"Yellow Pages" a self-portrait Judith Wray   I bound it with twine and shellacked it all over several times.   On the top of each curved section I wrote the verses from a poem by Thoreau.   Those words run just as sinuously through our days and all our creating together in the last few years.

Where do I begin? A carved telephone book?  leather bound, "let your fingers do the walking" went an old ad for the yellow pages... These pages illustrate a transition

On the left are Laci's fingers and my head! We caste his feet first in bronze  then moved on to his fingers and his ear. Later, we would laugh about having a group show. BABELARTE Judy Wray & Laszlo Krisch Laci taught me a new medium. He introduced me to computers and showed me how to write html. I am still learning! ****************************************************** No one had ever baked a loaf of bread for me before. Laci loves to cook. He was baking bread and had enough dough for two loaves. He made his loaf first, all neat and straight and orderly. Then he came to mine, and made mine in many sections, all wild and crazy. When he presented it to me, all hot and brown and crusty and smelling wonderful, I wanted to do something more than eat it. Commemorate it!

The Poem by Thoreau "We must learn to re-awaken and keep ourselves awake Not by mechanical aids, but by the infinite expectation of the dawn which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture or to carve a statue and so to make a few things beautiful. But it is far more glorious to carve and paint the atmosphere and medium through which we look. Which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Everyman is tasked to make his life even in its details worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour." Thoreau

This is actually important to me..

the way that art works.

The way it does not matter 2 cents that Thoreau is dead or not.

Art lies dormant waiting to snare.

The poem by Thoreau  was on a tea box above our stove for years, till one day,

 reaching up,

 the words grabbed me by the throat.

The grants people always make me laugh and cry, they ask questions like "how

many people were affected by the artist on such and such a day, (to justify their

 giving of funding).

I remember once I was at a copying business, busily copying, and I looked out the

 window

to the train station across the street.

There was a billboard.

Rolling Rock Beer was being advertised..

but more than that..

Jim Morrison was

talking.

Jim Morrison was dead (The Door's)

"Same as it always was" was what was

written..

but it was not written the same as it always was,

and the whole experience was an art experience

one did not go into a museum for,

dressed, prepared, ready to be enlightened.

Art is a funny thing.

I don't like commerce, the selling of art

but I do like the way death doesn't have to stop anything.

Kind of makes life worth living.

****************************************************************

ARMS FOR ART,  1993

The collage of arms was 31 ft. wide and 12 ft high.

The section shown here is the top, center portion.

For the few weeks leading up to its assemblage,

we made a call for photo copied arms and hands.

Different color paper was welcomed.

Different sizes were welcomed.

No maximum quantity was stipulated.

Seniors lined up at the YWCA in New Brunswick by the copying machine,

chuckling that this was unusual and fun.

Children from New Brunswick's Head Start program were welcomed to Kinkos

(when it used to be across from the New Brunswick train station ).

The manager passed out paper and crayons

and the children spread out across the rugged floor

and waited their turn to have their little hands

photocopied in both black & white and color.

Michael Preston, from Middlesex, NJ

made 50 large copies of his long, (and hairy arm.)

It was the Arms for Art project which began to cut a path in front of me,

leading me along.

I received envelopes of photo copied hands in the mail from strangers.

There was a feeling of being on target and a momentum going past myself

as though some flow or current had been tapped into.

the Wizard behind the projects

No gravity! We invited small images to float together and have kept them up floating. The project took a leap with the Pipe Dream show. The floating objects on the new pages are tennis balls from the Citizen School Ball Pipe (At the bottom are a sampling of both virtual and real. Scroll down, way down!)

