Curtains! by J.Wray
That is my friend Drew Proctor standing
there at bottom of the yellow sea.
He said he couldn't be in the ocean show,
and there he is with his bronze caste fish swimming all around him!
Drew was going sailing on a Portuguese sailing vessel
and was going to be away for a month.
The multiple fish images around him are photo-copies
of a real bronze fish Drew loaned me.
There is no paint on this piece.
The top portion is black plastic bag
( simulated oil slick ), bulging ominously to the side.
There are 2 old fashioned curtain pulls beneath each layer.
The kind which can still be found in some houses today,
or your granny's house!
We are invited to raise the curtains
and presented with a choice.
( scroll down)

The ocean show began in 1997 and was originally an installation at Creative Space Place, 100 Jersey Ave. New Brunswick. We used aerial space on the main floor and created a sea of undulating waves of blue green colored cellophane.  We had gathered together to finger paint a mottled look of changing light on the streams of translucent color. Interspersed in the waves were token fish creatures from artists. A large sand dollar came from East Brunswick, NJ, sculptor Herbie Walker, . paper fish came from May Bender, another East Brunswick artist. Ginny Wick, Hillsborough, NJ. sent a two stuffed fish of different types. On the walls, were sea and fish paintings. There were three floors in all and it kept getting bigger, ultimately including a large bayou swamp mural that Ginny Wick had done for her son's Prom. With this show we were exploring playing together literally in space. It was this show which opened the door to us at University of Medicine and Dentistry-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School when medical students Scott Woska and Rob Laumbach came over and invited the ocean show to spill over to the student center and continue.

What followed was a breath taking year where people were greeted at the 100 ft wide glass main entrance by a translucent, photo-copied ocean show of fish images from everywhere. Fish of all kinds lined both sides. Passersbys were invited to color some of the fish by Carol Freeborn. Her design encouraged participation. 

Famous experimental water colorist, Pat San Soucie, sent us 2 small water colored fish images. My mother was still alive at the time and I enlisted her help. She funded the multiplying of the fishes!! ( and also enlarging and reducing!) until we had the massive school of Pat San Soucie fish rising in a curl of a wave on a portion of the glass window.