On a recent cold February night, I am standing in Ellen Nielsen’s warm and wood-paneled home. Techno throbs softly from the back room studio, and I am filling my eyes with stretch velvet and sequins, crochet and curios. The place has a hip mustiness to it, an afghan industriousness of polish grandmother’s drawing room flayed with neon updates. As I move over to inspect a shadow box displaying tiny spangles of all colors and description, serially arranged in rows according to a bizarre logic belonging to kindergarteners and people who haunt Micheal’s crafting stores, I am reminded of a quotation I have to look up later: “Decoration”, says Michelle Kuo, “is a kind of technology.”

We recently visited Ellen Nielsen at her Pilsen apartment/studio to talk to her about her work and about the show that she’ll be having at the Plaines Project in May. Read about the studio visit, written by Alex de Leon, here.

Dressing the Loom is a large-scale installation that takes inspiration from weaving and presents it in an abstracted sculptural form. By breaking down weaving into basic concepts; line, tension, organization, building and layers, it emphasizing the beauty of the warp at the point before weaving begins.  Walking with the warp provides quiet meditation and an exploration of the state between tension and potential.

ACRE and THE PLAINES PROJECT present a closing reception on FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 2012 from 6-8pm at 1822 S Des Plaines St, Chicago 60618. ACRE has partnered with THE PLAINES PROJECT to host DRESSING THE LOOM: new works by ALEX MILLER + LORRAINE BARGER, the next installment in ACRE’s year-long series of exhibitions by 2011 ACRE summer residents.

Bring your bodies. Lets get cozy. We promise to turn on all the space heaters.

Monday, January 16 7-10pm

Writers

Edwin R. Perry (MKE)- a two pump chump – & Chelsea Tadeyeske (MKE)- a two lump dump – present “suddenly you’re naked…” and “factual information” between their own drippings.

Rachel Finkelstein (CHI)- is a li’l bitch. She’s had work published in Prick of the Spindle and Shampoo Magazine, and is kidding about the bitch part. She’s actually pretty charming, IRL, (CHI) city. But mostly this transplanted brain misses the old neighborhood. It’s tangled in her letters. It doesn’t have a chord.

Jais Gossman (CHI)-Jais Gossman is a person that is very interested in getting to the middle of things. Oppositional tendencies are often seen to be a mode of staking a claim, yet where should we find a common ground to understand. Sure, I have a difficult day, but just imagine how dreadful yours could have been! Oftentimes you can find that biting your tongue has not just an adverse affect on the other will feel. For myself, writing is the practice of learning how to read to myself. Or to read out loud. Or just that he is in school also right now, in a class, and that class is about to begin again and writing is also about learning how to be interrupted.

For a pre-Halloween event, we collaborated with Stitchy! to put on a costume photo shoot. Back drops were installed in the gallery, participants were invited to come work on their Halloween costumes and then pose and get their photos taken. The photos were then projected on the gallery wall, making it a digital photo booth.

October 23, 2011.

If you would like to propose an exhibition or event at The Plaines Project, please fill out the Event Proposal Form and e-mail it to theplainesproject@gmail.com. For any other comments or questions or if you are interested in playing a music show at The Plaines Project, please contact us at theplainesproject@gmail.com.