WINDOWS-The Transparent Flower Show, 2001 http://www.valweb.org/windows/flowers.htm "The Transparent Flower Show"..a visual experiment in working and playing together. Basically, it is a transparent / translucent, photocopied images show with a floral theme. Scanned flowers, painted flowers, e mailed, multiplied, reduced, enlarged, superimposed, floral in feeling! Abstracts...patterns created with all the incoming images, combining them, coming together from all over the country. For the month of May, the show developed and filled a one hundred foot glass wall at The Old Bridge Public Library. To show simultaneously in two places, we cloned the imagery and took half to Newark, University of Medicine and Dentistry and half to the Old Bridge Library. Multiply! Add! Divide! After that it moved to the South River Library where a piece was created by a group of young people and we framed them all in a hoola hoop. Then the show moved to the Metuchen Public Library for another month. Then on to the University of Medicine and Dentistry in Piscataway, NJ. Next it went to the Cork Gallery, Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, NY. All the while, the show was posted to the internet so all the participants can follow it along. Phillip T. Baker, the Rock & Roll artist, worked all night and then went to Cambridge School in Kendall Park, NJ and worked some more. This piece was created by 19 little children in the Head Start program, 3 and 4 yr olds, and measures about 48" across and is done on transparent, heavy vinyl. Using non-toxic paints, the children took turns by Phillip's side squishing their little fingers into the brightly colored paint and then creating an impression on the vinyl surface. By noon we had achieved the effect seen here. Within a few days the photos were on the web site.   As the children slowly moved around concentrically, artist Judy Wray followed with a heat gun drying the paint to prevent smearing. At another table, children were coloring fish for the "Traveling Magnetic Show" which moves around towns on the fire engine red Val VAN, the transportation for the Visual Arts League which doubles rolling road show. The finished piece joined the "Flower Show" January 2001 at  the Cork Gallery, downstairs from Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, New York.  The children's flower piece is in the collection of work hanging at the South Brunswick Library in the children's room and it is featured in "The Book of Hope", by Icelandic Poet, Birgitta Jonsdottir. (The Dalai Lama and Lawrence Ferlenghetti are in the same book.) The Internet was used throughout the project to teach many things all at once and add mileage to what was a few hours experience.

"The Great Grape House", by Robert Rakita, Union, NJ   Can we bring great art into   our communities as   opposed to budget art?   Art feeds us -   what will we serve up as a community?   This mural has not happened, not yet!  (and it won't either..too close to the highway, insurance, structural problems.. whatever, not going to happen, but WOW! if it could! Art in Our Communities, 2004 http://www.valweb.org/NewsLetter/muralstodiefor.htm The Dream Precedes the Act. We are the dream weavers.

VAL - 1st DIGITAL SHOW-2000 http://www.valweb.org/lincoln2000/digital.htm                  David Camp, Wisconsin         Christine Tyler, New York The New Brunswick Food show, 2002 http://www.valweb.org/new_brunswick_city_market.htm As a tangent to a real one day show of art & food sampling in local restaurants, we began an Internet Food show of our own. ( A few tidbits ) Dian Sirken, Freehold, NJ Lica's Freezer, Ansgard, Thomson               TOWN CLEANERS Internet Experimental Project, 2004                    http://www.valweb.org/New_Bruns/sunrise.htm Town Cleaners, been around forever. The first design to come in. Ansgard Thomson, Alberta, Canada. On these web pages began an Internet project using the boarded up windows of vacant buildings (or partially vacant), experimenting with digital artists from around the world.  I would like to get people thinking  creatively about ways to use negative space in positive ways, bringing art out onto the street, creating an exciting interchange using digital art which can easily involve high school seniors in computer art programs with digital artists from around the world. Kind of a low budget, world school using negative space in a positive way. Together we can impart integrity to a world which is so divided by specialists, nobody having the scope of view or time to step back and create in a holistic way. Artists of all kinds function as roving free radicals knitting good things together for its own sake. Shankar Barua, New Delhi, India Robert Rakita, Union, NJ   A Possibility:  Art is Food Virtual Pillar Show, 2004   http://www.valweb.org/AP/artisfooditfeedsyou.htm Another Project Begins-This is one small portions of the front of a local supermarket in any town, our world. (Happens to be in my town!) The pillars are approx. 11' high and 58" around. We are beginning a virtual food related show on these pillars, as it is a SUPER-market! This is a take off on the Pipe Dreams show. We post designs coming in and add a link back to the artist sending. Designs accepted, we will attempt to make the virtual materialize via the same idea we used with the digital designs sent for the Pipe Dreams show. The 2nd VAL Sponsored Digital show which is now a permanent installation at the University of Medicine and Dentistry-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, NJ   Poster design by Ansgard Thomson, Alberta, Ca. Renata Spiazzi, La Jolla, Ca. David Zeines, New York Chuck Ferris, San Rafael, Ca.   "Headeye" Randy Roberts, Lisbon, Iowa Dale Copeland, Mt. Taranaki, New Zealand Ed Fillmore, Rahway, NJ Judy Wray, Jill Ferguson, David Camp, Sheila Barrera & Doug the Mortician @ UMDNJ Renata Spiazzi, La Jolla, Ca. Jill Ferguson, Hatfield, Pa. Warren Furman, Montrose, Pa. Miriam Lozado-Jarvis, New Mexico Michael Huffman, "In Progress", Mn. Michelle Anderson, "In Progress" Mn. Mina Blyly-Strauss, "In Progress", Mn. Regina Mitchell, "In Progress" Mn. David Bornoff, Hollywood, Ca. Ansgard Thomson, Alberta, Ca. Don Archer, Brooklyn, NY Susan Holland, Washington State Nancy Wood, Texas Kent Oberheu, Berkeley, Ca. Ursula Freer, New Mexico Barbara Patera, Washington State TOGO, New York Vicky Culver, Howell Twp. NJ Jay Zimmerman, Moors, Indiana

