we notice and collect say a lot about how adept we are at being observant and appreciative of our surroundings. If we have a place to keep or display them, they can remind us of how interesting our surroundings are, and the part of ourselves that is fascinated and curious. The sliding magnifying glass is an invitation to inspect the objects, and interact with the piece.

"A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indesctructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength."

Rachel Carson

The Sense of Wonder, 1956

All of these natural objects have been collected and inspected by myself and my young child. The Nature Box is in active use by my family as a way to be present, observant and curious about our surroundings.