Wandering the rooms of someone else’s house, through the crowded warm kitchen, into a narrow hallway to a small bedroom where the only domestic signal comes from the pale cloth drapes over the double-hung, sash window. Otherwise, the room reads as an art gallery. There is no furniture, just small sculptures displayed and large drawings on the walls depicting bodies--part human, part horse intertwined, contorted--a hoof juts into the air. It’s the work of local sculptor, Melanie Pennington. Her work shares the room with paper pieces (also sculptural) wrinkled, translucent, gauzy and gestural, splashed across the space between the window and a corner of the room. Delicate, braid-like drawings in blue follow folds in the layers of paper. It’s a series created by Betsy Stirratt, and her work spills out into the hall. I overhear a woman explaining to a friend the process and materials used to craft the work.
This is just one room in a whole house filled with the work of local artists for a one night, pop-up art show in an empty house near Bryan Park in Bloomington. One carpeted bedroom has a tv on a coffee table, screening a short film. Another room is set up for a performance by Johanna Winters and Gabriel Garber involving overhead projectors, cut-out paper shapes and abstract electric guitar sounds.
Room after room, art fills the otherwise empty house--empty of furnishings but packed with human beings.
The event was called Tendings: an evening of art & offerings, and it was organized by Faye Gleisser (with help from Carmel Curtis and others) and hosted by Allison Quantz in the home she acquired the keys to just two days before the show. The event was a fundraiser in response to the SNAP cuts during the government shutdown. They posted QR codes on a wall for local organizations that offer food assistance, and Lou Barnhart of Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard spoke of the precarity so many folks in the community face.
Faye said she was inspired by Ross Gay’s piece in Inciting Joy, where people gather for a potluck, bringing their sorrows to mingle and connect with one another. Ross read the essay to the people packed into the den or dining room of the house, where a DJ (Jason Byrne) had been spinning records since the start of the party.
Curator Faye Gleisser wanted to explore themes around how we care for each other when the systems we may have relied on begin to fail. In addition to the expression of compassion and mutual aide, Tendings was an impressive, spontaneous gathering of some of Bloomington’s most exciting artists. We hope the enthusiastic response will inspire others to create pop-up art parties in whatever spaces they can get the keys to.
