Artist Story: Deborah Adams Doering

"Code for the Grand River, Grand Rapids_09," Deborah Adams Doering

I have evolved as an artist by moving back and forth between what I might call "the forest and the trees"—or the big picture and the details. I tend to focus on the big picture in my art practice, especially in my installations, but I also try to embrace Mies van der Rohe's saying "God is in the details"—sometimes cited as "the devil is in the details"—as I create two-dimensional drawings and prints that shape the creation and execution of my installations.

Forging relationships between my larger installations and smaller works has been a gradual process, involving careful consideration of how and why I make visual art. In the past 20 years of my art practice, I have found it helpful to keep a journal/sketchbook and to look for sustainable connections by asking myself:

•    How do my forms and concepts express my context?

•    Do my forms and ideas have the potential to transcend my context—or, in other words, point to something I desire for the future, while still being rooted in the reality of the past and present? 

•    How can I build upon work that I have created in the past to express even more substantial, sustainable, and integrated formal-conceptual-contextual works?

As a result of asking these questions, and observing my artistic evolution, I have distilled a "core language of form.” This language integrates art, nature, and technology, especially our rapidly accelerating technological global culture expressed through binary codes of zeros and ones.

A key evolutionary insight emerged for me when I saw that the zero or circle form (a simple iconic form for the earth, or, more humorously, a donut) could also be seen from the side as a one or a vertical line (a human being or an element of nature). This circle form could be also seen as a horizontal line (a landscape's horizon, an element at rest, a minus sign). The movement between these three stationary positions created a swash mark, or in technical language, a “tilde”—something that indicates an unknown or a possibility of change or evolution. I call this core language “Code” for short.

I like to consider "Code" a hope-filled, integrated vision, but it still takes into consideration movements, including those that may be considered "negative" or "destructive.” As a result, it is not a utopian system of form; rather, it’s one that reflects Nature's many dualities. “Code” provides me with infinite interpretations and considerations, because these forms are very basic and universal. Thus, my ongoing artistic evolution is rooted in the circle (zero), the vertical line (one), and the horizontal line (swash-tilde). I see these forms as the seeds, or perhaps the mulch, of my formal-conceptual-contextual forest.

I continue to plant a variety of “trees” in this visual art “forest.” I journal, sketch, draw, paint, and make prints. These two-dimensional works have recently led me to larger exhibition opportunities based on "Code." The first was to participate in a group exhibition curated by artist Beth Shadur. Beth invited 30 pairs of visual artists and poets to work collaboratively on the "Poetic Dialogue Project." Eloise Klein Healy, a poet from California, and I discussed a number of different themes for our collaboration. We finally settled on the very broad theme of "rest," because it was something we both were desirous of, in our individual contexts, and also in the context of a war-weary world—a world sorely in need of rest. Once we established the theme, I had to choose the visual form in which to express it—a drawing, painting, a print, series of prints, or something larger. It occurred to me that an installation would provide an actual setting for viewers to rest.

Earlier in my art practice, I might have chosen to create something two-dimensional, because I would’ve had neither time nor funds to create something larger. The reality for visual artists is that unless one has a generous family or patron, the size of the “trees” is determined by one's natural resources. My nature-given resources have never been overly large, but in this case, I had a generous amount of time (15 months) in which to create the work, and that gave me options. I was able to barter services with a small textile mill in North Carolina and, as a result, the "Code" forms were woven into material. The material was made into mats and cushions that served as places of rest for visitors to the 12x12x12-foot installation. Viewers could look upward at lightweight, paper-clay zeros hanging from the ceiling, which cast shadow codes on the two walls that defined the installation.

The poem that Eloise wrote, titled "Rest," was translated into five different languages (again, we had the time to find volunteer translators). I printed each version on bamboo paper and mounted them low on the walls, so that viewers could sit or lay down and rest while reading them. The installation moved viewers, and it was a satisfying expression of our conceptual-contextual ideas in a large, very public space: the Chicago Cultural Center, and ultimately, two other university galleries (all venues that were secured through the diligent efforts of Beth Shadur). Without Beth's extended planning and allotment of time, it would have been much more difficult to create such a large work on a restricted budget.

The second opportunity to create a much larger work came as the result of serendipitously meeting with a curator who was the primary juror for a public park, part of an international competition in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As with the "Rest" installation, I had the choice to make a smaller, "Code"-based installation, in which I hoped to engage even more viewers. Time, money, abilities, and interests, were, once again, major considerations for me.

I only had five weeks to develop and install a huge piece titled "Code for the Grand River, Grand Rapids_09," using materials and methods that were new to me. Yet this was an opportunity of unusual proportion and came with certain advantages: a cadre of local art students who, once organized, provided the woman-and-manpower to paint more than 220 individual stenciled code-forms on a 580x100-foot stretch of public park over a three-day period. Another advantage was that because the work was part of a competition, permits to use the public park for installation had already been secured. Disadvantages included not having enough time to find corporate funding or to negotiate bartering systems to obtain the ecological paint that I used (although I was able to negotiate some discounts). There were other costly materials, such as those needed to create huge stencils. Although there has yet to be a significant return on my financial investment in this work, I do believe there has been an energetic return that will continue to sustain my artistic practice, both financially and creatively.  

My "core language of form" has evolved and will continue to evolve as both a point of departure and a link between the “forest” and the “trees” of my art practice. I trust that this “Code” will lead to other opportunities to do even larger, more ecologically focused works. In so doing, I hope that my movement-driven art can continue to move others.    

Deborah Adams Doering is a Chicago native who received her Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Doering’s work has been honored by Sotheby’s International Young Art Competition and juried in the 2004 and 2005 Exhibitions of American Art, by James Rondeau, curator of Contemporary Art, Art Institute of Chicago, sponsored by the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. Her work has been exhibited at Chicago’s annual international art fair, Artropolis, and she is a two-time recipient of Chicago’s Artists’ Assistance Program grant and the Nippon Steel (Japan) Presidential Award.