"Scream", Bronze, 12" X 8" X 5", 1987 ( The bronze period ! ) When I worked at the Johnson Atelier Technical Institute of Sculpture, State of the Art foundry in Mercerville, NJ, (1987-89), we were taught processes leading up to and including bronze casting. This was a formative experience, as a cast could be endless variations in addition to a perfect and identical caste. It was these variations that grabbed my attention. Working along side serious and gifted sculptors from around the world was an educational experience in many ways. We were all aware of the health risks and could see the effect that years or even months of working in an unhealthy environment had on each other. One of my most unforgettable experiences was when a sculptor whom I admired very much invited me to see a storage area where his bronzes were kept. We drove over to an enormous old warehouse. Artists had created studio space on all the floors. We went up the elevator and the door opened to an area of space maybe 3000 sq feet. In the dusty, dim lighting we stood there silently seeing the hulking ton sculptures under gray tarpaulins, tied down. In those wordless moments many things were said. I knew that each month the rent had to be paid for space like that. I knew the cost in money and labor to produce the sculptures. I knew the wonder of the sculptures themselves. I saw dinosaurs. Something going extinct.

"Tyeast's Piece-Flower Power" 1997 46" diameter, Photo-copied images of Tyeast's fingertips, framed in cast hydrosome.

This image is a composite poster showing "Tyeast's Piece" in the upper right corner, Tyeast herself, (center), and her friend Alex (lower left) along with a guest appearance from the shark and the turtle, and Chuck the puppy. (Almost forgot! that's me, Judy Wray, with the red hat.) All these creatures were involved in creating during the 10 years between bronze sculpture and producing "Tyeast's Piece" and others below. (The shark leaped off Ginny Wick's ocean mural, if you pull up " Plastique-the Ocean Show", you can see him again, where he is supposed to be, but he peels off and there is no stopping him now. He goes anywhere he wants). Chuck the puppy was around at the beginning when we made clay impressions of Tyeast and Alex fingerprints. When it came time to pour the plaster in the clay impressions, the mold sprouted several leaks. White fluid gushed out all over, and Chuck rushed in to lap it up. Tyeast saved the day by plugging leaks with one hand and fending off Chuck with the other. Now the turtle. The turtle has always been around, it seems. From the time my dad would drive down country roads, bringing turtles home, over and over again, in all shapes and sizes. The turtle is a symbol and a friend, of steadfast persistence, showing up everywhere, even on doorsteps in far away places. Now, on the side of our home, we call "The Art Yard" is the Giant Tortoise" The Tortoise (The original design by Little Bob Duncan reproduced by Mark Nerys (16), Somerset, NJ

"Floating", 1992 56" diameter, Styrofoam, velvet satin, plaster of Paris and Crayola crayons. "Floating" was a piece created in reverse logic, using negative space. The problem was digging out the 3-D shadow of the fish images, then pouring in a solid to catch the ghost of the shape. The rest of the forms grew up around them. Styrofoam puzzle pieces.

 

Frozen waves, covered in satin and velvets. The fish were cast in plaster and slathered with melted crayon. It was light weight, except for the fish. The whole thing was beautiful, but highly breakable, and so the next piece was created to be a more durable variation of a floating fish theme. It weighs a ton!

