Drawn Lots expands its stakes to four cities

What started humbly in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has now ballooned to reach three separate regions of the U S of A. Drawn Lots' original four members now call Houston, Syracuse, Chicago and Milwaukee, home. Houston is the newest addition to our mini-empire.













While Jeremy was visiting Regan, a fellow at MFAH's CORE program, they participated in an odd event of sorts, as tourists of the Center for Land Use Interepretation's (CLUI) Houston Field Office. Sasha Dela of Skydive was their guide and Brett Bloom of Temporary Services was along for perusal of the site as well. The actual site was locked and although the guard dogs were sleeping, the group decided against trespassing to gain a closer view. They roughly half-circumnavigated the former junkyard, enjoying views of their trailer from 100 yards away through chain link. They saw various examples of current barb wire technology, remnants of ranching, current junkyards, a biodiesel plant, and a savanna of sorts with a bike path where they took a break for a picnic. Not to be missed was the grove of small trees and grasses "in honor of Exxon Mobil".

New Project - New Forest

Regan sent us all this image:













along with this note:

Dear Drawn Lots,
Let us revive ourselves. . .what do you say?! Well, I am all by my lonesome with lots of time in Texas so I came up with this little project that I thought we could work on together from a distance--just to pass the time and entertain ourselves and maybe learn some new tricks. . .I picked up an image on the web of the "New Forest" in England and then I pulled some fragments out of the image on photoshop and plunked them onto an 8 x 10 image. I will pass it along first to Juan, who can then pass it to Jeremy and then Michael and around and around in a circle until we grow weary of it. . . does this work? Any suggestions? Maybe we could post it on our blog so that anytime you wanted you could just grab it off there and work on it and then repost it? I attached the source image and also a link to the New Forest http://www.newforest.hampshire.org.uk/ , and the new collaborative piece that you can do anything to--no limits, no theme, as of yet. I honestly took fifteen minutes on this first bit of collaging, this is very rudimentary and just for play. . .okay? sound good?! Well, let me know!

Bye for now,
Best,
Regan

and her start to the collaboration:




















So far we have Juan's additions:



















And Jeremy's:




















Michael is next.

Ill History Update

Well, not sure if history can be saved or if these sites were any less historic while closed, but many will be reopening in a week or so (some like the Davis Mansion in Normal never did close thanks to private donors). See the following story: www.sj-r.com/news/x1263218439/Historic-site-workers-to-return-next-week,

At the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Dana-Thomas House, supporters are eager to see visitors walk inside again rather than circle the perimeter, said Regina Albanese, executive director of the house’s foundation.

Sorry, no photo of folks wandering aimlessly around the Dana-Thomas House.

Case-By-Case Basis

While Drawn Lots is working out its next project, please consider the following:

Case-By-Case Basis

March 6 - April 11, 2009
Reception: March 27, 7-11pm

Featuring:
Alex Chitty
Diana Behl
Regan Golden-McNerney
Joe Hardesty
Noah Hyleck
Jeremy Lundquist
McMurran and Soskel
Amanda R.T. Thomson

@ lloyd dobler
1545 W. Division Ave, 2nd Floor
Chicago, IL

For more info: www.lloyddoblergallery.com

Call to Action? "Save Illinois History"

Depending on the news source, Illinois state budget cuts are resulting in the closure of two dozen sites or 13 or 14 historical sites and 11 state parks and/or 25 overall historical sites and state parks.
But let's not get caught up in numbers even though we are dealing with a budget.
Part of Drawn Lots (one half to be exact) now calls the fine state of Illinois, home, so we feel compelled to react.
The closures were to originally take place on October 1 and November 1 for historical sites and state parks respectively, but those dates have been pushed back to November 30, 2008. Nonetheless there is not much time, so we are going to get working on drawing attention to this locations. You can read more about all this by following these links:

wikinews - has complete list of closures

AP article

Illinois Historic Preservation Agency

Landmarks Illinois - news about current status of bills to restore the cuts made in the budget

Stay tuned to Drawn Lots for more info.

Wild into Tame into Wild

I am curious about the kind of play that children engage in while wondering in the woods. What is the purpose and outcome of this less structured type of learning with materials? Is playing outdoors always about civilizing nature or is it a way of meeting the natural world halfway? So I thought I would try to test this by going out into the woods at Ox-Bow and playing with sticks and leaves in the kind of aimless way that I did when I was little, to see what happened. It was incredibly hard! I kept wanting to twist my play into an art project--which I did and totally enjoyed (see image). But I wonder if we could construct natural found object sculptures, then draw instructions about how to build the basic form and have another member try to recreate the object in synthetic/organic materials found in their location. What would these small sculptures and accompanying instructions tell us about the materials available in that place?

Regan

Wilderness or Wildness?

The very nature of wilderness suggests untamed. Untamed could suggest dark or sinister. Certain aspects of nature are completely locked into our collective memory as definitions of the sinister. Nature at its most sinister is under the blanket of night. Sound becomes a tangible indication of being surrounded by something wild. When humans encounter this situation it becomes apparent that they are no longer in control and that moment lies the realization that wildness still exists. The lack of control may induce fears that in turn create fantasy.
All of this comes back to our original notion of site authenticity. I'm interested in how sound could act as a catalyst to enhance a viewer's acceptance of 'valid experience' via a controlled environment/installation where sight & sound challenge collective fears and doubts about the human species' control over wildness. More to come...

Juan