Monday, December 30, 2019

DOEprojekts Coreform Vision 2020

Remember Dr. Joel Fleischman (played by Rob Morrow) on the series Northern Exposure? Dr. Joel was a die-hard New Yorker, uprooted from Flushing, NYC, and assigned to the small-town of Cicely, Alaska, as part of his payback for medical school loans. Dr. Fleischman was kind enough to use a "DOEprojekts Coreform Vision Chart" during his year-end eye exams.  Let's see what our DOEprojekts visions may be as we leave 2019 and look forward to 2020!


Our "Bauhaus and Beyond" workshops, supported by a grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, were a resounding success and we thank all those who participated at the Lenox Hill Community Center in Midtown Manhattan. We hope to continue educating people about the cultural contributions of the Bauhaus school (1919-1933) in 2020. We had anticipated visiting the Bauhaus School and Museum in Dessau, Germany this year, but for reasons "beyond" our control, we must look to the future for our hoped-for journey. 


Our "field of vision" was enlarged this summer, when curator Sarah Jane invited us to be demonstrating artists at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center (PAFAC) in Washington State. We enjoyed sharing our Coreforms with participants in PAFAC's Summer Solstice Art Celebration during (when else?) the Summer Solstice, June 20-21. We always enjoy making a connection between Coreforms and nature's forms, and we hope to visit again and create a larger installation for PAFAC!

Visiting fine art centers, community art centers, galleries, and museums inspires our ongoing cultural visions and forms. We make it a goal to visit an exhibition or museum every week, although we sometimes fall short of our goal. Above, we visited the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum's Immersion Room, where we were able to draw our "Hybr" form on a nearby computer and have it projected as wallpaper.
And even when an exhibition does not allow us to make an intervention of Coreforms, we participate through observation -- as the artist Georges Seurat (1859-1891) stated "observation is intervention." Thus, we intervened through our presence in the exhibition "Illusions of the Photographer: Duane Michals at the Morgan" (Morgan Library and Museum). 

Yet, it is always exhilarating when our work is part of an exhibition. We were delighted to have two of our prints in the group exhibition titled "Relative Relations" at the Hebrew Union College, Heller Museum, New York. Our work will be on display until June 30, 2020. We thank curator Laura Kruger for selecting our work! 

Thank you for keeping in touch with us, and our work, through our blog -- we always enjoy hearing from you, and finding out about what is happening in your life and work. And please follow and "Like Us" on social media:

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Summer 2019: Bauhaus and Backbone and Bears, Oh My!

We, Glenn and Deborah Doering, DOEprojekts, were very pleased to have been invited (again) to teach at the Grünewald Guild, near Leavenworth, WA, this summer. Our one-week class focused on the centennial of the German art school known as the Bauhaus (1919 - 1933).  In the early 20th century, the Bauhaus was a radical art & design school that evolved from a philosophy centering on the integration of fine art and craft. Bauhaus students were required to take a year-long "preliminary course" that introduced them to, and required them to experiment with, various art forms and materials: modern shapes and colors applied to furniture design, weaving, pottery, printmaking, photography, and many other types of creative expression -- not unlike the Grünewald Guild!
In the spirit of the Bauhaus' innovative objects, installations, and performances, we brought our unique "Backbone" art work (inspired by many art historical works) to the Guild and encouraged everyone to interact with this 4-pound beaded-mantel made of cow bone and fish vertebrae. "Backbone" is a participatory art work that has been shown at several galleries and community art centers in the US and abroad. (Below: DOEprojekts' photos of "Backbone" and The Bauhaus Archive's photos of costumes & performances.) 

In addition to showing "Backbone" as part of the Bauhaus class at the Guild, we submitted it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's online 150th Anniversary Celebration Contest. Although we did not make it to the final round, we finished in one of the top-ten spots -- from over 400 entries. We appreciate the support of all of our friends, family, colleagues, and contacts in affirming our work!
Before teaching at the Guild this summer, we taught two-weeks of workshops titled "Socially-Engaged Storytelling and Symbols" at Holden Village. We were continuously amazed and humbled by the stories and symbols created by our workshop participants; below are just a few photos of the many visual stories created during our workshops at the remote and picturesque former copper-mining town at the tip of Lake Chelan in Washington State.

Our weeks at Holden Village were not only eventful because of the great work of our students, but also because we got and up-close-and-personal look at a momma bear and her cub outside of our window early one morning! The nearness of nature at Holden is always awe-inspiring to us.  


