That Only You and I Can Know

That Only You and I Can Know Archive

2009-12-22T19:14:00.002-05:00

Message from Caitlin about project:
That Only You and I Can Know
New Interactive Works by Caitlin Perkins
August 27-October 23, 2008
Hicks Art Center Gallery
Bucks County Community College

This project is about a simple act of giving and receiving between two people. I'm asking a basic question, how will people interact with an installation that needs them to participate?

My job, as the artist, is to set up a gallery--creating a place, and time for this to occur--and your job, as the viewer, is to suspend judgment, let it all "hang out" and definitely play with the art.

What do you get to play with? A good question. I won't reveal all the secrets, but what you will find when you walk in the gallery are a series of interactive booths. I chose technologies and items from a slightly recent history: the telephone booth, the photobooth and a kissing booth in which to test and play with the audience. Yes, there is a bit of nostalgia - but not sentimentality.

I hope to see you soon.
Best,
Caitlin
caitlinemmaperkins at gmail.com
www.space1026.com

Project credits:

Credits

That Only You and I Can Know was only made possible with the help of many, many people.

I would like to thank my intern Yetunde Ogunfidodo for all her help in putting together this project; Manuel Navarette for his superior technical support and printing skills; Rebecca Mott for pitching in at the gallery; the Bucks County Community College staff and faculty including: Fran Orlando, Gallery Director for supporting the project; Susan Hagen, Professor for inviting me to do this project; Caren Friedman; Justin Junkins, Jim Shriver, and finally Space 1026ers for all their support and love.

Caitlin Perkins, 2008
if you need to reach me: caitlinemmaperkins at gmail
www.space1026.com

That Only You and I Can Know - images

2009-04-04T22:34:00.007-04:00

psst...the party is tomorrow

2008-09-17T12:07:00.000-04:00

psst: my opening is tomorrow at Bucks County Community College...

That Only You and I Can Know
New Interactive Works by Caitlin Perkins
Opening Reception Thursday, September 18 5-7 pm

http://caitlinsketchbook.blogspot.com/

August 27-October 23, 2008
Hicks Art Center Gallery
Bucks County Community College

Directions:
275 Swamp Road Newtown, PA 18940 215-968-8000
From I-95: ( I-95 North from Philadelphia/ I-95 South from New Jersey)
Take I-95 to Exit 49 - Newtown - Route 332. Proceed West towards Newtown and follow this road straight to the College entrance, approximately 5 miles on left. When entering the campus bare right, then proceed up the hill, there is construction so parking for the Hicks Art Center art center (which is at the top of the hill) may have shifted. There are campus maps on kiosks, if you get lost (there are only really two roads through the campus)

Dog days of summer

2008-08-23T22:34:00.004-04:00

The pace of the city feels so different this weekend. People are walking slower, this late August drifting pace. I almost succumbed to it today. This pigeon flew across this alley street while I was packing up the car to head to the gallery.

Last night went a bit too late - I finally got home at 2 am after prepping screens and testing emulsion on a larger exposure unit at Space 1026. Final count, I cleaned 9 screens, dehazed 5 (using caustic chemicals) coated and burned images into 6. My fingers are dried out today from bathing in water and chemicals yesterday.

Bill McRight and I drove up to Bucks County, he was kind enough to pitch in and help me print today. These wall pieces take at least 2 people to print...Tunde and I printed 6 small screens the other day, and Bill and I printed 4 large ones today. Tunde left to go back to school today, I hope she has a fabulous semester, she is really excited about installation art after working on this project all summer.

A Day of Rest

2008-08-21T20:38:00.003-04:00

And tonight, I'm back to Philly. Tunde and I worked in the gallery yesterday with Justin and Jim finishing up the booths...we are near the end and the final touches are going up. Then she and I went into the print studio to finish up another wall image.

I look forward to the time when it is all installed and people start to populate the space. And tonight, on the computer I'm finishing up some design work. In the meantime, here are some video still captures that I pulled tonight. The book press was hard at work holding the telephone books that I made for the booths. Perfect bound using PVA (old school, non-nano technology glue).

I'll put up the rest of the photos on a slideshow.

Cheers. Back to Photoshop for me.

jump rings to curtain rings

2008-08-18T23:19:00.006-04:00

From rings

So, this evening I spent time making curtains and curtain rings. My hands are recovering.

