Lee Patton Assignment Numero Dos

When I first walked into Travis Townsend's exhibit titled "Ideas Rebuilt in My Garage While Contemplating Good and Evil", I didn't know what to look at first. The works had a very craft-like and made at home feel to them, however many were much more complex than your average craft project. I really enjoyed the sculptures that had interior spaces that you could look into. They definitely helped to make the work much more interesting as you got closer to it. I also really liked the "Target on the Wall" piece, because I really enjoy the simple and abstract quality of it. As a whole, I think the works go well together, and the wall pieces help to keep things interesting instead of having only the jumbled sculptures. I also thought the pieces that were connected to the wall with a string were a nice touch to the exhibit, and gave those pieces much more dynamism than if they didn't have the wall attachment.

While the works I found excited me the most were several of the sculptures, I decided I wanted to write about the small and fairly simple piece titled "Gathering/Blocked Cloud". That piece just seemed so strange to me in context to the others, although the other pieces individually were much more complex. It had such a simple structure with several tinytown chairs and a slightly larger scaled ladder leading to a brick cloud with a deceased bird on top. I think I found this work so interesting because of how simple it was, but still made me scratch my head when trying to figure out a meaning. The ladder and chairs were pretty crude in their design, which gave a child-like feel to them. However, the pencil drawing on the wall with the dead bird made it slightly erie and farther from the youthfully constructed chairs.

I enjoyed hearing Travis talk about his work, even though it was a slightly disorganized lecture. I found it interesting that nearly all of his works are never really finished, and that they are as he put it "constantly evolving". One of his inspirations for his work is a man named Martin Purier who creates really interesting sculptures out of wood. He also draws inspiration from his wife; especially colors she uses in her jewelry, and his collaborative partner Brandon Smith. He had a fun and positive attitude which complemented his almost childlike work style.