Nancy Douthey: Nine Swimming Pools and An Interruption

Check out Surpik Angelini's article on Nancy's Nine Swimming Pools and An Interruption. Way to go Nancy! An excerpt from Angelini's article follows:

"Exploring the visual qualities of photography and video as well as the socially and politically expanded field of performance art, Douthey's recent work included in her Master's thesis exhibition, Nine Swimming Pools and an Interruption, combines both expressions successfully. The artist filmed her "jumps in the void" between October 2009 and February 2010, in nine videos shown simultaneously on a gridded screen. The unedited three- to twenty-two-minute video segments document repeated actions: descending from her car, approaching the pool, jumping in and getting out in wet clothes. At first, the cacophony of local sounds and the handheld camera's jittery images seem to be part of the natural chaos of an ordinary scene. A closer look reveals nine staged events in separate sites: one at the artist’s home, seven in her neighborhood, and another in a university campus.

Trespassing properties in her neighborhood, the artist sneaks into seven unoccupied houses for sale with pools. Douthey gains access to the backyards of the unsurveilled houses in between showings to film her pool jumps. At the university campus, the pool was unattended for a shorter period, so Douthey was caught in the act and reprimanded by authorities who saw her project as an inappropriate and inconsiderate act in relationship to the country’s current state of red alert. "What if someone had tried to jump in and save you?” they asked. Next to this loaded social and political commentary, Douthey curiously points out that the most accessible pool — her own — was the one she resisted most. Subverting the male gestures objectifying the female subject, the artist's feminist immersion and embodiment are the roots of her own Becoming."

Nancy's MFA Show at the Blaffer Gallery

[the card that keeps on giving...]

Yay! Nancy's thesis show at University of Houston's Blaffer Gallery is up through the 24th April. Rachel Hooper, Associate Curator, writes: "In her performances and video installations, Nancy Douthey draws people into her meditations through repetition, interruption, and disobedient action, and with humor prompts them to question their assumptions."

Nine Swimming Pools (= trespassing at its finest). Our love for Ed Ruscha is undying.



Tammy Fay Baker is Nancy's alter ego. Check out all those screen printed fans and that pink rug!

Blurb Edit: Round 2

One reason why I can't seem to start this Blurb book edit (which is reminding me an awful lot of my aversion to packing early):



In addition to a cat in front of the computer every time I turn around, I can't understand why the aqua color on the cover of "Nine Swimming Pools..." printed bluish gray. I also think that I've procrastinated so long because editing is such a crap shoot in terms of how to edit. Do I lighten just five images or all the photographs? How much so when the one on the computer looks just fine but was printed so differently?



Love having "OK" on the pink post-it. It's a rare thing in this pile that must now be measured and chip board cut for the containers to be mailed to Nancy by Wednesday.

These books of ours...

(a quick shot of the ten on my office floor before shipping them to Houston)

Well there are many things to be said about making a Blurb book. It's far easier when text is not involved (formatting is more difficult). We have to reprint four due to images printing darker than acceptable (but four is far better than re-doing all ten). The book I was least satisfied with on the computer is by far the popular favorite in print - Conversation Maps. Motels does not live up to my expectations. I am in constant debate whether or not these should just be made as one volume because it would be far cheaper to produce and the point will still come across (also when grouped together, they aren't as significant as I had anticipated and with one volume it could be a hardback with text on the spine). I will be constructing a chipboard holder to contain all of them once arriving in Houston (as Texas Art Supply has far more options on paper than Muncie, Indiana). Overall the print quality looks good especially in Nine Swimming Pools and a Fake Doughnut and Car Games I: Geodomes. As soon as Nancy and I sort out a few things about these in person, they will go public on the Blurb website. In the meantime... here's to finishing the four before next week!

The Blurb Books are Here! The Blurb Books are Here!

Better photographs coming soon (we only have to redo four of the ten).

Car Games I: Geodomes



Nine Swimming Pools and a Fake Doughnut

Books!

Nancy and I finished the mock-ups for 10 artists' books! They will be published by Blurb in an edition of 10. Subjects include the "in between" ranging from 6 pages to 60.

Searching for Ed Ruscha
The 2008 and 2009 Cheesy Tourists Photo Shoot Awards
Tweets and Texts
Conversation Maps
LBK AKA Long Board Kid
Inventory
Motels
Nine Swimming Pools and a Fake Doughnut
Hotel Origami and Thank You Notes
Car Games I: Geodomes



Arranging "Inventory" - hot pink comes first naturally.



With a little help from our friends (Mark the "manager" and Radar stealing my seat)



13 hours later DONE!!



JR, Radar and ND tired but relieved.

Dear Ed Ruscha,

My friend & collaborator Nancy Douthey and I recently completed an earthworks pilgrimage throughout the Western US. We spent three weeks traveling through Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas making art in response to the site-specific works we saw. In addition to being inspired by Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, James Turrell, Michael Heizer, and Walter De Maria, we were also influenced by you.

How does Ed Ruscha fit into the genre of Earthworks? Much of our project deals with what lies "in between" - the landscape and the concept of "place" (literally as seen in the motels where we stay and figuratively as in our roles in each location). This is where your artwork makes its most prominent entry.

My main point in writing you is admittedly a little self-aggrandizing. If I may be so bold, I would like to invite you to take a look at our blog documenting the journey & our sources of inspiration (all to be developed into finished works of art in the immediate future).



At the following link, you will find that Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass became a study in swimming pools and fake doughnuts. Ideally I am searching for a large, fake, chocolate cake (in the style of Wayne Thiebaud) and plan on photographing that as soon as I find the perfect one. Nancy and I wanted to combine an object with the pool that was just as unlikely but less threatening.

Of particular interest is this link where Nancy and I spend our day at Bryce Canyon searching for you and eventually obtain your autograph. That remains one of our favorite projects of the entire trip and certainly opened my mind to exploring new avenues in the art making process.



Your artists’ books have always been an influence long before I catalogued Ian & Fredericka’s collection at Texas Gallery. Nancy and I are making a series of half a dozen booklets documenting the “in between” and publications like Thirty-four Parking Lots are certainly something that we aspire toward.

Although this has nothing to do with Nancy’s and my collaboration (but since this is my one time chance at telling you), your Untitled painting from 1986 of an elephant trudging up a hillside is my all time favorite work of art. I first saw it at your retrospective at the Fort Worth Modern and it continues to haunt me to this day.



Thank you for taking the time to read this and for being such an inspiration for both of us.

Sincerely,

J. Russell & N. Douthey

POOLSIDE DONUTS: SUGAR AND SPLASH

Thinking of Ed Ruscha's nine swimming pools and a broken glass, we went for swimming in pools and dreaming of donuts.

and might I just add...

how important an influence this man and this artwork will also be on this art pilgrimage...




Ed Ruscha's Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass, 1968