Routine Fables: Elaine Bradford and Sara Cress

Elaine Bradford and Sara Cress

Routine Fables May 25 – July 29, 2018

Elaine Bradford and Sara Cress Routine Fables About & Public Program

Routine Fables is a year-long collaboration between writer Sara Cress and artist Elaine Bradford in which they created weekly “sculpture poems.� Taking place over the course of 2017, each week Bradford created a sculpture that Cress responded to with a poem, culminating in this 2018 exhibition featuring all 52 works.

2

Poetry Reading and Conversation with Elaine Bradford and Sara Cress Cecily E. Horton Gallery Sunday, July 15, 2018 2 PM 3

Elaine Bradford and Sara Cress Routine Fables Exhibition Checklist

01. Cancer Dog, 2017

Mixed media and poem

15 x 8 x 10”

14. Year Twenty, 2017

Mixed media and poem

11 x 5 x 5”

02. Frontier Whiskey, 2017

Mixed media and poem

41 x 8 x 7”

15. Year Thirty, 2017

Mixed media and poem

11 x 4 x 4”

03. Shameless Rainbows, 2017

Mixed media and poem

15 x 12 x 12”

16. Year Forty, 2017

Mixed media and poem

9 x 7 x 7”

04. Pussy Power, 2017

Mixed media and poem

7 x 24 x 9”

17. Telephone, 2017

Mixed media and poem

9 x 13 x 8”

05. Not in My Country, 2017

Mixed media and poem

6 x 20 x 9”

18. Anchor, 2017

Mixed media and poem

13 x 18 x 11”

06. Inchworm, 2017

Mixed media and poem

13 x 9 x 7”

19. Hail, 2017

Mixed media and poem

10 x 16 x 7”

07. Effluvium, 2017

Mixed media and poem

7 x 12 x 11”

20. Flip It and Reverse It, 2017

Mixed media and poem

11 x 12 x 7”

08. Girlhood, 2017

Mixed media and poem

7 x 12 x 7”

21. High Alert, 2017

Mixed media and poem

17 x 8 x 10”

09. What is the Light?, 2017

Mixed media and poem

10 x 17 x 10”

22. Prom Queen, 2017

Mixed media and poem

17 x 14 x 11”

10. Do-si-do, 2017

Mixed media and poem

10 x 6 x 6”

23. Jungle, 2017

Mixed media and poem

16 x 14 x 8”

11. Love Hurts, 2017

Mixed media and poem

11 x 7 x 4”

24. Imposter, 2017

Mixed media and poem

7 x 14 x 7”

12. Year Zero, 2017

Mixed media and poem

14 x 5 x 5”

25. Demands, 2017

Mixed media and poem

8 x 10 x 15”

13. Year Ten, 2017

Mixed media and poem

9 x 7 x 7”

26. Sanctuary, 2017

Mixed media and poem

48 x 8 x 10”

4

27. Wednesday’s Child, 2017

Mixed media and poem

13 x 15 x 13”

40. True Halloween Story, 2017

Mixed media and poem

10 x 8 x 11”

28. Unrequited, 2017

Mixed media and poem

9 x 12 x 5”

41. Smile, Though Your Heart is Breaking, 2017

Mixed media and poem

9 x 10 x 7”

29. Say Goodbye to the Dog for Me, 2017

Mixed media and poem

12 x 15 x 6”

42. Back and Forth, 2017

Mixed media and poem

6 x 10 x 3”

30. Stern, Impassioned Stress, 2017

Mixed media and poem

13 x 17 x 13”

43. Mad as Hell, 2017

Mixed media and poem

9 x 5 x 6”

31. Away, 2017

Mixed media and poem

5 x 5 x 3”

44. Most Wonderful Time of the Year, 2017

Mixed media and poem

4 x 5 x 3”

32. Erasure, 2017

Mixed media and poem

7 x 9 x 13”

45. Peace, 2017

Mixed media and poem

6 x 8 x 6”

33. Insulation, 2017

Mixed media and poem

8 x 11 x 16”

46. In the Shit, 2017

Mixed media and poem

12 x 13 x 10”

34. Backstroke, 2017

Mixed media and poem

6 x 8 x 5”

47. Secret, 2017

Mixed media and poem

14 x 23 x 7”

35. Moored, 2017

Mixed media and poem

5 x 16 x 14”

48. Semaphore, 2017

Mixed media and poem

9 x 8 x 8”

36. A New Life, 2017

Mixed media and poem

11 x 14 x 12”

49. War is Over, 2017

Mixed media and poem

15 x 11 x 9”

37. Nude in the Final Days, 2017

Mixed media and poem

10 x 8 x 15”

50. Father Time 2017, 2017

Mixed media and poem

9 x 7 x 6”

38. Please End Our Misery, 2017

Mixed media and poem

13 x 5 x 5”

51. We Know that it’s Probably Magic, 2017

Mixed media and poem

11 x 14 x 6”

39. Go as Anxiety for Halloween, 2017

Mixed media and poem

13 x 11 x 11”

52. Lucky, 2017

Mixed media and poem

17 x 16 x 21” 5

Elaine Bradford and Sara Cress Routine Fables Artist Bios

Elaine Bradford lives and works in Houston, TX. She holds an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts (2003) and a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin (2000).

Her work has been included in shows both nationally and internationally. She was one of the founding members BOX 13 ArtSpace.

In 2011, she completed a permanent civic art commission for the City of Houston at Vinson Neighborhood Library.​ Sara Cress is a writer in Houston, TX. Her poetry project, Breaking Poems, combines her past as a journalist with the Houston Chronicle and her creative writing degree from the University of Houston. She writes poetry inspired by current events and publishes them a few times per week on her website, ​BreakingPoems.com.​Her work has been featured on NPR’s ​All Things Considered​, KUHF’s H ​ ouston Matters​, and in the Houston Chronicle and Suffragette City Magazine.

6

Mad as Hell Sara Cress It began a small bruise, an abuse we could swallow, bitter but quick.

As we grew, it did, too.

New curves attracted new arrows.

We bled in secret, ashamed that we had been hit.

Then bullets, then bombs, a rain of heavy fire that we sliced through like fog on our way home every day as we politely smiled on command.

Clothes in tatters, middle fingers broken, drained of tears, we snapped one day like long-dead twigs.

Looking back on our lives, down at our bodies, up at the sky, we roared out memories that we had buried deep in our stomachs.

7

Elaine Bradford, Mad as Hell, mixed media, 2017 Major support for Lawndale programming is provided by The Brown Foundation, Inc., the John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation, Houston Endowment, the Kathrine McGovern/McGovern Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and The Wortham Foundation, Inc.

4912 Main Street Houston, Texas 77002

www.lawndaleartcenter.org