The 20th year anniversary of the Newark Arts Festival 2021 is October 7 through 10, 2021.
My Middle Passage installation of 3 emotional baggage carts will be in the Newark Arts Headquarters at 609 Broadstreet, Newark NJ.
I plan to be at the Festival for the opening on Thursday October 7th and bopping around the festive that weekend. DM me if you want to link and gallery hop.
Covid Protocols: To enter the Newark Arts Headquarters (609 Broad Street), all will be required to show a vaccination card or negative Covid test taken within 72 hours of arrival. Masks and social distancing are mandatory.
Come see me during at Art 150’s JCAST HQ, enter on the corner of 1st Street and Provost. Ride the elevator up to the second floor. There is lots to see and do.
I have three emotional baggage carts in Pro Art’s Reversed Engineered in the main gallery. One emotional baggage cart in Art House Production’s Renaissance. In the common area lobby you are invited to make strings of beads of recycled bottle caps and interact with my hair sculpture, All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go.
I’ll be around the corner in Studio #231, working on Crossroads Jail Net.
There is plenty to see and collect including mini-baggage carts, affordable monoprints and ice dyed & printed tote bags.
Please plan to spend some of your JCAST with me. Im looking forward to seeing you.
Friday, October 1st 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Saturday, October 2nd, 12:00 PM – 6:00 AM
Sunday, October 3rd 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM
We all carry emotional baggage. This manifests differently for each of us. Some of us carry shopping carts of pain and bitterness while some of us sport a wee tote bag. How we choose to handle our baggage makes a difference. We have the choice, to let it define us or to let it go and move forward.
My Emotional Baggage Carts are vessels for racial trauma. My baggage carts serve to separate myself from these experiences. Each recovered shopping cart is woven with recycled rope, bottle caps, twine, paracord, fabric, LED lights, pony beads and zip tie blankets.
There is opportunity to shift structural language when a person is invited to play with unexpected materials without any expectations. Join me to discover what materials are used to create these sculptures, and look within, to recognize and release the emotional baggage you, yourself are carrying. Audience participation is encouraged
Throughout the weekend, you are invited to make strings of beads of recycled bottle caps in the 2nd floor common area of Art 150 and visit with me in my studio #231. Come play with me.
I will have a selection of prints, tote bags and mini baggage carts for sale.
NOTE: Theda Sandiford’s Art 150 Studio #231 on the second floor of 150 Bay Entrance lobby for the 2nd floor studios is separate from that for the residential units of 150 Bay and can be found at the NE corner of the building, at the corner of 1st St. and Provost St.
I’m so excited that my emotional baggage carts were juried into the 14C Juried Show.
During the pandemic I picked up weaving again. I had not weaved since I was a child. To refresh, I took a virtual weaving workshop with Textile Arts Center (NYC) and then fell down a rabbit hole of recommended videos on YouTube University.
In the process of relearning these laten skills, I came face to face with many frustrations and triggers connected to the emotional baggage I have been squirrelling away for years. Guilt, resentment, judgement, colorism, fear, insecurity…
With these works I am exorcising these demons. Sharing these works is both liberating and anxiety inducing at the same time. I am still processing emotionally and artistically.
Do you walk a sidewalk where your neighbors may or may not clean up after their dog? I do. And when you are fortunate your more considerate neighbors leave little green doggie poop bags piled up, in and around the garbage can. A lovely cesspool. My work, Natural Plastic Environment- Doggie Poop Foliage, reimagines doggie poop bags as a cascade of whimsical tropical flowering vines. The foliage is made with Reflective Hollow Braided polypropylene cord, knotted plastic doggie poop bags, and yellow duct tape.
On Location: Art 150; 150 Bay Street, Jersey City NJ, Studio #231
Of Friday, September 10, I’m hosting my first open studio session in 18 months.
Audience participation is encouraged. Come wrap and hitch knot yarn onto rope to become a part of a hair installation and find a common denominator amongst us all, HAIR.
We are also making strings of beads made with recycled bottle caps in the 2nd floor common area of Art 150.
NOTE: Entrance lobby for the 2nd floor studios is separate from that for the residential units of 150 Bay and can be found at the NE corner of the building, at the corner of 1st St. and Provost St.
In-Person Opening Reception: Sunday, September 12, 2021, 12:00pm-6:00pm
On Location: 481 Van Brunt St Brooklyn, NY 11231
Bottle caps, neon yellow 550 paracord, 200′ neon yellow camo 850 paracord, hollow braided polyurethane rope, solar LED rope lights, recycled Fresh Direct bag and commercial fishing net, zip ties, gold spray paint on recovered shopping cart. Photo by April Tracey
I started calling this cart Wide Load before I was even conscious of how much of my emotional baggage is tied to the food I eat.
Don’t even think of visiting my Mom without her feeding you. I can still smell , vivid memories of being punishing for not eating my food and being reminded of the starving children in Africa. A double whammy of eat and feel guilty about eating. I could go on and on…
Exhibit On View: September 10, 2021 – October 15, 2021.
In-Person Opening Reception: Sunday, September 12, 11:00am-5:00pm
On Location: Studio Montclair Gallery. 127 Bloomfield Ave, Montclair NJ
Do you walk a sidewalk where your neighbors may or may not clean up after their dog? I do.
And when you are fortunate your more considerate neighbors leave green doggie poop bags piled up in and around the garbage can. A lovely cesspool.
My work, Natural Plastic Environment- Doggie Poop Foliage, reimagines doggie poop bags as a cascade of whimsical tropical flowering vines. The foliage is made with Reflective Hollow Braided polypropylene cord, knotted plastic doggie poop bags, and yellow duct tape.
