"Transpicuous Cloud of Unknowing" Appears on 77Art Windows
A collective meeting of minds, reflecting on visions of chaotic transparency
Bill Ramage’s casual email for help with a mystery project brought together over ten artists to 77ART on Merchants Row during the pandemic one Spring Sunday.
Immediately, they started drawing with markers on sticky transparent papers to fill the wide expanse of window facing the street. Adding wild splashes of color and shape, the artists got to work releasing creative energy pent-up for months by a long winter of lockdown orders.
One artist describes the first meeting: “So there we were with our masks on. We were on autopilot — we’re artists — this is what we do,” they said. “There were tiny bits of ‘catch-up’ chatter, but mostly we just concentrated and worked — sneaking peeks at each other’s drawings.”
The group continued to work on Sundays in May and June, becoming more engaged as the window display became more layered and dense. Most the participants had originally worked as a group for Open Studios, May 2019 at 77 Grove Street, an event also set in motion by Ramage.
Like speaking, writing, math, or dance, drawing is one of the many ways that humans communicate. With all forms of human communication there are at least two aspects — one is reflective (e.g. talking to yourself), the other is social (e.g., talking with some else). Often, the line between these two aspects blurs. We find ourselves “talking out loud” to both ourselves and someone else at the same time.
This window project demonstrated a marriage of reflective and social communication, as the artists found themselves drawing out loud – with the window embodying a drawing conversation between many local artists and friends.
A viewer of this project might ask themselves, “Well, okay, but why?”, or “What’s the point?”.
Firstly, it was fun. After months and months of being isolated at home and subjecting family members to endless hours of our individual and idiosyncratic thoughts out loud (in whatever form they took), it was a relief for the participating creatives to share, communicate, and think out loud with someone else in a new way.
And secondly, by creating this conversation in a public space — in a downtown window downtown accessible to anyone who walks by — they’ve ensured that the conversation doesn’t end with the artists. Like it or not, the viewer becomes part of the conversation, at least as an eavesdropper. And hopefully it feels good for them too, like a chance to communicate with someone new. Something different. Something fun.
When the window art was pronounced “done,” a brainstorming session engendered seven worthy titles. After a failure to select the right one, the favorite titles were compressed by artist Dick Weis, who commented, “The idea of putting all the suggestions together was just an impromptu wild notion.”
"Transpicuous Cloud of Unknowing" is a collaborative mixed media work found at 59 Merchants Row.
Artists:
Bill Ramage | Whitney Ramage | Joan Curtis | Mary Fran Lloyd | Richard Weiss | Mareva Millarc | Gene Childers | Sandy Mayo | Tom Merwin | Karen Seward | John Brodowski | Ethan Nelson