The Artists' Alphabet #1: The Great Recession
Cathy Akers Nancy Haselbacher D. Jean Hester Michele Jaquis Juanita Meneses Jeremy J. Quinn Miller Updegraff Louisa Van Leer
by - Curated by D. Jean Hester
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About the Book
A is for alphabet.
A is for “The Artists’ Alphabet #1: The Great Recession”.
This project brings together eight artists to explore the theme of the Great Recession using the structure of an alphabet.
The idea is simple: each of the participating artists creates a piece of art for a letter in the alphabet. All 26 pieces are then combined into a book. The concept for this initial project is "The Great Recession" - responses, strategies, concerns, and thoughts related to the current economic meltdown. Anything from hope to panic to pragmatic advice to feelings of hope and liberation.
Once structure and topic were decided upon, a group of artists were invited to participate, and gathered at curator D. Jean Hester’s studio in May 2009. The letter “A” was reserved for an introductory essay. The artists each drew two or three letters at random from a coffee can, thus letting fate assign them their letters for the project. Once the artists had drawn their letters, the remaining letters, “I” and “O”, were dedicated to group projects. The artists dispersed to work on their projects, which were submitted two months later, and pulled together into this book. Hester also arranged for interviews with the artists (to address the group letter “I”), and set up time for a collaborative exquisite-corpse style drawing (to address the group letter “O”).
This book, “The Artists’ Alphabet #1: The Great Recession”, is the inaugural project for Powder Room Projects, established in Spring 2009 by D. Jean Hester as an accessible, flexible, small-scale, intimate, and sustainable creative base that will encourage collaboration and exchange amongst artists.
About the Creator
D. Jean Hester is an artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. She holds an MFA in Art and Integrated Media from CalArts, and a BFA in Cinema from University of Southern California. Her work has been shown in numerous exhibits, festivals, and screenings in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Her practice in installation, drawing, video, and performance explores a deep interest in communication, interaction and language. She is particularly intrigued by the simultaneous frailty of language and our repeated efforts to connect despite language's inefficiency and tendency toward failure. She finds this duality of human experience particularly intriguing - how we continually attempt to communicate, how we insistently seek connection, despite the fact that as often as not our attempts result in failure or misinterpretation. Visit Hester's website http://www.divestudio.org for an overview of Hester's creative output in art and media.