This video interview with Mike Perry, pretty much sums up the way I’ve been feeling lately. With a full schedule and so many different obligations to tend to, I’ve recently had little time to make things, post to this blog and (generally speaking) do the things I want to do. From this day forward I am vowing to make time for ART.

Get inspired. Take an hour off. Just do it! Make some cool shit!

Today I’d like to share one more post about Emma Hardy’s work at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont. Across from the Borneo Shipment installation is Packages, made from brown paper and packing tape. The inspiration for this particular work, came from the sudden loss of Emma’s mother.

The installation itself is made up of five figures modeled from people in Emma’s community of Jamestown, Colorado. These figures “orbit” around a large tree with mirrors inside of it. If you listen closely the viewer can hear each heartbeat recorded from the real models, all beating in unison with the tree. When peaking into the tree the viewer becomes part of the installation by seeing their own reflection while hearing the unified heartbeats that represent “collective consciousness.”

Emma writes in her statement, “The idea stems from the fact that we all exist within our own “package” and can only know someone through their appearance and what they choose to present to the world. My intention is that an observer can relate to and find some commonality; perhaps they will find a reflection of themselves, a friend, a daughter, or parent.”

Emma Hardy’s Borneo Shipment, is a whimsical installation that brings the viewer face-to-face with life-sized jungle animals surrounding a bright orange shipping container. The glass eyes give each animal a sense of depth and softness, as if the viewer is being introduced to a new friend, rather than a wild orangutang or leopard.