Work-in-Progress: Jonathan Rajewski
COVID-19 shut down my studio at the Yale School of Art, so I'm working with what's around me now in an improvised space in Hamtramck. School is now precariously online. We all lost our studios and a substantial portion of our education as we knew it. All of the work in Connecticut is now inaccessible and was going to be in a solo exhibition this May, so I'm starting over. I've been collecting what's around–dryer lint, dog hair, egg shells, coffee grounds, potato skins, holey socks, dirt, beeswax, fibers, dust, dead flowers–and sphering them. It has become a daily action. These spheres are points, or points in time, or points of time, or translations of time, or aggregates of time-material-things. I suppose if they were ordered they would be somewhat diaristic. These objects are circulatory in form because I've been thinking about the circuitous nature of the natural world. I guess van Gogh said, "Life is probably round." I've been thinking about how there's never nothing to work with or work from.
(Photos by Nabil Harb)
In response to social isolation guidelines, Kresge Arts in Detroit asked Kresge Artist Fellows and Gilda Award recipients to give us a glimpse into their current and recent projects. Participating artists received stipends of $150, a quick response pivot of resources that could be implemented by the program as an immediate - albeit small level - of support to Detroit area artists.