Artist Statement
Autobiographical, I feel that my work, regardless of medium, is an endless scroll. Time is implicit in my pieces. Because of my age, I have the advantage of past experience, the dissection of the present, and the terror of the future. While existing in the present, I use the past and future as mile markers. My work is two, three and four dimensional, text and performance based, so, whatever works.
Stumbling into performance in 2010, I abandoned the gallery structure altogether and built my own support structure. I began doing comedic performance pieces that were memoir based, like traditional storytelling, but my pieces weren’t structurally sound. This broken formula became the foundation of my work. It turned it into a four year monthly show called “Ask Me,” a podcast, videos and countless performances in shows across the city.
While working on the early performance pieces, I began studying “black” or “gallows” comedy. I outlined a bulleted instructional of How to Write Black Comedy. It was a performance piece and then a poster. And, if you want to know, it’s a method of relating what’s difficult to process. Essentially, on your mother’s deathbed you have to think, “Let’s speed this up! How long am I going to be here?”
I write sexts, tweets, Facebook and blog posts while also doing stand up comedy. The sexts are usually desperate. Sexts became a performance and also a series of cups and bottles made during a lonely artists residency in China. Everything just sort of rolls together as one thing becomes another.
In a craigslist ad, I asked New York City for a new best friend as mine was leaving town. This led to a yet to be published correspondence with Debbie. A “twin” who was in a fight with her sister and happened to also be looking for a new best friend. I’m obsessed with narrative moments in both fiction and reality. It’s craigslist, nothing is real until it’s inside your apartment. I’m really looking forward to meeting my new best friend, Debbie.
Currently, I’m working on a book of suicide letters.
CV
www.brightsunnyfutures.com
EDUCATION
1998 M.F.A. Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI
1995 B.F.A. Kent State University, Kent, OH
1992 Exchange Student, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, N.S.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2015 Pocket of Rocks, Storycraft Theater
2014 Performer w/ Jack Hanley, Come Early and Often, Chapter NY, New York, NY
2014 and to the hard parade, Max Reinhart, Bushwick, NY
2013 “MADAM” Kansas, New York, NY
2013 Soundtrack Series: The 80’s, Le Pousson Rouge Gallery, New York, NY
2013 “Ask Me: Hey Sexy”, Happy Ending, New York, NY
2013 “Ask Me: Happy Birthday Geroge Michael”, Axis Theater, New York, NY
2013 Long Life China Company, Editions and Artists Books Fair, New York, NY
2013 “We Are The New Year” Artadia, Brooklyn, NY
2012 “Invagination-Write To Life” Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2012 “Mixed Messages” Transformer Gallery, Washington D.C.
2012 “Invagination-Hunger is Real” HENS, Brooklyn, NY
2011 “Alarums and Excursions” Front Room Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2011 “Mixed Messages” Sponsored by Visual AIDS, La Mama Gallery, New York, NY
2011 “Invagination: Woman to Woman” Kara Walker Studio, New York, NY
2010 “A Feast of Fools” Second Floor, Brooklyn, NY
2010 “Editions ‘10” Lower East Side Print Shop, New York, NY
2010 “Text as Image” Lump, Raleigh, NC
2010 “Erotomaina” Candycoated, Philadelphia, PA
2010 “Invagination” Kara Walker’s Studio, New York, NY
2009 * “Yesterday was yesterday, tomorrow is ours.” Lump, Raleigh, NC
2009 “Pratt Prints” Gallery Gravura Brasileira, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Belas Artes University Gallery, Sao Paulo, Brazil
2008 “Good Times, Bad Times” Garden Fresh, Chicago, IL
2008 Schafler Gallery Faculty Exhibit, Brooklyn, NY
2008 “Multiples and Editions” Front Room, Brooklyn, NY
2007 “Exposure” Routunda Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2007 “Shame” Redsaw, Newark, NJ