"Floating (Variation 2)", 1993

Four kinds of Exotic Wood, Imported from Venezuela, Cast Bronze

This piece sat around in closets and spare rooms for a long time. It is so ominously heavy, it is uncomfortable to stand next to! Floating from a far, falling up close! But you don't take it anywhere. The easiest place to send it, is into cyberspace, on this web page, where I have no trouble sending it anywhere, and the real piece can sit safely in my living room.

 1993
Judith Wray and Phyllis Castells

Terracotta, Raku Glazed, Lead Fishing Weights,
bronze, hay baling hook. 6' X 2' X 2'

The fish was produced as a result of a class assignment to work with a partner

 creating a piece with many parts.

When we were done, we were faced with mutual ownership.

All along we had to contend with our differences and afterwards too.

What developed was a kind of birth, a brain child born of us both.

What now? The project created a dilemma of ownership.

Something was "born" in that sculpture that neither of us recognized as our own.

We looked in wonder. The sum of the parts was more than a simple count of pieces.

 

The fish hangs by its head from a hay baling hook. It has a spine of large three-pronged fish hooks.

It goes together on the same principle as a Christmas tree. Each scale or group of scales going on in clusters or individually. The head crowns it all. It is a fish kit. It could come in a box, and be different every time it is assembled. The clay scales are raku fired. Raku is an ancient Japanese method of glazing. Each clay piece is heated to a red hot state in a kiln.

The pieces are then removed with tongs and thrown into a pile of twigs and leaves (or sawdust) which bursts into flames. Quickly, an airtight lid is clamped down. Flames consume the oxygen and create a vacuum. Minerals from within the clay are drawn to the surface of the clay where they mix with the chemicals  in the applied raku glaze. Instantly, a chemical reaction begins to take place and crimsons and coppers and turquoise and iridescent appear, depending on the minerals present and glaze used and timing and heat and oxygen. There are a lot of variables, which produce an infinite variety of results.

Denizens of the deep, fish creatures,

ooze and murk and the beginnings

of things. Come with us on a voyage

of the mind and the heart in the shape

of a fish. Send us a fish image

of your own. We will multiply it,

reduce and expand it and take your

fish for the ride of its life.

As a group of loosely knit people

from all over, we can levitate great

works together barely trying.

There is magic in coming together.

J.Wray

(central image on left by Harriet Leonard, NY

The first  brick we sent by e mail. The bricks are all a little different.

Mathew (10 yr ) NY

This top row, samples of the real concrete bricks.

Rebecca, (11 yr.) NJ

Maxine Gantois, Savignac, France

Below are all the Virtual Bricks which came in by e mail.

Birgitta Jonsdottir, Iceland

Dima Yakovina,

St. Petersburg, Russia

Jill Ferguson, Hatfield, Pa.

Jill Ferguson, Hatfield, Pa.

Warren Furman, Montrose, Pa.

Warren Furman, Montrose, Pa.

Dima Yakovina, St. Petersburgh, Russia

Ansgard Thomson, Alberta, Canada.

Ansgard Thomson, Alberta, Canada.

We have involved about 260 people of all ages in the overall wall and the bricks surrounding the murals and the Internet / virtual extension of this project. One artist can paint a 300 ft span of wall. Today we are challenged to join with a world community to exercise our creativity to aid in global problem solving &  working together in new ways which leap boundaries of space and time. These projects are an exploration.

This  Mural was on the fence at East Brunswick Foreign Auto Sales, Harts Lane, East Brunswick, NJ. 100 feet of fence plus a beetle sliced in half, nudged the mural into reality. We took a digital photo of the cut in half beetle, de-saturated the color and turned it into a coloring book line drawing. We duplicated it 300 times and passed it out randomly and to Joyce Kilmer School in Milltown,  Hammorsjold in East Brunswick and McKinley School in New Brunswick, (all in NJ. ) Color the VW we said! We received 267 responses. Two years after the project began, we got an envelope in the mail Postmarked "Indonesia".  Inside was a colored Volkswagen by an artist in Indonesia we came to know as "Samuel".

Below: A few of  the Volkswagon Beetles which rolled in to the Cyber Gallery. 

