We host monthly art exhibits, poetry jams, intermittent concerts, and every-so-often miniature film festivals. For everyone Outside The Box, Mudhouse is your wee oyster.
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Bill Mauzy
{} Fri. January 07, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Exhibit: December 31 - January 30, 2011
For a period of one year, beginning in November of 2009, I visited the Free Speech Monument in Charlottesville, VA, on a daily basis to observe and record the writings and drawings created there by citizens and visitors.
Known locally as The Speech Wall, the Monument is located near City Hall at the eastern terminus of a well used pedestrian mall. The Wall is approximately 54’ x 7.5’ and is faced with natural-cleft Buckingham slate. The drawings recorded were created with chalk and vary in subject matter from political commentary to marriage proposals.
Initially, I concentrated on recording a range of striking images and pithy or poignant writings. As the project unfolded, subtleties of contributor’s interactions with the physical qualities of the wall began to emerge; approaches to scale; relationships between figure and ground; qualities of surface; shadow and light; effects of weathering. The joints separating the individual panels of slate were of particular interest. In the prints, the joint lines serve as a reference, rendering scale and frame. The joints are variously emphasized and ignored by the contributor’s, but on the whole, seem to lend an approachability to the expanse of the Wall. Ultimately, however, the most engaging aspect of the writings and drawings was not their initial visual quality, impact, wit, charm, or beauty but rather their ability to inspire dialogue—spontaneous and thoughtful, crude and elegant; an ephemeral layering of experience, expression...and chalk.
