I cycle in and out of “material romances”; seeking materials to form relationships with and allowing them to persuade my direction. Often my work feels like being a contemporary anthropologist. When I want to know about myself and the community, I look at the materials frequently purchased, endorsed, and interacted with. I am most attracted to mass-produced consumer goods. I find the most history in products of daily use. When searching for explorations, I probe supermarkets and gas stations, thrift stores, and my kitchen, pining for materials I want to understand differently.

I find myself using my art as therapy; I take objects which hold uncomfortable memories and gain ownership through the ritualistic processes I take them through. Hand- stitching, preserving, and yielding useless have become time-consuming acts which provide me moments of self-reflection and empowerment. I adore hand stitching which provides me with near-endless time to become lost in thought. And as with all relationships which contain a beginning, middle, and end, once I feel that I have received what the material wishes to tell me, I move on to the next romance.

BIO

Bea Hurd is currently a Salt Lake City based artist studying Sculpture Intermedia at the University of Utah and is set to graduate this semester. She predominately works in materially based sculptures, though also incorporates video, performance, and audio pieces into her practice.

I grew up Catholic and I am very comfortable with space being set aside for sacred objects and meditation time. As a result, I became a shine maker myself, both informally and professionally. On New Year’s Day 2019 I decided to build a shine to the New Year and to preserve its beauty in a photograph. So powerful was that experience that I continued to take photographs throughout the year of my constructed vignettes and shrines. My only rule was that I would have to feel better, happier, more relaxed by looking at the image I had made through the camera lens. Only then would I permit myself to snap the shutter. Sometimes this process took hours of construction, sometimes mere minutes.

The photographs are enlarged to 2 feet by 3 feet on purpose. That is how I see the finished image in my mind’s eye. I love the idea of making the small and fragile into something big and imposing. To see a room full of huge dogs and apples and flowers is a somewhat giddy first encounter. I never see one of my photos without feeling healed from trauma in some small way.

Each enlarged photograph gives me a chance to relive the moment when I first looked through the lens and felt enveloping calm. For that I am forever grateful to my camera. My camera and my vision of the world have found true companionship.

BIO

Lucy Fairchild earned a degree at the University of Utah in “The History and Criticism of Film.” On the way to that degree she discovered she was tired of film and became a visual artist. Early work included painting wooden furniture that sold at art festivals and Utah galleries. Other work included collage, installations and drawings. She currently maintains a studio at Poor Yorick Studios.