I recorded my visit with damali and you can listen to it here.
We looked at texts she had just submitted to Push, The Zine and diary readings she was editing for upcoming exhibition at Spattered Columns. And damali told me about work she makes but doesn't show that relates to longstanding passions of hers, I never knew about: dancing, choreography, collage and the work of Romare Bearden. This hidden work of damali's is what I picked for Collectively Assembled. When Petra Valentova visited me, I had just returned from a community garden visit with a fellow artist and friend, Michael Wilson, and this inspired her to suggest outdoor audio installations and cross-polinating gardens in terms of food and people. Quite a mouthful as I have never done outdoor audio but also exciting suggestions. Listening to damali's hesitations about showing certain work, I thought of Petra's brainstorm of my behalf and this influenced my choice: as a support structure, our collective can offer encouragement and a safe environment to explore work we're itching to do but at times have been told we shouldn't. Petra and I were able to wrap up my studio-visit going out for lunch but I didn't have time for that when visiting damali. In stead I managed to bring the driest cakes ever but luckily damali had red velvet cakes waiting that went well with the non-dry beers I also brought. I'm sharing this tidbit for future studio-visitors as it's so enjoyable to be able to spend time together doing a studio-visit, and combining visit with food and a drink simply adds one more enjoyable dimension.