2007 “To be continued….” Silo, New York, NY
2006 *“This Could Last Forever” Garden Fresh, Chicago, IL
2006 “Hibernation” Silo, New York, NY
2005 *“Small-scale Love Stories” Silo, New York, NY
2005 “Two For the See-Saw” Branch Gallery, Durham, NC
2005 “There are no more Allen Kaprows in the art world” Silo, New York, NY
2004 “Blueprint” Silo, New York, NY
2004 “Selections: Abstraction” Spaces, Cleveland, OH
AWARDS / RESIDENCIES
2014 The Pottery Workshop, Jingdezhen, China
2013 Faculty Development Award, Pratt Institute of Art and Design, Brooklyn, NY
2010 Special Editions Residency, Lower East Side Print Shop, New York, NY
1997 Howard Kottler Merit Scholarship, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI
1997 Tuition Scholarship, Pilchuck Glass School, Seattle,WA
PUBLICATIONS
2013 The Point Magazine, Issue 7, September, 2013
2012 “Invagination-Write To Life” Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2012 Story Collider Magazine, http://magazine.storycollider.org/, upcoming January 2012
SELECTED PODCASTS
2013 “The Sharon Spell Show”, Episode 36, December 9, 2013
2013 “Dale Radio” Season 6, October 9, 2013
2013 “Soundtrack Series” January 20, 2012
2010-13 Ask Me Stories
2013 “A Funny Thing”, UCB Theater
2012 “Risk! Close The The Edge”
SELECTED ACTING VIDEO SERIES
2015 “Tammi,” Ladies Revenge Club, Neely Air Productions
2013 “Grace” My Dad Was In a Boy Band, Warner Sound
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
2013 Ophira Eisenberg, The Villager, http://thevillager.com/2013/11/12/easy-on-theears/
November 12, 2013
2012 Megan Angelo, Listings, New York Times, July 26, 2012
2011 Community Spotlight, Poz Magazine, www.poz.com, June 3, 2011
2011 Michael Krueger, “One Night Only-Crap Forever” www.printeresting.org, April 25, 2011
2011 Aldrin Valdez, “Sweet With a Touch of Crazy” www.eastvillageboys.com, February 9, 2011
2010 James Barron, New York/Region, New York Times,Thursday, October 7, 2010
2010 Dorthea Robinson, Metro New York, Wednesday, October 6, 2010
2010 Editions ‘10, Sarah Kirk Hanley, Lower East Side Print Shop, New Publications 2009-2010
2009 Amy White, Independent Weekly, www.indyweek.com, May 20, 2009
2007 “Second Prize ” www.pHytonics.net, April 20, 2007
2007 Visual Arts, www. flavorpill.net, Issue #346, January 23, 2007
2006 Shifter Magazine, Volume 8, June 1, 2006
2005 Holland Cotter, Art in Review, New York Times, August 12, 2005
2005 New York Sun, March 4, 2005, Calendar
2004 Bracken Sparks, Amy, review “A multitude of ideas, shapes in gathering of
Abstractions,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 1, 2004
1998 Raygun Magazine, October 1998, No. 60, image
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
11-present Area Coordinator, Ceramics, Pratt Institute of Art, Brooklyn, NY
12-present Visiting Associate Professor, Ceramics, Pratt Institute of Art, Brooklyn, NY
11-present Director, Long Life China Company, Brooklyn, NY
10-present Co-Host/Producer, Ask Me Stories, New York, NY
08-12 Visiting Assitant Professor, Ceramics, Pratt Institute of Art, Brooklyn, NY
02-05 Special Projects Coordinator, Cooper Union School of Art, New York, NY
2005 Teaching Assistant/Substitute Instructor Ceramics, 92nd St YMCA, New York, NY
1999 Visiting Assistant Adjunct Professor, Ceramics, UNC at Chapel Hill, NC
RELATED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2014 Lecturer, The Pottery Workshop Education Center, Jingdezhen, China
2013 Lecturer, Show and Share Lecture Series, St. Claire, Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, PA
12-13 Committee Member, Curriculum Committee, Pratt Institute of Art and Design, Brooklyn, NY
2011 Juror, Keyholder Residency, Lower East Side Print Shop, New York, NY
2011 Founder, Long Life China Company, Brooklyn, NY
2010 Juror, Special Editions Residency, Lower East Side Print Shop, New York, NY
2009 Outside Grant Reviewer, The City University of New York, Research Foundation, New York, NY
2008 Freelance Fabricator, Studio Olaf Breuning, Tim Davis, Robert Lazzarini,
04-08 Visual Manager, Design Within Reach, New York, NY