Bushwick

Children of the Gourd: Maine artist shows off her modified gourds in Bushwick

September 2, 2015 By Rob Abruzzese Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Check out Susan Camp (pictured) and Samantha Jones' exhibition Rapture by Proxy at the Amos Eno Gallery in Bushwick this month and take a selfie with the #GourdBabies. Eagle photos by Rob Abruzzese
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Everyone has heard of genetically modified organisms, but how about artistically modified gourds?

Susan Camp is a University of Maine professor and artist who modifies gourds to look like babies’ heads in an examination of our changing relationship with agriculture. Her artwork will be featured alongside Samantha Jones’ creations in Bushwick’s Amos Eno Gallery this month. The exhibition runs from today through Sept. 27.

It’s the first two-person exhibition for the pair of artists who both live and work in Maine. They attempt to explore the relationship between material culture and human desire for control over the environment with their exhibition: Rapture by Proxy.

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“It’s a very different audience for my work and a very different take,” Camp said. “The work is very much about agro-business and genetically modified organisms. I want to reconnect people to the land, the plants, something that has been grown.”

It’s natural to wonder why a couple of artists from Maine are in Brooklyn showing off their work. Camp explained that after she was invited to do a show on Governors Island, she realized that people in New York City have a much different reaction to her artwork than those from the more rural setting of Maine. She is here chasing that reaction.

“In Maine, people are more exposed to nature, so they’re reticent to touch the pieces,” Camp explained. “Here, people aren’t connected as much so they’re much more curious. You see a lot of people immediately reaching out to touch the `babies’ and they’re shocked at their texture, their weight. It’s an entirely different reaction.”

At first, having people touching her artwork was fine with Camp, but she admitted to being nervous about people handling it too much. Now she embraces it and even created a piece called #GourdBabies, where she encourages people to take selfies with the gourds.

Camp’s work calls into question the motives of human manipulation. She got her start manipulating gourds about 10 years ago. In order to transform them, she’ll wrap about 40 gourds each year in a mold that will yield about six of the babies per year. It’s tough work because even after producing six, she’ll lose a few to shrink or rotting.

“We’ve grown a lot of our own food for a long time,” Camp said. “We live out in a rural place and I moved out there thinking that we’re going to grow all of our own food and be self-sufficient, but it’s really hard. When I started doing this, I wanted to figure out a way that I could bring in that aspect of my life. It seemed like a natural fit to move my artwork into the garden.”

Camp and Jones are working on the show together, and while their artwork comes from different directions, they still feel that their styles can play off each other.

“She works with these glass tubes and uses a torch to fuse and bend them,” Camp said. “The work is different, but I think it works together because it’s caging and confining. Those kinds of attributes, I think, play off each other.”


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