Bryan Hutchison and Professor Peter Everett, Department of Visual Arts
Provo’s Ghost Town project has been a constant developing project over the past year. It began with what I had originally proposed for the ORCA Grant—to do research on houses and to use that information to create a body of artwork dealing with buildings that have been torn down in Provo, and hold a show exhibiting the artwork. A body of artwork has been made, but is still in progress. There are 15 finished images to date made, with enough materials gathered to make another 15 the upcoming semester at the same size, and enough photographs collected through research to end with a total of approximately 50 images. These images measure 2ft squared. I had originally proposed to do 6 foot square enlargements as the final product. Those are still in progress, and are scheduled for my BFA final exhibit in the Harris Fine Art Center during spring/summer term.
I have exhibited the current body of 15 smaller images at two venues in Utah to date. The first was at the Central Utah Art Center in Ephraim Utah. The CUAC is an art center with goals of exhibitioning professional contemporary artists, and was a very nice venue to show my project. The show was displayed for a month, and was very successful. The works were mounted on wood plywood panels that hung without any framing (my preferred method of displaying these works). The second show was in Provo at the WindowBox gallery on Center Street during the Gallery Stroll. It was hung specifically for the gallery stroll activity, and was only displayed for the night. I am currently in the process of finding other exhibition venues in Provo for a longer period of time (Downtown galleries & the Covey Arts Center).
Size of the image has been a significant concern. Six feet squared is a difficult size of image to print on one sheet of paper—paper typically is not made that size unless it is custom ordered and made. Most large format printers do not print that size either, and the ones that do result in a higher printing cost. The options in response to this were, 1-print them at full size and find additional funding to cover paper and printing costs, 2-change the size to a more standard sized print paper (4 ft square), or 3-print out each image in sections and piece them together for the final display. Each option has its advantages and disadvantages.
The 6 foot image would most successfully recreate a body to architectural relationship and most dramatically affect the viewer’s ability to imagine these buildings at their full size. The 6 foot (on a single sheet of paper) images would also allow a simpler hanging system than I had originally devised, cutting down on work time, make the images less cumbersome, and would greatly simplify the installation and take down of the exhibit. The images could be hung by a single strip of wood, attached by paper clamps or thumb tacks. Originally I had planned on building wood panels for each image. Hanging the paper image from a single piece of wood would allow a fairly easy storage system being that the paper could be rolled up and stored without the need for custom built painting racks for the panels I had imagined. The saved cost in materials that would have paid for the panels could then be put towards one or two printed images.
The 4 foot image would have the same advantages to greater ease in hanging and displaying the work as would the 6 foot image: the important aspect of these two options is that they are a single sheet of paper that does not require careful fitting together. I would be significantly cheaper than the 6 foot option, but would fail to recreate a sense of architectural space.
A 6 foot pieced together image would be difficult, cumbersome, but cheaper than a 6 foot image printed on a single sheet of paper. It would require a hard surface (a panel) with each image permanently fixed to the panel’s surface, and each image would have a visible seam from fitting two sheets of paper together to create the full size image.
In the end I have decided to go with the single sheet printed at 6 feet.
The research aspect of the project has turned into my honors thesis. I have a proposal written, approved by my advisor and area, and soon to be passed on to the honors committee for approval. The Honors department will provide additional funding needed to cover the costs of the printing and paper.
Finished images may be seen at http://bryanhutchison.com/page/7/.
Further possibilities for the project in the future involve a community interactive website allowing for images of buildings to be uploaded, organized, mapped, and linked to histories pertinent to the physical sites of buildings. A domain and web storage have been purchased, and I have begun collaborating with programmers to come up with design possibilities. I plan to contact the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers to include the histories and maps they have in their collection.