PLACES
Created as a site-specific installation for Westminster College’s “Window Gallery” in Salt Lake City, Utah, PLACES tells a story about existing in many places at one time. Covering two, 450-foot floors, the story’s characters are hand-sewn puppets, averaging 7 feet in height and/or wingspan. Layering, transparency and reflection are important aspects of the installation, with carefully consideration taken of trees, sky and houses reflected in the glass. The show ran for four months, day and night.
MAKING TALES
Like Alice in Wonderland, this installation drops into the rabbit hole of a world from a small girl’s the point of view. The child’s wanderings, meanderings and silliness reveals that before ever knowing a fairytale of Cinderella story, her world is a fair playing field, without judgment, prejudice or gender expectations. Initially created at the time of Kiki Smith’s installation “Telling Tales,” which looked at fairytales from a feminist perspective, the video, photographic wall (9’ x 15’) and sculptural pieces exhibited in gallery one of the 80 Washington Square Gallery in New York City.
PIPPI IN WONDERLAND
“Transplaced” to Utah after nearly 20 years in NYC, this investigation served as a vehicle to understanding new landscapes (such as shopping malls, consumption of large spaces and oil, and community support of war).By creating a personalized, handcrafted Pippi Longstocking trickster/marionette (this Pippi is faceless, wearing a mask and golden brown skinned), the artist explores “America” through Pippi’s eyes and words. The drawings, each 2.5’x6’ approximate, are on vellum or denril with mixed medium and have exhibited several times, including a solo show at the VSA Art Gallery in Salt Lake City. The series was originally created on request of the Sundance Film Festival to be shown in the Musician’s Room during the Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
I’LL NEVER BE SO FAR AWAY
After her mother’s death, the artist found her mother’s unfinished journal, which began as a letter to her grandchildren with, “I’ll never be so far away…” From the time of the death for the next nine months, Watson worked solely on drawings and writings having to do with her thoughts and emotions around her mother’s dying. The installation of over 200 drawings, each numbered, installed in sequence and hung so viewers can walk within them, was first exhibited at the Salt Lake Art Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, as part of a show entitled, “Transcendence.”
LANGUAGE
In a 2,000 square foot, warehouse gallery, The Artspace Forum Gallery, in Salt Lake City, Utah, this exhibition pulsated with the life of language. It included some 100 works of paintings, photographs, a puppet, drawings, sculpture, a game in line/language communication, and a video in three languages.
SHROUD
Grief is a feeling everyone encounters but how it is shared, acknowledged, or even suppressed is as individual as a snowflake, shaped by culture and religion. In this piece, the artist brings together the voices of many people, each of whom has lost one or more family members, from grandparents to children. By placing the voices together on separate monitors running continuously and simultaneously, a chorus is created and out of that a community of commonality. The cries of sadness, wisdom and pain open a view to the profound and abiding capacity of people to love deeply. This video installation was commissioned by Brolley Arts, an arts organization in Salt Lake City, Utah, and presented as part of a group show at Westminster College, Salt Lake City. It later was expanded and traveled to the Central Utah Art Center in Ephraim, Utah.
OFF THE PAGE
In 2017, I finished two years of obsessively writing a novel. I kept all the detritus from the process, the drafts and notes, reader comments, and my drawings. This installation -- yet to be mounted -- is designed to wall paper a small room room with text and drawings that visually present the very process of creating a novel. It includes a community engagement aspect. I would write in the room, and invite others to join me. There could also be readings.
Created as a site-specific installation for Westminster College’s “Window Gallery” in Salt Lake City, Utah, PLACES tells a story about existing in many places at one time. Covering two, 450-foot floors, the story’s characters are hand-sewn puppets, averaging 7 feet in height and/or wingspan. Layering, transparency and reflection are important aspects of the installation, with carefully consideration taken of trees, sky and houses reflected in the glass. The show ran for four months, day and night.
MAKING TALES
Like Alice in Wonderland, this installation drops into the rabbit hole of a world from a small girl’s the point of view. The child’s wanderings, meanderings and silliness reveals that before ever knowing a fairytale of Cinderella story, her world is a fair playing field, without judgment, prejudice or gender expectations. Initially created at the time of Kiki Smith’s installation “Telling Tales,” which looked at fairytales from a feminist perspective, the video, photographic wall (9’ x 15’) and sculptural pieces exhibited in gallery one of the 80 Washington Square Gallery in New York City.
PIPPI IN WONDERLAND
“Transplaced” to Utah after nearly 20 years in NYC, this investigation served as a vehicle to understanding new landscapes (such as shopping malls, consumption of large spaces and oil, and community support of war).By creating a personalized, handcrafted Pippi Longstocking trickster/marionette (this Pippi is faceless, wearing a mask and golden brown skinned), the artist explores “America” through Pippi’s eyes and words. The drawings, each 2.5’x6’ approximate, are on vellum or denril with mixed medium and have exhibited several times, including a solo show at the VSA Art Gallery in Salt Lake City. The series was originally created on request of the Sundance Film Festival to be shown in the Musician’s Room during the Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
I’LL NEVER BE SO FAR AWAY
After her mother’s death, the artist found her mother’s unfinished journal, which began as a letter to her grandchildren with, “I’ll never be so far away…” From the time of the death for the next nine months, Watson worked solely on drawings and writings having to do with her thoughts and emotions around her mother’s dying. The installation of over 200 drawings, each numbered, installed in sequence and hung so viewers can walk within them, was first exhibited at the Salt Lake Art Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, as part of a show entitled, “Transcendence.”
LANGUAGE
In a 2,000 square foot, warehouse gallery, The Artspace Forum Gallery, in Salt Lake City, Utah, this exhibition pulsated with the life of language. It included some 100 works of paintings, photographs, a puppet, drawings, sculpture, a game in line/language communication, and a video in three languages.
SHROUD
Grief is a feeling everyone encounters but how it is shared, acknowledged, or even suppressed is as individual as a snowflake, shaped by culture and religion. In this piece, the artist brings together the voices of many people, each of whom has lost one or more family members, from grandparents to children. By placing the voices together on separate monitors running continuously and simultaneously, a chorus is created and out of that a community of commonality. The cries of sadness, wisdom and pain open a view to the profound and abiding capacity of people to love deeply. This video installation was commissioned by Brolley Arts, an arts organization in Salt Lake City, Utah, and presented as part of a group show at Westminster College, Salt Lake City. It later was expanded and traveled to the Central Utah Art Center in Ephraim, Utah.
OFF THE PAGE
In 2017, I finished two years of obsessively writing a novel. I kept all the detritus from the process, the drafts and notes, reader comments, and my drawings. This installation -- yet to be mounted -- is designed to wall paper a small room room with text and drawings that visually present the very process of creating a novel. It includes a community engagement aspect. I would write in the room, and invite others to join me. There could also be readings.