CRITICAL REFLECTION
Making Places: Linda Fleming
and
Michael Moore
MAKING AND PLACES ARE INDEED KEYWORDS HERE. Moore and Fleming’s lives, before and since their expansive
the late 1960s illustrate how early her work was concerned
trajectories intersected, were carried out via movement
with an incisive consideration of color and forms in space.
through places and by the unrelenting work-play ethic of their
Intriguing and accomplished on their own, they point lucidly to
drawing, painting, carpentry, and a hundred and one other
the themes of a life’s work.
Center for Contemporary Arts 1050 Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe experience and offers a variety of work through which the visitor may enact a personal itinerary. It is a “made place,” at once home, work, and exhibition. —Marina La Palma
The question of human curiosity as expressed through
Top: Linda Fleming, Lightning Ball, powder-coated steel, 72” x 40”, 2013
A big, wooden oval table surrounded by chairs holds a
the collection of artifacts, and the making of models of the
Bottom: Michael Moore, Nevada Tanks, photo collage, 14” x 11½”, 2010
pewter candelabra and a few books, among them Time Before
universe figures in several of Fleming’s large graphite-on-rag
History: Five Million Years of Human Impact; The Eye of the Lynx,
-paper drawings. In Greentime people in eighteenth-century
on the beginnings of the discipline of natural history; Worlds in
dress in a baroque space examine vitrines full of specimens
Collision, by Emanuel Velikovsky; Buckminster Fuller’s Critical
of plants, shells, and crustaceans. In Shell Goblet a spinal cord
Path; The Aleph, by Jorge Luis Borges; and Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim
floats in a space dominated by a shattered, reassembled
at Tinker Creek. These and other titles are about human nature,
goblet. One wall features large acrylic-on-canvas landscapes
humans looking at nature, and the artifacts humans study and/
by Moore, with titles like California Pastoral, Some Nevada
or make in dialogue with nature. They prepare the visitor for
Nocturnes, and Disappointment Lake. These paintings are song-
the expansive experience of spending time with this exhibit,
lines of travel across the sublime contours of the land. In John’s
which invokes a joyful big-picture approach to life and art,
Coal Train a string of cars delineates a quirky horizon across
elegantly joining one with the other.
a vast, rugged space. Moore’s work traverses many such
creative activities.
On the concrete floor is a large rubber mat reminiscent of
spaces, yielding a portrait of the artist as a road trip. Below
a map of the cosmos. Dark Matter lies like an area rug cut out
the paintings is displayed Auto Biographies, a swath of digital
in the typical eccentric shapes that are a signature of Fleming’s
prints of selections from Moore’s journals detailing in hand-
work. I almost wrote “of Fleming’s mind,” because her
lettering a lifelong topography, mainly of the southwestern
sculptures strike me as robust, three-dimensional realizations
United States. The text is interspersed with ink drawings
of a thinking process. This impression was confirmed when I
of the many vehicles in which those journeys were taken,
sat in the velvet wing-chair nearby and put on headphones to
and whose breakdowns, repairs, and sometimes final days
hear Fleming’s pithy autobiographical narration of twenty-six
are chronicled. The documented wanderings of these two
work spaces, from childhood bedroom to the most recent.
committed artists record a unique and contemporary form
These studios were self-crafted to increasing degrees over
of nomadism, returning to and constructing places, whether
the years (since she was in her twenties, she has built most
urban, post-industrial, or remote—Colorado, Nevada, San
of them herself). In one section, she discusses working in her
Francisco, Manhattan, Benicia, Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, Oakland.
studio and having to refold her mind back into her skull when
Fleming’s 2013 video Making Places is a dream-like walk-
someone else enters the space. This helped me in looking at
through of the houses, studios, and other spaces that the two
her works. On shelves sit numerous maquettes made of paper,
have built together.
felt, balsa wood, even rusted metal. These are utterly delightful
Found objects and many of Moore’s smaller journals with
spatial thought-experiments that highlight an interplay between
drawings and paintings fill three vitrines. Behind these is Wall
fragility and endurance. The sculptures, usually floor-standing
of Ephemera with bits of influences and inspirations, models,
or hung on walls, are made of durable, industrial materials
sketches, and collages. Both Fleming and Moore work out
such as powder-coated or stainless steel. They embody form
their ideas and produce work in diverse media, including some
and emptiness, negative space and mass, inner and outer,
interesting photo collages. In one rear corner, Moore has a slide
while honoring color and surface in particularly dynamic ways.
show running, with many images from his travels; the oddly
Our viewing flows between the positive space-form, with its
archaic clicking advance of the slide trays seems comforting. In
fragmented reflective surface, and the alluring intricacies of
the corresponding rear corner, the viewer is offered two large
interior spaces.
tree stumps to sit on to watch Fleming’s digital video Creek
Fleming’s large, powder-coated steel sculpture, Helios,
Walk, which gives us a hand-held version of the special place
fills the center of the foyer space with a brilliant presence.
she has walked to for many years in brittle summer and snowy
Beyond it, a wall of watercolors on paper by Moore is
winter, always with her dogs. The footage, edited by Fleming’s
collectively titled The Weather Channel. Both project a sense
son, Luz, is accompanied by her freeform a cappella singing.
of awe and engagement with the elemental. A set of Fleming’s
This exhibition—deliberate in its layout—thoughtfully
geometric gouache, colored pencil, and Mylar drawings from
includes sound in non-intrusive ways that enhance the
SEPTEMBER
2013
THE magazine | 57