My fingers have healed

2008-08-18T14:59:00.001-04:00

Just mere days since they were covered in splinters, my fingers are healed and I will be heading to the studio tonight to start a sewing project - curtains made of lovely orange corduroy for the photobooth. I am looking forward to this domestic-like project. I will post some photos later tonight.

Installation antics

2008-08-17T16:37:00.005-04:00

The gallery installation continues for That Only You and I Can Know - it was a super productive week, and neurosis aside...things are going well. I have amazing help from so many people, including Justin and Jim who are on staff at Bucks County Community College; Tunde my summer intern from Washington University; Manuel Navarette who came up from D.C. to print materials; and Rebecca Mott who at the last minute drove up on her Saturday to help stain and prep the photobooth. It takes a village to make an art show! We started on Wednesday and to date (i'm taking Sunday off to do some laundry and rest my body)

Current Statistics (a sampling)
4 bandaids, 7 splinters
10 shots of expresso, 5 ice coffees
5 trips to Home Depot
12 Advil liquid gels
4 days of Avis Car rental
three rolls of packing tape
one roll blackduct tape
One tank of gas
13 sheets of Luann
5 sheets of plywood
5 sea sponges
30 washers
2 packs of black nails

We'll be here all week

2008-08-15T20:49:00.005-04:00

So, as most installations go, the humor (and giddiness) is ripe.

A group of young girls in summer camp were very curious today about what was going on. The booths are starting to get put together and are starting to look like something. The kissing booth was especially enticing - and they kept asking if cute boys were going to be in the kissing booth - and made a request for the Jonas Brothers to appear. One looking directly at me said, that big kids didn't necessarily like the Jonas Brothers. Apparently, I'm a big kid - which is exactly what I was going for.

Success!

Caitlin

PS: I thought I would share a little video of what we've been reduced to. On a recent trip to Staples to get new artwork prepped for screenprinting, which I made too big...Manuel - who has been putting up with my hemming and hawing about imagery, gave up. When the woman behind the counter asked me if he was sleeping, I turned to see this:

Hey check out this printing video - hit the play button!

BTW: Its a Fantasy Football guide of statistics - draft day is just around the corner.

Splinters and Squeegees

2008-08-14T23:52:00.011-04:00

So, the official bandaid count for the day was three. My hands are riddled with splinters and now, they are also covered in black in. Progress was slow the first day up here in Bucks County - 3 hours in Home Depot trying to find the straightest wood possible, a stretch it seems.

Got everything up here to the gallery on Wednesday, and yesterday with the amazing help of Justin and Jim the staff here at Bucks, we cut almost all the wood in the woodshop and got started with the installation. Things are starting to get exciting, the kissing booth is fabulous. Now, 12 hours later - I guess technically it is almost Thursday, we are in the print studio prepping the signage that will go on each booth - that's a photo booth, 2 telephone booths and a kissing booth. The flooring for the kissing booth is my favorite, I ordered it from Greenable, an environmentally conscious home building supplier in Philadelphia. It is gorgeous, old school linoleum, red...and with the wonderful little nails to hold it down, kind of looks like upholstery.

Now, here we are - tired, and Manuel is here from DC to print the signs, which are also structural pieces, so we need them in order to continue construction. Here, I'm going to post a video of the works in progress - warning - this is spoiler footage, don't watch if you would like to be surprised - and it is raw, unedited footage from the flip video camera, literally taken 20 minutes ago. (I love technology).

Play nice, be kind and always say thank you (I should follow my own advice).

sweet dreams,
Caitlin

Hey check out this printing video - hit the play button!

Richard Dawson and the 70s

2008-08-10T17:42:00.010-04:00

I've been drawing very crude drawings as a way to get ready and think lately. It becomes a meditation, letters combined with doodling, clearing my mind and thinking about how these booths will function.
I find it amusing how many memories these doodles bring up - like loving tv gameshows such as The Price is Right or Family Feud when I was a child...the x's that struck when Richard Dawson would exclaim, "SURVEY SAYS!"

A Fox, A Cabbage and a Rabbit

2008-08-10T17:15:00.013-04:00

You know that logic puzzle...A man has a fox, a rabbit and a cabbage, and he wants to get across the river but his boat can only carry two items at a time. The man being one item and a fox, rabbit or cabbage being the second. If left along the fox will kill the rabbit, and the rabbit will eat the cabbage. How can the man get all three items across the river without losing any of them?

Well, that sums up what I've been planning the past few weeks to get ready for this show. I will preface this by saying that no, I don't own a car, leading me to rent...but you cannot fit a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood in a subcompact car...you get the idea. There is so much coordination between people who've offered to help me and the materials that I need to transport up there.

