Megan - "Other" Installation

 I have 2 ideas for this Installation. The first is an installation more akin to my abstract work, and will require working intuitively with the materials. The second has a much more personal meaning and doesn't quite fit in my portfolio, but given the content, it feels right. 

Idea 1 - Abstracted Installation

The average American generates around 5 lbs of trash a day, that is over 1,800lbs of trash a year and most of this waste goes directly in the ground, where the plastics will take hundreds if not thousands of years to decompose, or it is shipped off to a foreign land where is is unceremoniously dumped into the ocean to wreak havoc on our ecological systems world wide. 

The effects of our waste on the environment are something that has been beaten into my generation over and over again, and it's something that gives me tremendous anxiety at times. I try to consolidate my waste and buy organic, fair-trade products when I can, but like most Americans, those healthy-for-the-environment choices are ones that we can’t afford to make. I try to keep my waste out of the landfill by washing my fast-food cups, straws, and lids, and using them in my art practice. In fact, there is a moment I have with every piece of trash I generate, when I look at it and try to figure out whether I can find a second or third use for it and whether I have the room to store it. Much to my roommate's dismay, I end up keeping most of the plastic waste we generate for storage, paint pallets, water cups, etc. It eases my conscience somewhat to know I'm minimizing my carbon footprint more than others, but it doesn't do much by way of saving the environment. 

That is why I want this abstract installation to be made of entirely recycled materials.

Recently, I have begun to collect all the paper tubes I have been generating in my waste. Toilet paper tubes, Paper towels, receipt paper tubes (from work), paper tubes used in packaging, etc. I also asked a few of my friends to collect these tubes. Much like the sphere, I love a paper tube for reasons that I can not explain. I feel a childlike glee when I hold them and look through them like a telescope or give a little doot doot like it's a trumpet. Long tubes can be used to attack your sister like a pirate with a mighty sword, and tiny tubes feel like they love to be collected and kept together. The paper is soft and feels good in the hand. They have a stronger structure than you would think, but are also delicate and easy to fold into something new.

I don’t know. I like paper tubes.

I really want to collect a large amount of these tubes and use them to create a large-scale installation that completely envelops the viewer. Using different tube sizes and lengths, I can create a composition that keeps the viewer’s eyes moving.  

For this installation, my dream would be to have an enclosed room with a rounded roof, creating a cave-like space. At the very least, I don’t want the harsh lines of a corner where walls meet. I want the space to feel like a large organic shape that you step into, through curtains.

The walls would be slightly transparent, perhaps made of paper, so that LED lights could illuminate the darkened space through the paper. Using the massive collections of paper tubes, I would cover the entire wall with these tubes, using variation in diameter, thickness, size, and height of the tubes to create visible patterns amongst the overwhelming circles that would block and direct the diffused light. This would create darkened silhouettes of positive and negative spaces that I could use to create patterns and visual interest.

Paper products require incredible amounts of water to produce, so the patterns I would create in the room would mimic waterways that often end up as superhighways of trash directly into our ocean. 

Time permitting, I would set up speakers with the sounds of a moving river behind the walls.

One of the goals of this installation is to be overwhelmingly other. I want to transport the viewer into a completely new space that feels busy and yet peaceful. A place that you could stand in for a while while you watched the lights move around the space, mimicking the flow of water.

In a perfect world, the floor would be a mirror, making the space feel even bigger.

Inspiring Artists:

Yayoi Katsuma (link)

A Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation. She is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art, feminism, minimalism, surrealism, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. 

What interests me for my installation is how she obsessively uses dots and circles in her work. In my abstract portfolio have a recurring motif of spheres or circles. It is a form that interests and soothes me, for reasons that are still slightly unclear to me. It is a simple form that screams of potential, a motif that recurs in nature across our universe and in our intelligent society. Circles are abundant, far and wide in science, math, politics, humanities, and of course, the arts. We move in circles, we come from spheres, and we live and die on one. 

Her obsessive compulsive methods of working is also something that works very well in my own work. 

An overwhelming amount of the same shape over and over again is a motif that I really love to use in my own work and Yayoi Katsuma is probably the undeniable QUEEN of this technique.

Von Wong (Link)

He makes environmental issues “unforgettable” through installations made of recycled materials and photography. 

