FAMILY FRIENDLY RESIDENCY
1 week - JUNE 2021
The Blair family is creative and energetic in many ways. Gregory Blair organized his residency so the family could come along and it was a delight to see them interact together and on the land.
According to her bio on her portfolio,
"Sara Christensen Blair is (currently) a Professor of Art and Chair of the Art & Design Department at the University of Southern Indiana. She was a Professor and Chair at Northern State University in Aberdeen, SD from 2006 - 2019. She earned a BFA at the School of The Art Institute of Chicago in 2002, a MFA in Mixed Media (painting/fibers) from the Univ. of North Dakota in 2004, and this fall, upon a successful defense her dissertation, The Domestic Sublime, she will earn a PhD in Visual Arts: Aesthetics and Art Theory from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts."
The Blair family was only in residence for just under a week and they were super busy with numerous projects inside and on the land. The children could be found hanging out with the donkeys or creating their own art in their sketchbooks or tablets.
According to Greg, this was the first time that they had watched him work on his installations and also acted as assistants.
Sara brought her interest in fiber arts and created a leave behind piece in the garden. Leaving something behind is a component of the residency program and it allows for a unique collection of interesting work to be included in this living, breathing, organic art playground of sorts.
Early in the residency, I passed by them to chat and encountered a short conversation about Sara's work responding to the covid-19 pandemic. She is using her fiber techniques in creating a series of the coronavirus based off of statistics.
This video includes the conversation about the coronavirus project and then moves into her site specific weaving project. There's also a special clip of Greg talking about his smaller shadowbox piece as we were in the living room where they were working on the inside projects during rain.
What would you create?