old photos from the installation...recently surfaced

I like these and just gained access to them so wanted to share...

Reinstallation of our Creation Myth at The Bookspace

Two days ago Kerdieekrdaad had the opportunity to reinstall a the backdrop of our thesis at the Philly Bookspace, on Frankford just south of Girard Ave.  It's no longer as much a space as a tapestry now, but at least it isn't rolled up in Bri's basement.  Our kind hosts lets us play with the lights (it's lit from behind!...pictures and video to come) and we found that the big warehouse is a perfect home for it...it can really breathe and to see it behind the wonderful performances last night at The Fuhrl's Midsummer showcase (thank you to the Band With No Name, Kickin' Bear, Your Sister's Canary and The West Philly Orchestra) made it feel more alive somehow.  If you want to swing by and take a look (also check out the hanging installation of wire and buttons by Maximiliana Eisenmann) The Bookspace is open most days between 12 and 5, and many nights for concerts, dance parties, and art events.

Some pictures and some stories

Hi Everyone,

With the piece down (and rolled into a thirty pound log of paper and glue, laying in my hallway), we thought we'd share with you the two creation myths the piece narrates.

Love to all,
This was always for you,

Kerdieekrdaad

      Body prints and photo by Katie Bentley

Creation Story

In the beginning we were a drop of water, floating in darkness and silence. The sun came when the Fuhrl came, but until then there were only giants and water. Tired giants came down from the sky and pulled the water over them like blankets. They slept beneath the water, lost in a deep and ancient slumber. Very rarely did these giants move, but sometimes in a fit of dreams, they would turn over, stretch out, curl up. Knees and shoulders broke the water’s surface and became islands; large piles of the giants became great stretches of land. Here the giants slept undisturbed for stretches of time that could not be filled by a million generations of humans.  It remained dark and still.

And then the first change: One giant, young and restless as giants go, opened its eye for just a moment. From this wakeful eye came consciousness and it tore across the sky, becoming fire and light, growing faster and hotter as it shook every atom. It glowed in the sky like a cloud of furnaces, and instead of fumes, new matter rose from the heat. It moved up and out, full of future and prophesies, past and reflections. The Atomic Fabric then began to spiral out across the world, self-generating and self-destructive. This massive force of energy was the Fuhrl and it grew out of the land and water. The giant, unaware of its own creation, turned over, and fell back asleep.

The Fuhrl continued to grow. It created the atmosphere and clouds, beauty and conflict. It disperses, and begins to separate and solidify into the essential matter of the universe. These are the things and ideas that we as humans are aware of.

ReCreation Story

           

Our world changes. Much faster and more violently than anyone alive has previously experienced. Whether it is by our own hands, or by the power of the earth, life’s fragility is pushed almost to its limits, but survives, barely. Our world changes, the cycle starts over, and the earth returns to an infant state.

           

A group of youth, friends, emerge from the protective shelter they built deep beneath the surface of Lake Temagami, which kept them safe as the surface of the planet raged in flood and fire.  Their hair has all grown long—it is how they kept track of their time in isolation.  They find the entrance is underwater now, and they must tear through its membrane and swim to the surface and the shore.  They lie on their backs naked, panting collectively, on the muddy beach, tired from their efforts to enter this changed world.  They open their eyes and the light of the new day flickers and pulses deep yellows, magentas, colors of citrus and warmth.  They locate the source of the light.  Beneath a clear sky, some substance, not gas or water or solid, swells and vibrates and implodes upon itself—it throbs with life.  As the youth look longer they begin to recognize elements from the world they knew, breaking down and transforming within this saturated mass.  The earth has collected an entire reality and is in the process of recycling it.  The mass is gradually becoming the fabric of a new reality.  The youth call this fabric The Fuhrl, and to some degree their willpower influences it as it becomes more defined.  The Fuhrl is at once a destructive and creative force.  It is change.

The earth behaves as though a burden has been lifted from its back.  They see areas in the lake where the water breaks away from the larger mass, rising in reflective, contorting bubbles into the air, then returns to the larger body.  The first time the friends venture to walk across the new landscape, they notice that sometimes their feet leave the ground for longer and their body feels more a part of the air than the earth.  Evidently there are some areas on the planet now where gravity is weaker. 