We are now back in New York City, preparing to teach and tutor high school students at the Beekman School during the fall semester. We have also begun another "Bauhaus and Beyond" series of workshops at the Lenox Hill Community Center in Midtown Manhattan. And of course, we continue to plan and create our DOEprojekts' art works.

Thank you for keeping in touch with us, and our work, through our blog -- we always enjoy hearing from you, and finding out about what is happening in your life and work. And please follow and "Like Us" on social media:


Saturday, June 1, 2019

Growing Things, Going Places


After a spate of cold weather and many days of rain during NYC's late Spring, we are now enjoying sunny skies and more stable temperatures -- so it's a pleasure to see the greenery and pastel colors of blooming things inside and out. Being frequently "out and about," DOEprojekts has visited (and participated in the public art of) seasonal art fairs including: the Armory Show (March 6-10), Frieze Art Fair, (May 2-5) and the Every Woman Biennial (May 20-29).     

At the NYC Armory Show, we were struck by a very large tapestry work titled "The Weather," (above right) by Canadian artist Shannon Bool. More than 10 feet long and 8 feet high, the wool tapestry is embellished by the artist's signature embroidered patterns. Bool's juxtaposition of grided clover quadrifoils with leafless trees asks viewers to consider what can we do to repair devastated landscapes on our distressed planet? The photographic image with the same quadrifoil pattern on the left is titled "Tsunami." Bool's repetitive forms speak to our own Coreforms.



Surprisingly, both the Armory Show and the Every Woman Biennial (EWB) offered opportunities for visitors to recline and reflect on issues such as climate change and art -- and so we did! Glenn takes a break on a large mattress work at the Armory Show (unfortunately, we didn't write down the artist's name, but we appreciated the visual and audio nature of the work). At the EWB, Deborah meditated under the large steel pyramid shape, following the artist's instructions (Angel Favorite is the artist) to meditate for at least 10 minutes.  We remembered our own work titled "Rest" that was exhibited at the Chicago Cultural Center in 2009 (shortly before Glenn and Deborah began working together as DOEprojekts).


We took great pleasure in seeing the "Cultivate, Germinate" art booth at Frieze Fair on Randall's Island. Linda Goode Bryant was present to discuss her work about growing community gardens in various boroughs of Manhattan connected through her "Project EATS." For more info about Bryant and Project EATS see the article in ART News



DOEprojekts continues to explore work about and in Nature.  Our "Seasons" series, 2018-2019 (above), using our Coreforms, influenced our participation at Frieze Fair in a project conceptualized by artist Ray Johnson (1927-1995).  Find out more about Ray Johnson and his New York Correspondence School.

Thank you to all of you who continue to read about and support our work!
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Friday, February 22, 2019

Seeding, Seeing

"Seeding" means to plant seeds, and of course "seeing" means perception by means of our eyes. Our creative work in 2019 pursues and embraces both seeding and seeing.
  
We, Deborah and Glenn Doering, co-directors of DOEprojekts, participated in Sergey Jivetin's "Furrow Project," part of a performance at the SciArt Center and their Future of Food exhibition. The exhibition, curated by Marnie Benney, will continue until March 2, 2019. There is a curator's talk scheduled for Saturday, February 23, 2019, at 1pm.



Sergey engraved a DOEprojekts' "Hybr" form on a cherry seed. It was amazing and inspiring to watch his skill with his uniquely hand-crafted tools. To see more of Sergey Jivetin's work, view his website at http://www.jivetin.com/.

Additionally, we are pleased to announce that DOEprojekts has received a 2019 Creative Learning Grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council for our class titled "Bauhaus and Beyond." We will teach the 12-weeks class September- December at the Lenox Hill Community Center in Midtown Manhattan. Below is a sketch using our Coreforms on rock forms that will be part of a technique that we will teach in the class. If you are not available to attend "Bauhaus and Beyond" in Manhattan, please consider our "Rock-Paper-Scissors" class this summer at the Grunewald Guild in Leavenworth, WA, July 14-18, 2019. And we will also be teaching our "Socially-engaging Stories and Symbols" workshop at Holden Village near Chelan, WA from July 1 -13, 2019.


As always, we thank all of you who have supported our journey to date. Let us know if you will be in the Manhattan area this summer — we will be working and traveling in the Pacific Northwest for part of the summer, but there is always time to meet with friends!
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