I am incredibly interested in his use of trash to create large, encompassing environments that mimic our natural world. I know his final product is his photography, but I find myself wanting to physically walk through the installations he created. He uses lots of the same items that would otherwise go into a landfill and organizes them by color to create beautiful compositions that you can just melt into. His compositions usually have a deeper meaning, causing the viewer to reflect on the waste they produce and its impact on the environment. 

This is a theme I have been drawn to for a while and have wanted to work in.

Idea 2 - Grandma Quilt

 <-- The pattern

Quilting is a craft that spans the entire globe and reaches deep into our collective history. It is a craft that requires a high level of skill and creativity, often resulting in lifelong dedication to the craft. Quilts can be used to send messages, unite a community, ease the creator through a time of grief, or be used to celebrate a time of happiness, but, most importantly, they can be created to keep a loved one warm. 

Quilting's history spans millennia, evolving from practical uses like padded armor and warm clothing in ancient Egypt, China, and the Middle East, to a decorative art form in Medieval Europe. Settlers brought quilting to America, where it became a vital community activity for expressing stories and marking life events.

Quilting used to be done with hand sewing only; every piece would be stitched together with a single needle and thread, before an intricate pattern tacked the pieces down to a second piece of fabric. However, the introduction of the modern sewing machine catapulted the craft into new heights. It evolved from melennina of hand sewing scraps into priceless works of art, into industrialized sewing machines and contemporary social situations pushing the boundaries of what a quilt is and could mean.

It is a shame, then, that this highly skilled craft was never considered for the position of “high art.” Quilting was never displayed next to a picasso, or considered for an exhibition in galleries until the last 50 years or so, when modern scholars started to point out the history and skill of Quilt making was comparable to that of oil painting or sculpture. Even more a shame, textile arts were never even thought of for any “High Art” conversations because it was lowly women's work and a “craft” of the home, not suitable to higher level Art movements.

Textile arts is a predominantly women-dominated field. Women teaching their daughters over generations to embed their love and skill into each blanket. 

A few years ago, we cleaned out my grandma Betty’s house, and I found a hand-stitched wedding blanket from my great-grandma to my grandma Betty. This side of my family was never well off, financially, and they lived in a sod hut with dirt floors on the plains of Nebraska while the whole family attended a cattle ranch. The quilt was a wedding gift that must have taken my great-grandma at least a year to carefully collect the expensive material, cut it into delicate tulips, and hand-sew each piece. I saw the slightly irregular stitches and was immediately transported to a cool evening where she was hunched over the quilt, a fire lighting her way as she spent her few free hours to make a blanket that would keep her son and his new bride warm on the cold nights, and maybe even her grandchildren warm and enveloped in her love long after she was gone. 

This same great-grandma hand-crocheted a blanket for each of her grandchildren and even her great-grandchildren. I have one myself, and it is a treasured possession of all of my cousins and me.

When I think of all the women in my family who learned such a complicated, specialized skill to provide not just practical warmth but a generational keepsake, I am filled with a deep sense of connection. 

This last Black Friday, my grandma Betty passed away at the old age of 98. She was an incredible woman who raised a large family and provided for her community. She spent the bulk of her years living in Mullen, NE, a town of 300 ppl at its peak population. She ran the newspaper, was a dispatcher for the sheriff's office, a mother and provider of 5 children, and a woman of god. She knew everything about everyone in her town and was usually one of the first to help out when someone needed it. 

However, one of the main services she provided her community was her skill with a sewing machine. Broken zipper? Bring it to Betty. Hole in your shirt? Bring it to Betty. Need a new button hole? Bing it toBbetty. Need to tailor your prom dress? Betty’s got you covered. In a low-income community, the repairs and modifications she made were essential for a town that was 45 minutes away from the closest city, which often had prices Mullen’s community could not meet. 

Betty was a very practical woman and did not find much sense in creative outlets like quilting or knitting; she preferred to focus on practical knowledge that helped her family and community.

This idea for my installation would be a tribute to my Grandma and all the women before her who practiced textile crafts and the skills they acquired to do so. It will also be a tribute to the community they served and the impact that these undervalued crafts have on loved ones. 

I will create the center of a quilt and pin it up on the wall. The center will be a more complicated sewing pattern or a flower with 3d relief elements, because one of the hobbies my Grandma Betty practiced was keeping her flowers in mint condition all year long. Every day for Mother’s Day, my dad would get her a new pot of plants to brighten her front yard. This flower will be pink and purple, as those were her favorite colors. 

