Unrestrained Drawing

When Gosia Wlodarczak contacted me about returning to BoxoHOUSE for a fifth anniversary residency, I was truly gratified. In customary fashion, she told me I had 12 hours to decide before a Quantas seat sale expired. I had no hesitation whatsoever. Gosia was the first resident at BoxoHOUSE and her FROST DRAWING FOR JOSHUA TREE has become an enduring symbol of the program and the property.














 
Gosia told me that she would like to do a tunic project - making custom tunics for herself, for Longin her husband, for me and for some local friends, and then drawing on them. The idea intrigued me and I also let her know that I had proposed a booth at Art Palm Springs during the period she would be here. Gosia proposed doing a second project, part of her Shared Spaces series, at the fair and the residency was set.

Gosia and Longin arrived into LAX and I immediately whisked them off to a coffee and a percussion session with The Silk Road Project at LACMA. From there to the art supply store, then to Joshua Tree and the residency was off and running. 













And run it did. The first part of the residency involved three days of almost non-stop drawing in the BoxoPROJECTS booth at Art Palm Springs. Here Gosia kicked off both the Modernist Conversation piece and California Tunics. Modernist Conversation was a "shared spaces" project for which Gosia drew in one color and then switched colors when she was joined in conversation by others. It was begun at the art fair, continued in the studio and then completed at the open house. 


 


























California Tunics  were a set of tunics handmade by Gosia and worn by her, her partner Longin, me, Jake the pooch and a couple of selected community members. Gosia drew on these tunics in various settings and the resulting pieces reveal the energies that imprint on our bodies over time.



 
These projects bridged the art fair to the studio where Gosia also set up a tunic workshop to create the tunics for Jake and the local tunic wearers, Diane Best and Tracey Fisher.




 















Gosia and Longin were here for the opening of DesertX and Randy Polumbo's fantastic event unveiling his galactic space station which eventually landed on Bombay Beach. Lots of local art and color to go around.













The residency concluded with a wonderful open house at which the final touches were put on the works and then they were complete. Many, many thanks to Gosia and Longin for coming over from Oz and for a highly energetic three weeks.