As the friends walk, the world around them gains definition.  Elements in the landscape drip out of the Fuhrl and solidify before their eyes.  Trees are taller and more resilient, most over one hundred feet.  At first, their bark is a gamut of neutral tones, slightly reflecting the warm hues given off by The Fuhrl.  Most of the first objects that begin to set the stage of this new reality are a variety of off-whites, and the landscape appears as a blank canvas.   Herds of beasts stampede out of a leg of The Fuhrl, similar to the bison and woolly mammoths that the youth remember from pictures.  The fur of these beasts is wilder and thicker, though, and whiter than the bark of the trees.  One person begins to collect clumps of the fur as the beasts shed and regenerate, and fashions from it the softest fabric he has felt.  He wraps himself in it and his heartthrobs with the comfort it provides him.  He teaches his comrades to felt blankets as well, because he loves them and wants them to know this comfort too.

Throughout the first day, The Fuhrl travels closer to the horizon.  It must pollinate the whole world, so while it touches other parts of the planet, the friends experience something like night.  The air remains warm.  The stars brighten, and there are more of them visible than before—as if a veil no longer obscures half of the contents of the abyss.  The quantity and variety of stars brings the youth such joy that they remove their blankets and begin to dance, out of gratitude for a fresh start and as an outlet for the physical energy the change has brought them.  They sing, they clap and stomp their feet remembering how to use their voices again to express love to each other and share a common appreciation for what surrounds them.  The earth responds to their music and harmonizes with them.  The sounds of the grasses and lichens and mosses simultaneously sprouting from the fertile soil, the water’s surface flirting with the mud at the shore, and the guttural groans of the massive trees resemble percussion richer and more rhythmic than was possible before the destruction of what was.  In the distance the stampede apparently reaches some newly formed stone and runs across it.  The vibrations that reach the ears of the dancers are distorted by the pockets of unique gravity and punctuate their music with an intense, throbbing bass that possesses their bodies in a dance that they can no longer control with thought. 

The Fuhrl edges in over the horizon, shedding some light on the scene.  One of the humans opens her eyes and is surprised; she sees that their music and dancing is exuding color—painting the landscape as tendrils of a broader spectrum of hues than they have ever been able to see grow out from their sounds and motions and pass over, wind around, dissolve into the grasses, trees, earth, and water.  The woman realizes that she and her friends are responsible for bringing color back to the planet.  

The Fuhrnace, the Baby and the Bathwater

Hello big world,

Bri, here. It's been a while, I know. Jackie and I have been building and breaking and tearing and gluing and thinking and sputtering and now, finally, we have something to show for it. Our installation, The Fuhrnace, the Baby and the Bathwater, is done, and it is our most honest moment. We have been working very hard and I can say with much certainty that our efforts have yielded a piece that we are so very proud of.

We hope you enjoy it, and if you're in the Philadelphia area, we hope you can come over and see it in person. Where and when you ask? Well, let me tell you:

Moore College of Art and Design

20th St and the Parkway

Philadelphia, PA 19103

Main Lobby Window

April 27- May 14

Monday-Saturday

11am-6pm

This is a big moment for Jackie and I. It's the first time we have worked together on something so large in physical and conceptual scale. Plus, after working so closely together on something so personal, we still love each other. No blow ups, no grudges, just an earnest attempt to make something genuine.

                                      

We will be adding writings about this piece soon, so check back soon.

The piece is, essentially, about the power of myth, and what it means to create one's own.

Love to you all,

Kerdieekrdaad

What happened...

What happened, by the way, at the Great and Terrible show, was this:

Kerdieekrdaad put the drawings in the previous post on (cardboard painted yellow) pedestals.  Then tacked up these instructions:

If you want something on these pedestals, just replace it with something of yours (from your pocket or bag, for example), and you are free to take it.

