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Amy Hauft's lecture at the Anderson Gallery tonight was very different from what I have become accustomed to. Rather than showing a progression and evolution of her work over the years, Hauft only spoke about her current installation at the Anderson. The result was a brief and focused lecture that provided a lot of insight to one piece.
Amy Hauft is the chair of the Sculpture + Extended Media Department here at Virginia Commonwealth University. She has been here for six years, and has exhibited her work internationally. She described herself as "an eccentric magnet," saying that "some things stick, and some things don't." She said that her art comes as a result of what she absorbs or discards throughout life.
Hauft works primarily in large-scale architectural installations. At her lecture tonight, she said that she is always seeking to reference a landscape, creating one indoors. Her installation, Counter Re-formation, was inspired by personal experience and an engraving of a dessert table from the Louis XV period. The sculpture is a somewhat serpentine table, and it is interesting to walk around and through. Hauft said that she was very interested by the fact that viewers could walk to the center and "wear" the piece. The very center is somewhat of a vortex, and it is topped by a spiral staircase made of sugar. Hauft said that the vortex is pulling down, while the staircase lifts up, creating an equal pull and balance at the center of the sculpture. In brief, the installation not only stems from some personal thoughts and desires that Hauft had, but it is supposed to be a metaphor for decadence and reform.
Hauft finished her lecture by stating once again that she always attempts to reference a personal physical experience that she had outdoors, by bringing a landscape inside. She said "My work is really futile, because of course you can't really create a landscape indoors. But it's kind of sweet to try."
See an image of Counter Re-formation below. If you want to see it in person, you can find it upstairs in the Anderson Gallery until February 21.
This week, I went back to some basic research on single-parenting. It always blows me away to read the statistics and risk factors. It worries me a little bit, but then I think hey, President Obama had a single mom, and he turned out just fine...
On to the facts:
In 2006, nearly 13 million families in the US were headed by a single person, and 80% of those were women. Since 1994, the rate of single-parent families in the US has remained steady, but it has doubled since the 1970s.
Single parent families are at high risk for poverty, particularly if the single parent lacks a college education. Single-parent families are also correlated with negative social, developmental, and physical outcomes for children. However, these effects can be curbed by positive involvement from a supportive friend and family network - but to some parents, this is unavailable. Single-parent families are often the source of social, political, and religious debate. People with non-religious and liberal viewpoints tend to be more welcoming of the changes in family life and structure, while conservatives tend to be more concerned about the decline in marriage and rise in cohabitation. To learn more, read here.
All of these things apply to me, and frankly it looks quite bleak if you only read the statistics. Of course I feel that it is necessary to realize the scope of the situation and have my work informed by it. However, I am really working to bring a sense of lightness and humor to an otherwise overwhelming topic. It is my hope that my collages will be entertaining and fun to look at on the surface, but will provoke deeper thought upon close examination. We will see...
