Beyond the Surface : A Community Project
In 2022, I was generously awarded a $15,000 Support for Artists and Creative Individuals grant from the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance. This grant helped fund a community based project which aimed to explore what lies beyond human relationships to textiles.
In March of 2022, I welcomed 22 members of the Houston community (artists and art lovers, musicians, engineers, clergy, teachers, writers, and students) to my studio to take part in the project. Participants brought a meaningful textile to incorporate into the large-scale installation. Each person shared the memories of their textile with the group of strangers. After hearing these powerful stories, we had a moment of gratitude for our items. Participants then cut up their textile and helped sew it into my 5-part reconstructed canvas painting. The parts collectively became an experiential installation based on my quilted paintings (or Pinglets).
Participants working during the community sessions. Photos by Jay & Fon Marroquin.
The experience was profound, as participants’ stories demonstrated a wide range of the human experience: grief, joy, and personal transformation. Their courage, openness, and acceptance for one another reminded us that shared emotion is the glue which keeps humanity in tact. Through this collective act of sharing truths and re-examining our relationship to material, the groups were able to connect with each other on a deeper level. Meaning lay Beyond the Surface of their object; letting go of the textile didn’t mean letting go of the memory.
Portraits of each participant, along with their stories, were included in a book for the culminating exhibition, entitled Beyond the Surface. The book also contains a foreword by Austin-based writer Lauren Moya Ford. You can find an excerpt below, and read the full essay here.
“The sessions, with their deep emotional exposure and release, opened a space of empathy among participants. As community members retold the stories of joy, strength, and loss that their objects represented, they forged new relationships with their lived experiences, and with one another.”
The collection of stories and the aforementioned installation, as well as a selection of my works from the last 8 years, was on display during my solo exhibition, entitled Beyond the Surface. The show opened Saturday, June 4, 2022 at Foltz Fine Art in Houston, Texas. Preceding the opening, there was a panel discussion with four of the participants at the gallery. The exhibition was open to the public and on view through July 9.
THANK YOU:
My deepest gratitude to all of the participants for their vulnerability and courage. Thank you to Fon and Jay Marroquin for being there every step of the way to document this project. To Lauren Moya Ford, for her generous and thoughtful text. To BOX13 ArtSpace for providing a nurturing space for the collaboration and creation of this project. To Sarah Foltz and her entire team at Foltz Fine Art for providing the space for the installation, exhibition, and panel discussion to come to life. To the Houston Arts Alliance, for providing myself, as well as countless other artists, the funding to fulfill dreams like this one. And to each and every one of you who have supported this endeavor along the way, at the exhibition, and have continued to share this project. Thank you!