photo by Randy Walker
December 2012 saw completion of Dream Elevator by Randy Walker for the City of St. Louis Park, Minnesota. The structure is a 45-foot tall stainless-steel-and-concrete tower woven with custom-braided polyester rope. The sculpture is inspired by the nearby Peavey-Haglin Grain Elevator of 1899, the first cylindrical concrete grain elevator in the world.
photo by Randy Walker
The dedication date of Dream Elevator is as yet undetermined. This year and next, Walker will be at work on at least four public commissions. First, a permanent outdoor work, Sky Portal, for the Anderson Abruzzo International Balloon Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which will be visible from the sky as well as the ground. Second, Entanglement, in Scottsdale, Arizona, where Walker will use an existing bell tower as a framework for a fibrous wrapping.
photo by Randy Walker
Third, a temporary, site-specific installation will be built at the two main cargo shipping terminals in San Diego, California that will be part of WRAP: an artistic investigation of the San Diego Tidelands. Finally, Walker will work with his South Minneapolis community to create a large-scale, collaborative installation for which Walker received a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant.
Randy Walker, who works regularly with threads and ropes and cables, writes, “Although it is a story involving only a single length of fiber, 
by Raoul D’harcourt (Univ of Washington Press, 1974; Dover Publications, 2002). I discovered this book in the Public Library in Chicago around 1958. It was a reference book and only in French. Later it was translated in English, and a few years later it was reprinted. Wonderful examples, history and diagrams; there’s nothing like it. It was like my bible. Not sure if it still available. There are many other books on Philosophy and Architecture that I would recommend, but the D’harcourt book was the most influential.
by Eric Broudy( Littlehampton Book Services Ltd., 1979; Published by the University Press of New England, 1993). This book is absolutely fascinating from a visual, historical, and technical point of view. The forms of looms have inspired me as sculptural elements in themselves. Understanding the evolution of their forms in a cultural context is invaluable. I have to imagine this book of interest to non-fiber people as well as serious fiber artists.
, ed. Dieter Schwarz (Hatje Cantz Publishers; Bilingual edition 2005). Agnes talked about waiting for inspiration… and waiting…and waiting…and waiting. She also spoke of not having unnecessary distractions in your life such as pets and unnecessary friends. I put my husband and the two cats up for adoption but so far no takers.
, by Robert A Burton, M.D. (Reprint edition, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2009) is a book I have read recently that I think will be influential going forward. I am interested in emotional responses to visual perception of handwoven works. It is perhaps tangential to my main focus but nevertheless important to the research process.
by Bernard Leach (Faber & Faber 1988).
(and all of its variations)(recent reprint, Weatherhill, 2008) had a HUGE influence on my work. The Japanese have a wonderful way of using indigenous materials to wrap things…packaging, transporting, presenting. Even now, years later, the influence of these old techniques prevails. This book and its information, not basketry nor bamboo, drove me to Japan in the first place. Who knew it would have such a profound influence on my work? If you look at some of the earlier work I exhibited through browngrotta arts, you’ll see Japanese packaging everywhere. In New York, the recent reprint can be found in Kinokuniya Bookstore on 6th Avenue. Love that place!
(University of California Press, 2004) is the absolute cornerstone of the project I have worked on for six years for the North Dakota Museum of Art. The book contains a series of papers and artist interviews that resulted from a year-long project all up and down the west coast (why not Portland???) in which Jacquelynn Bass and independent curator Mary Jane Jacobs looked at how curators shy away (to say the least) from work that has anything to do with spirituality. There were several retreats at a Zen Center in California, where papers on the topic were delivered. There’s more information about the project on the UC Press website. As to pursuing a career, I never really did that. I do what I do because I have to. It is what keeps me in the world.
by Frederick A. Horowitz and Brenda Danilowitz (Phaidon Press, 2009) It’s an account of Albers’ teaching at the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College and Yale. I took a summer course with him at Harvard when I lived in Cambridge and this book sums up some of the thing he had us do. It was very exciting.
Books Make Great Gifts 2011: Artist Recommendations
This year we asked the artists we represent just one question:
What was the most enjoyed/most inspirational book you read this year?? Here are their wide-ranging replies:
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, illustrated by Ellen Forney (Little, Brown; National Book Award) . This is a semi-autobiographical novel by award-winning author, poet and film-maker, Sherman Alexie. Alexie has been named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists and has been lauded by The Boston Globe as “an important voice in American literature.” He is one of the most well-known and beloved literary writers of his generation, with works such as Reservation Blues and War Dances. He also wrote the screenplay for the film, Smoke Signals, based on a short story from his book, Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. In his novel, Alexie tells the heartbreaking, hilarious, and beautifully written story of a young Native American teen, Arnold, as he attempts to break free from the life he was destined to live. Arnold’s drawings illustrate the book.”
Sensual Relations by David Howes (University of Michigan) is Deborah Valoma’s recommendation.