Maryam Cristillo Assignment #2

I really enjoyed Travis Townsend’s exhibit and the concepts surrounding his work. The exhibit was very playful and looked interesting from far away. Getting closer to each bulky crafted wooden piece with projecting arms and wheels I found to be interesting. What really intrigued me was the drawn sketches of web like cell formations, random bird heads and military tanks that appeared on the walls and drawn onto his crafted works. The way Townsend left a fingerprint or documentation on his works like the measurements and other markings made it more personal. I enjoyed the contrasting small and large, colorful and mute, and the funny names methodically given to each piece to open further dialog with the viewers. As a whole the exhibit was like entering a different world where the viewer became a giant in comparison to the small objects Townsend created. There was consistent woodwork in all his pieces that held the exhibit well cohesively. The slight bright colors touched here and there were effective and did not overwhelm the structures he created at all. I was very interested to find out more about the artists process and who inspired him.
My favorite piece had to be the Gathering/Blocked Cloud. Its one of Townsends smaller pieces yet I felt it was most effective out of all of his works simply because it was so small. The small empty chairs made me feel like a giant that scared away a small population of people who were just climbing the ladder to crawl through the wall. My favorite thing about this piece was the fact he drew brick like shapes on the wall where the small ladder lead up to. The playful tension of the absence of these little people and the yet the indication that they were once there made the exhibit so much fun!
Townsend’s lecture began with answering the question I had about the process of creating his pieces, his inspirations and experiences. Townsend described his work as always evolving towards something but never quite reaching a completed state. Working mostly at home in his studio, a place he finds solace and the creation of his art pieces to be a lethargic process, was a pleasant surprise to him after completing his graduate degree. Townsend’s inspiration for his color palate comes from his wife’s artistic work. Also Charles Simons is another artist he was inspired by to create the small chairs that made the viewer aware of the scale shifts between the larger crafted objects and the small.
Lastly Townsend described some of his work as revolving around good and evil, politics, and how the viewers interpret his pieces. Some of his craft objects are crafted as if they could possibly be wheeled about and function, when of course they cannot. That playful quality was something I first noticed about his exhibit and also the spontaneous construction and ideas crafted in his studio are strongly presented and appreciated.