The rest of the quilt will be made up of the same shape, a simple diamond, building off from the rest of the quilt. Each diamond piece will have a favorite memory of a cherished woman written on it and stitched into the blanket. The first ring of diamonds will be messages from my family about my Grandma. 

The flower and first ring of diamonds will be pinned to the wall of my installations. A pile of blank diamonds will be available to viewers who come into the installation, who will be encouraged to write their own memory of a grandma or a loved woman in their life. The viewer will then get to decide where in the quilt their memory will be, as they will be asked to pin their diamond onto the wall. 

Each night, I will come in and sew the diamonds into place and rotate the flower so that each morning the quilt will grow and grow over the course of the installation. 

If I can, I would like to sew this quilt on my Grandma Betty’s sewing machine that I inherited. It is the very same machine that serviced the community of Mullen for almost 30 years. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts to fix it over winter break, her machine is still struggling with a severe tension issue, and so I will need to take it to a Sewing Machine Dr. It’s something that I have struggled to afford, but I am determined to make this machine a part of the installation.

I also inherited all of Grandma Betty’s sewing materials in addition to her machine, so I would like to dedicate part of my installation to recreating her sewing area. Her house was small, just a 2-bed, one-bath with a basement; a modest 800 square ft to raise a family, so her sewing area only took up a few feet of space against a wall.

Inspiring Artists:

Andrea Myers (Link)

A multidisciplinary artist focusing on textiles, paper, installation, and the space between two and three dimensionality through abstraction, patterning, and saturated color.

I’m interested in her large-scale quilting installations. The shapes she uses are very simple, but the colors she chooses are vibrant and create hypnotic movement that almost feels organic, even though the shapes are squares or rectangles.

Her quilts stretch over several walls or encase pieces of the furniture to “blanket” the environment, creating a safe, welcoming, homey feeling.

Judy Chicago (Link)

She is known for her large-scale, collaborative art installation pieces about birth, creation, and the role of women in history and culture. A pioneer of feminist art, in 1974, she created her most well-known work, The Dinner Party, produced with the participation of hundreds of volunteers; a historical multimedia installation and a symbolic history of women in Western civilization.

Her dedication to the women who come before us inspires me and reminds me that I am connected to a long history of women and the choices they make all over the world. Their craft, their dedication, their hopes and dreams, and the collaborative nature of women fill me with a strong sense of pride. Sometimes I need that reminder that work like Judy’s provides.

I want this installation to also have that same sense of connection and history. Cherishing and immortalizing memories for all time. 

Megan, this is an incredibly thoughtful and ambitious post, and it’s clear you’ve been doing serious research and reflection. Both ideas are grounded in care, material sensitivity, and strong conceptual frameworks, and your artist references are well chosen and clearly understood.

At this point, the most important step is deciding which direction is right for this project, not which idea is “better” in the abstract. These two ideas ask very different things of time, labor, and viewer experience.

Regarding Idea 1 (recycled paper tubes):

• This direction aligns well with your interest in repetition, accumulation, and material transformation.

• The use of mass-produced waste as a primary material is conceptually strong and works well with the artists you’re referencing.

• The challenge here will be scope and feasibility. Enveloping an entire room, building curved surfaces, managing lighting, and installing large quantities of material is labor-intensive.

• If you pursue this idea, you’ll need to think carefully about:

  • how much material is truly necessary,

  • where repetition intensifies versus recedes,

  • and how the space can feel immersive without requiring full coverage of every surface.

Regarding Idea 2 (Grandma Quilt):

• This idea is deeply grounded, emotionally resonant, and conceptually strong.

• The connection to generational labor, women’s craft, and community care is clear, and your artist references support this direction well.

• The participatory element and slow accumulation over time feel especially appropriate for an installation context.

• This idea also has a clearer structural logic and may be more manageable within the timeline, especially if you define early boundaries around scale and participation.

As you move forward, I encourage you to ask yourself:

• Which idea can be fully realized within the time and resources available?

• Which one benefits most from being experienced spatially by a viewer?

• Where does restraint strengthen the work rather than diminish it?

Both ideas are valid, but for this project you should choose one direction and commit to refining it, rather than trying to carry both forward. Focus on clarity, intention, and sustainability of labor. A fully resolved installation—no matter which idea you choose—will be stronger than an ambitious one that becomes overwhelming.

You’re working from a place of care, research, and conviction. The next step is commitment and refinement.