Shea Hembrey: How I became 100 artists

Possibly I have found a new Favorite Artist.

Speaking to a -- from large-scale outdoor installations to tiny paintings drawn with a single-haired brush.
desire to make art that MATTERS.

Months in Europe viewing major art installations led Hembrey to witness lack of satisfaction in what was out there, and increasingly found that what he was longing for was:

1) more work that was appealing to a broad public, more accessible

2) more exquisite craftsmanship and technique

He invented 100 artists "to create a biennalle I need artists from all around the world" he explains - so he did. He figured out their passions, their identities, their styles in life, and begun making work. He created all of these disparate, lively, lovely things within a 2-year period - hence, the Biennalle concept.

He would curate this fictional event with mainly two sets of criteria:

1) "MeeMaw's Test" - to be able to explain the concept or the piece to his Arkansas country grandmother, and have her understand and appreciate it within 5 minutes or less.

2) "3 H's" - head ( interesting intellectual ideas/concepts), heart (passion/soul), and hand (excellently crafted)

In a tongue-in-cheek display which seems to poke fun at the fact that such artists are hard to find, Hembrey opts to invent the 100 artists by himself. Here are a few samples of these fictional artists. Hembrey shows his great energy, versatile creativity, and imagination in conceptualizing, and then committing to creating identity and artwork. I have outlined a few present in the TED talks presentation Hembrey made:


Kay Overstreet is interested in ephimerality and transcience - "weather I made" - making weather in the body scale - breathed back and forth on the lawn all night to leave the mark of her breath

Gus Winemiller - a large project, "Arts for the People". As a subsection of that there's a project called Artists in Residence he spends a week at a time with a family, showing up with a toothbrush and pajamas at their doorstop - he spends that week talking to the family and asks "what is great art to you?" living with them, producing art based solely on things found in the house. Whatever he makes somehow references nesting and space and personal property.

Joaquin Perez Vega - he believes art is everywhere waiting to happen - he just has to help it happen. He gets wild birds to make his art for him. He places materials to allow the birds to make nests from it. Sample here is "mixed tape love songs nest"

Mika Avernathy and Bud Holland - they are interested in creating culture. They more into and area and try to establish a new tradition in a small geographic area. "We need a positive tradition that goes with death" was the decision when passing through Eastern Tennessee. So they created a "DIG JIG". For a birthday or milestone anniversary, you dance in a graveyard, over the space you will be buried. After you dance, everyone toasts you and tells you how great you are. "It' a funeral you get to be present for!"

The Silver Dobermans, a collective. Their motto is to spread pragmatism, one person at at time. They're very interested in how over-coddled we've become. They've put a warning sign on every single barb on this fence. "Horse Sense Fence"

Estelle Willoughsby - she heals with color, and is one of the most prolific artists, even though she's already 90 years old.

I adore his creativity, and the way in which he seems to address a point I've raised earlier here, in my work with/for/through Marshall Arts.

New York art critic Jerry Saltz, who weighs in on the bleak state of both contemporary art and artists’ creativity. “It’s work stuck in a cul-de-sac of esthetic regress, where everyone is deconstructing the same elements.” What is wrong with the art world? Are the sorts of artists who merit a show at the Venice Biennial, or other important international art houses or shows, really a representative selection of the best that creatives worldwide have to offer?

I challenged Saltz to provide an answer to that query as well as to the question

Is there not something you can DO in your influencial position as a member of the New York artworld? Have you no ideas about how to rescue art from the sterilized death even you admit to?

I even emailed him. Hell, it only takes a minute - plus I don't have a lot more going on in this bucolic petri dish I inhabit, truth be told -

- and then i received the email. No, not from Saltz (as if), but from a friendly Atlanta listserve, showing me Hembrey's work and the way he, unlike Saltz, unlike all who deplore the stupid state of contemporary art, did something.