By Amy Williams

Installation art is a medium, like painting, sculpture and photography, but it's a little harder to put your finger on. One way of looking at installation art is that the work and the space that it is in are "melded together," as writer Mark Rosenthal says in his book "Understanding Installation Art." He goes on to say:

"Installation refers to a dedicated space in which one artistic vision or aura is at work, setting forth various kinds of phenomena... In an installation there is unlikely to be a single object, but an assemblage, attached or not... Regardless, the viewer is usually in an enclosed space, swept up in a work of art much larger in expanse than an individual object can normally create..."

Huh?

Well, for me installation art is about concept and space. It's about using a space to create something -- outdoors or in -- that makes people stop and ponder and maybe even remember. It's about an idea that is bigger (in execution style) than something you can put on a table or in a frame.

The closest most people come to knowing about installation art is from the artist Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude. From his more recent saffron "Gates" installation throughout New York City's Central Park (see image above) to his earlier installations of wrapping Berlin's Reichstag in 1993, Christo has brought this form of art to the masses. And, his work is on a scale that has done a great advertising service for this medium. A phenomenal video recollection of his work is on DVD at the Kanawha County Public Library. The set of films on his different projects offers insight into the amazing amount of work going into each of his installations. It's also charming how he wins over construction workers and everyday folk, who beforehand had no idea what he was doing or why.

Another form of installations are the outdoor, citywide animal sculpture displays that many cities have. Chicago had cows, Cincinnati had pigs (image at right) , Lexington had horses, D.C. had donkeys and elephants. Local artists painted these fiberglass beasts and they were placed around each city in various attire.

It is largely from these inspirations, that I have increasingly wanted to create installation work. My first local exposure to this work was last summer when FestivALL had Pittsburgh-based Cindy Snodgrass create or coordinate public participation in fabric assemblages downtown. Gregg Oxley, from the Museum in the Community, also created the spectacular "House of Leaves" that was earlier presented in the small gallery there (and most recently was recreated next to the Bluegrass Kitchen on the East End).

As part of the Annex Gallery exhibit "30 Artists Think Yellow," I was inspired to make a clothesline in front of the bookstore during March. Yellow reminds me of sunshine and outdoors and spring.... and, of course, clotheslines. I have always had an affinity for clotheslines. There aren't many around anymore. (As a side note, no matter what people say I think clothes are softer when they are dried in the dryer with a piece of scented paper.) Still, I love non-technology at times, and what better emulates that than a clothesline?
I think it's true we sometimes take on tasks because we don't know that we cannot. Who am I after all to create installation art? I have never been to art school, and often if I tell you something, I may be winging it. Yet I knew that putting up a clothesline on Capitol Street was something I had to do.

After studying Christo's renderings -- he often sketches locations, draws in his installation, colors only that part in and sells them to raise money for his project -- I sketched my plans and headed to the Charleston Streetscape Committee. With my plans, humble sketches, copies of similar projects in other cities and memories of the years of rejection Christo faced, I anticipated a difficult battle. But the project met with great reception - I think the talk of sadly cutting down more city trees added oomph to my goal of sprucing up downtown with some outdoor, public art. Friends collected yellow clothes for the effort, recycled largely from thrift shops and secondhand stores and their own closets.

One of my favorite Christo quotes sums up my own hopes well:

"Our projects are not something out of fantasy. Fantasy is what we find in the cinema and the theatre, our imaginative notion of things. But when we feel the real wind, the real sun, the real river, the mountain, the roads - this is reality, and we use it in our work. Our projects carry that reality."

Next Monday (March 13) when the city can help me reach the top of the light posts to hang the exhibit, a clothesline of yellow clothes will hang downtown. What does it mean? You tell me.