All the drawings went...we put up more throughout the night as people left stuff we wanted.  Which includes:  a tape cassette, 69 cents, a plastic egg of change, a scratched up visa card that hasn't yet expired, instant coffee, skittles, a weird rubbery toy, a spraycan cap, a clock-in receipt from Charles Field (3:58 PM, job: PM busser), a tampon, and a Wild Sweet Orange Tazo tea sachet that I used to buy Bri back her favorite drawing.  (hurrah for gift-economies!)


AND Libby Rosof and Roberta Fallon were kind enough to mention us in their survey of art events last week!  http://theartblog.org/2011/04/lotsa-breaking-news/

Showing tonight only at the Great and Terrible Collective! Another Man's Treasure

Tonight from 6:30-9pm The Great and Terrible Artist's Collective is hosting a farewell show to their Kensington space (172 W. Montgomery St.), and they've invited Kerdieekrdaad to get involved!  So, on the side of our thesis installation (we are currently in day 3 of 6 in the galleries, building our space), we've come up with Another Man's Treasure, a performance/participatory piece/game that's going to be a lot of fun!

We don't want to give too much away, but allow us to try and lure you to Northeast Philadelphia with some artworks you might find there...

Come play with us!

The New Myth of the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

When we committed to a collaborative thesis last fall (September of 2010 if our memories serve us), we talked a lot about how to make the content as universally relevant as possible.  Jackie thought of Joseph Campbell and the universality of myths, and Bri pointed out how all of our artwork finds its way back to a landscape--the basic elements of water and earth.  Jackie had just read Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers, a beautiful and tragic story which exposes the story of post-Katrina New Orleans for what really went down.  Pretty soon, Kerdieekrdaad was generating imagery around the idea of reinventing history, defining one's own heroes, and finding personal meaning in the impersonal chaos of what exists and occurs.  Here is How Gertrude Stein, Kwon Yin, Megan Perry, and Eleanor Roosevelt Helped New Orleans Recover from Hurricane Katrina:

Fill In Later community coloring book (Shown December 2010 at Society Hill Synagogue)

 Fill in Later, Kerdieekrdaad and participants, December 2010

Bri and I made this drawing, limiting ourselves to black and white and predominantly line drawing.  When we installed it at the Society Hill Synagogue in Philadelphia, we left a giant box of crayons in front of it.  Photograph of resulting collaboration coming soon!

The infrastructure of Kerdieekrdaad

collage          pens          free association          recycling          play/fun          color          layers
landscapes (we see them in everything: scraps of paper, ink stains, the ketchup you left on your plate)
matte medium          gouache          mythology          writing          poetry          questions         
Swoon          David Horvitz          street art          Francis Alÿs          Allan Kaprow          Sarah Sze
Wee Sing in Sillyville          Little Nemo's Adventures in Slumberland          Once Upon a Forest
Peter Pan        Fantasia       Rainbow Brite       Nausica       Legend of Zelda        The Hobbit               
treasures       frustration      the present       the future        the past        traveling      altered states     habits 
grids and interstates          stories          dreams          skin          fish          mammals          fur
clouds          trees         water         birds       mountains        insects          fauna          rocks          dwellings
The Fuhrl          music          love          hair          home-cooked meals          walks          books
collaboration participation interaction intervention guerilla-actions situations happenings dialogue 

Our first series. May 2010.

 The first time Bri and Jackie collaborated in the studio, they did not know that they'd continue to grow as an artistic unit over the course of their thesis year at Moore.  But they did know that their processes, concepts, and intention merged easily.  They fed off one another's energy which yielded a momentum like nothing they'd experienced individually.  They pushed one another's sense of color, composition, and intuition, encouraged by a strong mutual trust.  They let go of attachment to old work and began tearing up, gluing, painting and drawing over almost everything they'd created and "finished" in the past year.  They recycled old work to make new work, and realized that they found more meaning in change than in stasis.  A series was born, which they proudly showed, collectively, at their final critique of their junior year.  One night in the studio, they were playing one of their favorite games...oral exquisite corpse (free association generated poetry) and an interesting word came out of a collaged sounds.  Jackie, who really enjoys silly things like phoenetics, spelled it.  Kerdiekrdaad.  Which has since gained a mysterious e...Kerdieekrdaad.  And art for Bri and Jackie has not been the same since.