This is the first episode in the fourth season of WYSO's original series, Studio Visit.
The series explores artists and the inspirations behind their work. Susan Byrnes, a WYSO community voices producer who has been making art for over 30 years, created it.
This season, Byrnes explores ideas from her new show, "Lightness and Weight," now on display at the Contemporary Dayton Gallery. In this episode, she takes the listener on a tour of her show.
Studio Visit is produced for the ear and designed to be heard, not read. We strongly encourage you to listen to the audio by clicking on the blue "LISTEN" button above, which includes emotion and emphasis not on the page.
Susan Byrnes: I’ve been in an ongoing conversation about art with JoEllen Kwiatek, the poet who wrote an essay about my work for my new exhibition. One day I got an email from JoEllen.
Here's what she wrote:
“What if we just look, just look? For a while? Describe only in order to see? No judging or concluding at first, no urgent focus on meaning. What we learn then is to tolerate uncertainties,” Kwiatek said.
So in the spirit of taking time to just look, and in this case listen, let’s take a tour of my show, called “Lightness and Weight.”
“Lightness and Weight"
When you walk into the gallery, a turntable sits on the floor, spinning a 45 RPM record of crows cawing.
The space on your right is set up like a stage. Across the floor are bones, big and small. Animal bones, but these are made out of iron and colored a gun-metal gray. Look up, and you’ll see you’re standing under a cloud of white tulle petticoat skirts hanging over your head and casting long shadows on the wall. The title is “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.”
Beside that installation is a bright red hoodie without a body inside. It stands erect, like a suit of armor. Across the gallery, in a room of its own, a spotlit business suit hovers over a plank, enveloped in a chant.
What if we just look, just look? For a while? Describe only in order to see? No judging or concluding at first, no urgent focus on meaning. What we learn then is to tolerate uncertaintiesWhat if we just look, just look? For a while? Describe only in order to see? No judging or concluding at first, no urgent focus on meaning. What we learn then is to tolerate uncertainties
“Light as a feather, stiff as a board, light as a feather, stiff as a board,” the chant says.
The suit and the hoodie are made of iron, cast from melted-down bathtubs and brake drums poured into a mold.
I used casting to make most of the pieces in this show. It’s a process that magically transforms objects. Six pink glass crowns sitting on tall pedestals started out as paper and wax. Four diamond shapes hung high on a pale blue wall are wrinkled paper kites, changed into crystal clear glass panes. I titled these “Sky Windows.”
Hidden in a niche is a quiet piece, a cow bone draped with a rusty collar, but it has something to say if you put on its headphones.
“My name is Ruth Daniel. This is a poem my brother wrote for our daddy. Daddy came a ridin’ ‘cross my mind a while ago…”
The only 2-D work in the show covers an entire wall. It’s a kind of mural but with texture. Black strings of nylon doll hair swoop across the surface in web-like waves.
In the deepest, darkest room in the gallery, you’ll find one last petticoat, but this one, made of hundreds of pounds of cast iron, is thoroughly grounded. It’s called “Volcano”. Inside it is the dim red glow of a light. Surrounding it is a video of billowing smoke and drifting voices.
“We have spent so much time to get here, now we are back to zero, now we are back to zero,” the voices say.
And so are we, our tour is complete. I hope it leaves you with a sense of curiosity, a sense of wonder, and maybe even connects to something in your own experience. That’s what I love most about art.
Studio Visit is supported by The Contemporary Dayton Gallery and produced at The Eichelberger Center for Community Voices at WYSO.
