Coming down to the wire…. and it’s moved!

For the past week, on and off, I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around a working concept for a call to artists. Actually, the contemplation has been ruminating for the past several months. The artwork, a site specific installation, would be shown in an empty storefront of one of our local rural towns. My ideas have jumped all over the board from kinetic sculptures to twig & wire stalactites/ stalagmites. In just the past 24 hrs I finally landed on a subject that just might be interesting to a couple of towns, well, at least I found it kind of interesting. Oh, if you’re not from Oregon, I’ll let you know that this part of the valley is known as the “grass seed capitol of the world”. I’m not kidding. Are you irritated by pollen? Well, you’ll probably want to stay away for the next few months while the grasses dump yellow clouds of pollen into the air. If it’s not grasses, then it’s trees or mold spores (bad for da lungs!). Anyway, I digress. So the valley is filled with thousands of acres of agriculture with a strong focus on grass seed. Recently, OSU fish & wildlife researchers did a study looking into the drainage ditches around the agriculture fields during our wet winter months. Low and behold they discovered that they hosted a lot of juvenile native fish. Hmmm, so grass seed farmers grow grass during the summer and act as a fish hatchery during the muddy soggy winter months? Very interesting! So I’m proposing a sculptural work that blends this connection between farmer and fish.

The proposal deadline has been set at June 1. Today, it shifted to the 15! I’m not certain if this is a good thing or not. ( I did work at the front desk today so I made a few inquires about submission levels.) Will I continue to procrastinate more or actually craft a stronger letter of interest? Well….. All I know is that I might actually enjoy getting ready for our Austin TX flight tomorrow rather than pulling out my hair struggling to get the to-do list completed.

If you’re interested in the video that peaked my interest, here’s the link: Ditch Fish by Oregon Field Guide