Indiscreet Objects: Opening Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the opening for my new exhibition: Indiscreet Objects at the Olean Public Library Gallery located at 134 North 2nd Street in Olean, NY! The event runs from 3-5 pm and includes a screening on the work of Kiki Smith at 4pm.

I will post images of the completed exhibition soon. The above were taken during installation by the amazing Robert Taylor - who has been working for the gallery for years. My camera decided it doesn't want to turn on anymore (!!!) so until I figure out what's wrong I will be borrowing a friend's camera. Images soon.

I STRONGLY encourage any local artist to consider submitting work to the gallery- my experience with them has been nothing short of incredible. Everyone there is truly supportive and really believes in the role artist's play in society and its a wonderful feeling. Every artist deserves to feel supported in life- and this is one place the gives that feeling in spades.

Enjoy your weekend and the spring sunshine and flowers. I'll post again soon, promise.

Busy Bee!

Oh my, so much to do!

I have two more events this month and if you're in or around the area I hope you can come by!

One is a solo exhibition titled "Indiscreet Objects" that runs from April 17th - May 22 at the Olean Public Library, 134 North Second Street, Olean NY.

The reception takes place on April 25, 2010 from 3-5 p.m and will feature a short screening of the work of Kiki Smith (one of my major influences) at 4pm.

From the gallery release: "For her exhibition, Switzer will present fiber work in the form of stitched antique doilies, curtains, bed linens, and intimate apparel. Meticulously inscribed with representations of tumors and other images of disease, the delicate, familiar, and safe nature of the materials is transformed to elicit a sense of discomfort. The artist describes, "My practice lends itself to the obsessive; continually counting, measuring and recording, as I seek to elicit humor and exaggeration through gross fascination with the feminine dis-eased body. I seek out the rather mundane effect of illness on a person’s sense of self: the changes in day-to-day behavior, the monitoring of intake and output."

This event is free and open to the public. It's a drive for sure, but I would be grateful to anyone who can make it!

I also have a local event for those who can't make that drive. I've hung some new drawings (with a couple old favorites) at Rustbelt Books located at 202 Allen St here in Buffalo.


The work will be up until month's end and will conclude with a readings by Irene Sipos, Edric Mesmer, Geoffrey Gatza and Lisa Forrest on April 30th. Lisa will also be playing original songs accompanied by Sally Fehskens and Jonas Westbrook!

The evening starts at 7, and the readings will start promptly at 8 -- yes, I know this is Buffalo but we do mean 8! :)

I am really excited and flattered that such wonderful people have so willingly offered their time and talents to this event. Please come join us for a glass of wine and an evening of art, music and words (really, does it get much better?)

Hope to see your faces!

The importance of not seeing clearly.

I am so thrilled to have been asked to participate in this exhibition. It features work by NYFA MARK Alumni: Lorrie Fredette, Dorene Quinn and yours truly and was curated by more alumni: Wilka Roig and Ruth Sproul.

It opened this last Friday at the Community Arts Partnership (CAP) ArtSpace in Center Ithaca, 171 E. State Street. Ithaca, and runs through the end of the month.

It's also garnered quite a bit of local media attention a review of the show can be found here, and an interview I gave can be found here.

Curators Roig and Sproul write:

"Why do we need to see things clearly? This compulsive need is perhaps not so much a desire for understanding as it is a need for appeasement, not so much an expression of our curiosity than of our anxiety.

This exhibit is intimately related to the artist´s wager against accepting one version of how things may be explained. It also presents the artist as obsessive researcher, observing, gathering, recording, reordering and reinterpreting; art-making as performance, as passage of time, as a reinterpretation of perception and experience; the art object as an encounter, a adaptative analysis and rendition of the obsessive need to control and understand, a reconstitution of the repetitive cycles of natural and cultural systems.

The artists featured in this composite exhibition have surrendered themselves fully to their questions and reactions through the materials and processes that facilitate each of their investigations, not of what is real, but of the resulting distortions.

In the attempt to reveal what is real, the real evades perception. The Importance of Not Seeing Clearly invites the viewer to accept this uncertainty without reservations, to give into the vertigo that is produced by what we do not understand. The works in this exhibition dare us to pause, delay, and rummage in perplexity itself, to connect that which we know with that which we feel, that which we think with that which we do, and to distrust explanations that satisfy our curiosity."

If you're in or near the Ithaca area, please, stop by and see the show!