That said, I thought I would share some sketches of the booths that I will be building, both in very raw drawn and examples of the 3 D models that Tunde put together for me including: the telephone booths, the kissing booth and the photobooth.

Building...and building

2008-08-01T10:28:00.004-04:00

Plans and testing for the project continue. The studio is about a 100 degrees, and with the computer and lights - its a wonder that Tunde and I haven't melted! At least the screens for printing dry really fast though, it's the small things that keep me going.

I should have kept track of the hours that it takes to create a show. I will say that I'm excited by the tack that my practice is taking. Til now, I would say that most of my large scale installation work has been inspired by historical research in libraries. This is the first time that I am using my own life as the visual inspiration - I'm pulling from the 1970s when I grew up. In fact, during a recent trip to purchase fabric to make the curtains for the photobooth, I found this orange corduroy that I'm positive was the same fabric from pants that I had in kindergarten.

So, my artistic practice has made another leap forward, interesting.

Tin Can Telephones

2008-07-28T21:12:00.002-04:00

hello...can u hear me?

Some websites with information on tin can telephones:

http://amos.indiana.edu/library/scripts/phone.html

"Can two cans and a string really be used to talk over a distance?." from HowStuffWorks.com.

Planet Science's Sound Check article: Tin Can Telephone

Optimizing a Tin Can Phone

How To Make a Tin Can Phone

Tin Can Phones

2008-07-20T17:40:00.003-04:00

So, take a wild guess which cans work best to make a tin can phone...Tunde did much research and we tried about 10 different configurations of cans and string. Come and find out at the exhibition.

Generous-i-T

2008-07-20T17:02:00.001-04:00

Saturday, October 18

10:00 am-12:30 pm

Hicks Art Center

Bucks County Community College

Come join me for a fun t-shirt printing event. Its a B.Y.O.T. (bring your own t-shirt)

I supply the ink and screens for printing the shirts.

On Portraits

2008-07-20T16:47:00.002-04:00

The postmodernist eye scrutinizes the gaze of the portrait with its double claims to originality "the meeting of two subjectivities"--that of the portrayed and portrayer--the genre embodies the notion of uniqueness that has been challenged in the 20th century"

--Melissa Feldman from Face Off: The Portrait in Recent Art

A portrait of a person is not a fact, but an opinion. By removing the camera from the photobooth and replacing it with human eyes and hands--this sentiment or perspective can be even more distinct.

This was immediately apparent when I created the first model of the photobooth in March of 2007 at an exhibition at Space 1026. This booth was "staffed" by a variety of artists who all observed and drew in different styles - or opinions.

I built this booth without a notion of what would happen inside - I created the object, yet the experience of being allowed this luxury to observe with impunity and to share an intimate moment with a complete stranger, without introduction or fanfare was an amazing experience which I hope to recreate at Bucks County Community College.

"Portraits are always of a person at a specific instant. They are never about the future."

Jan Grover in Portrait Theory by David Attie

Read about the photobooth (scroll down text in review) on the artblog site, in a writeup by Andrea Kirsch here

Kissing Booth

2008-07-20T10:21:00.002-04:00

Thinking about different kinds of booths... and the different scenarios that I could create for people to interact with each other. I wanted to make a barrier for the two participants. What could be more hilarious than a kissing booth. But turns out that I'm also interested in challenging this exchange (what could be more challenging than kissing a stranger?) well, there probably won't be any real lips locking in this one...but we'll see.

I'm also a fan of bling...and I found some amazing red glitter plexiglass that I'm dying to work in somehow...

Found this widget to create your own glittery text at pYzam.com

Photobooths

2008-07-19T22:19:00.000-04:00

http://www.photobooth.net/locations/a comprehensive list of photobooths around the world

It's Gone!

2008-07-15T20:58:00.001-04:00

I am sorry to say that phone booths are an object of extinction. Another one has disappeared from the streets of Philadelphia. There was a gorgeous booth in Chinatown-just around the corner from my studio - which I had been meaning to photograph...It even had a sweet little roof on it. A few days ago, Tunde, my fearless intern from (Washington University) and I strolled over to document it. I was sure that it was going to go away eventually...we were too late. The booth was gone.

So, I photographed several varieties of phone kiosks - the short little metal cages and the signs that hang over them. This little image is a mock up of a sign for the gallery that I'm working on - in tribute to the phones, but for my own little booths.

R.I.P.