Random  people and students from 3 schools sent colorings for the Volkswagen. They were told that one design would be selected to be reproduced on the real half a beetle. A selection was made and the design was reproduced on the car. Chris MacKinnon, Shark River, NJ, created the "Wings" for the beetle and the Beetle was hoisted into position where it sat on top of the fence as seen in the picture..  For six months after the beetle was completed it sat on top of the mural on Harts Lane. After that, the flying beetle went to the Cork gallery, downstairs from Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center as part of the show "The Hub-With Magnetic Connections".

We thought of another idea, (as we had all these wonderful designs),  how everybody could win. All the beetle designs were laminated and spray glued to magnetic material and became

"the Traveling Magnetic Show"

riding around on the fire engine red Val Van for next few years.

Surprising children at traffic lights!

The ride by art show!

We wanted to create a show of work that stuck together, literally and figuratively. The Traveling Magnetic Show rides on the VALVAN. Artists, children ..an open invitation extends to create a magnetic piece for the van. The show changes, moves around on the body of the van. When it is not on the van, it has been seen on refrigerator doors. December '98 The Hub-With Magnetic Connections visited the Cork Gallery downstairs from Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, NY and again in the New Brunswick Food Show, summer of2002. 

We spent months collecting discarded refrigerator doors of all kinds so we would have a place to display all the Volkswagen designs.

We took the doors to the Cork Gallery, Lincoln Center along with the hubcap show and also to the Quietude Sculpture Garden in East Brunswick, NJ.

-1999

 work that sticks together both literally and figuratively

1999-Real and Virtual Hubcaps

1900, an installation at Mason Gross School of the Visual Arts.

Rusted pipes, clay, dirt, bricks. A miniature industrial setting, meant to put the viewer in reverse perspective.

I was invited by the Paul Robeson School to do a project with the students involving the community without a budget.

What follows below is the evolution of that challenge:

A leap from negative to positive.

(center) above design by Ed Fillmore  / Palette Pipes by the Six Town Artists, East Brunswick, NJ

Sinuous Pipes (above) "Forbidden", Robert Rakita, Union, NJ

( right ) The Citizen School, BALL PIPE

400 hands

This is the closest pipe to being local artist's, Judy Wray's. Judy is the conceptualist for the Pipe Dreams show in New Jersey. 400 children / teens worked on this pipe  in three stages.

Stage 1.

 Middlesex County Teen Arts brought the teens together.

 Artist, Little Bob Duncan began the pipe, working with Judy Wray and 3 schools from Perth Amboy as part of Teen Arts at Middlesex County College.

Duncan drilled about 150 holes in the top portion of the pipe. Atilla Soltez (mechanic), welded 3 tire rims for a base. So where is Judy? ..the idea was in her head and she managed to convey it with as much clarity and enthusiasm as could be mustered, pulling together 12 ft pipe, tire rims, rubber gloves and people, to converge and keep on running.

 Stage 2

The Rubber Hand Pipe Continues with Career Day and 300 students at Robert N. Wilentz School, Perth Amboy, NJ

Stage 3.

The Rubber Hand Pipe continues. For two days Laurel Van Leer (Girl Scout Leader), invited neighbors to color multi-colored surgical gloves with permanent magic markers. After the coloring, the gloves got stuffed and a knot tied. Then the knotted end was glued into one of the holes drilled near the top of the pipe or slipped into bands running around the lower half. Layer on layer the pipe took shape.

The man behind the rubber gloves - Douglass MacGregor, the mortician at University of Medicine and Dentistry-RWJMS-  Douglass has had a hand in projects with visiting artists  as far away as New Zealand and often has given us a helping hand in unusual ways.

Digitalized Photograph by Maxine Gantois, Savignac, France

Life is short...

Marlene Leitman, East Brunswick, NJ                                                                                                                                                                      Page Must width="108" h eight="108"> Load COMPLETELY Before Art Will Float                                                           CAUTION!  NO GRAVITY HERE!                                                                                                                                                                                                Are you dizzy yet :)

 Jill Ferguson, Hatfield, Pa

 Warren Furman, Montrose, Pa.

Ansgard Thomson, Alberta, Canada

Dale Copeland, New Zealand

Shankar Barua, New Delhi, India

Ansgard Thomson, Alberta, Canada