Sam Falls at Laumeier

Laumeier welcomes artist Sam Falls this Saturday morning hosted by Curator Dana Turkovic at the Aronson Fine Arts Center on August 24, 2019. I came to the COFFEE + CONVERSATION  with one question for the artist in mind. (Maybe I will ask it. Maybe the answer will be apparent.) My question: What brings you more joy: the art of creating your work or the business of presenting it?

Dana assures a level of approachable intellectual discourse with questions for Sam Falls. She is always impeccably prepared. After all, she is instrumental in bringing the artist here in the first place. I learned the artist is a 35 year old and has two small children at home. I suspect he’s the sort of soft-spoken papa that lets those kids know that the world is a wonderful place to explore. “How has the study of photography informed your work?” Dana poses this question knowing Sam was born in Vermont, lived in San Diego and studied at Reed College (undergraduate) and ICP-Bard (masters) in New York. His response is measured as he tests the mic to make sure he can be heard. “My masters in photography evolved into something different…” His process clearly leverages principles of photo sensitivity but his journey seems to suggest a narrative that is more closely aligned with contemporary art. “I started working with found tires…” In another illustration he says “I started to know what was happening in a piece…” The artist peppers his comments with a sort of quest for "honesty" in his endeavors. Dana prompts him with questions about how he responds to the “abundance in natural surroundings” and his experience meeting Yvette Moody, the park’s master gardener. Two I-beams with inset ceramic tiles placed in the woodland bring Falls work to bear in a monumental contemporary installation that now live as part of the merger of art and nature right here at Laumeier.

Sam Fells is artful in navigating Dana’s queries as he is with those assembled for this event. The group meeting begins in the gallery space and migrates to the woodland installation. Fells was assisted by local ceramic artist Dryden Wells and Laumeier preparator Marty Linson (each an artist in his own right) and the enthusiastic staff at Laumeier (including executive director Lauren Ross). The result is a sort of reception in the woods that could well have had wine and cheese, a string quartet and formal attire. I, for one, infinitely appreciate the “purity” of coffee and lack of pretense. The net-net is a feeling of an experience that is welcoming. Nice job Laumeier!

One guest question evoked lines read from the William Wordsworth poem Tintern Abbey in blank verse from 1778. I decided not to ask my “smart question” after all. I smiled later when in the woods I greeted that Wordsworth fan. (It was a near perfect end-cap to my earlier encounter with ceramic artist Dryden Wells.)  

ARTNET write up on Falls:  

Sam Falls is a contemporary American artist whose boundary-defying work applies artistic processes to natural phenomena. The resulting paintings, prints, sculptures, and videos, often insert organic structures into art and man-made objects into nature. "We change the work by being present, and the work changes us by being present,” the artist’s said. “We are breaking down and being built up, just like every moment." Born in 1984 in San Diego, CA, he received his BFA from Reed College in 2007 and his MFA from the International Center of Photography-Bard in 2010. The artist’s work has been exhibited in spaces such as Metro Pictures, LAXART, and DEPART Foundation in Rome. He lives and works between Hudson, NY and Los Angeles, CA.