Never Have I Dreamed of Dust Before

vintage sewing machine with glass ornaments, dried grasses, and a paper quilt in pink purple and cream

left to right: pink and purple paper quilt in honeycomb shape on wall, vintage sewing machine, dried grasses and dirt

center is a wooden 'quilt' made from cutup old photographs, with shelves on and surrounding it, featuring various found objects, ceramic plates with poems, a jar of dirt, and rusted junk

view of lefthand side of gallery including paper quilt, sewing machine, wood quilt, grasses, and hanging furniture in back

an end table with poem inscribed and a vintage chair with pink cushion hang suspended in the air next to a bookshelf that appears to be sinking into the ground

double stranded clothesline with a sheer white quilt, felted pieces, and various items of clothing with poetry text and old-fashioned clothespins. some of the clothing is scorched and burnt

wooden mountain forms with grids, poems are etched into grids much like stained glass windows. three mountains are backlit with red light

Collaborative Installation by Erica Selby and Emmie Brewer

January 31 - February 25, 2022

Reception February 4, 4-7pm

Statement:

Place can be defined as a physical location, a social role, or an emotional state of being. Finding a place is a cornerstone to a person’s identity and can be a metric by which we determine the most important periods of our lives. As these identities change over time, so do the physical spaces we build to contain them. Just as people learn and grow in cycles with further knowledge building on what had been previously learned, our environments too reflect a natural cycle of growing over itself.

The remnants of these spaces endure like memories in a person’s consciousness. Lichen growing on a rusting roof, covering timber skeletons so gray with age it's hard to remember they were once alive. The lumber was once trees, the abandoned buildings were once homesteads scattered across the western United States. Each once had a life of their own with human inhabitants and now yield to become decay that houses new life.

Memory is inherently linked to place, and all places have fates similar to the homesteads of the west, decaying before our eyes without any intervention from outside the natural world to make way for new growth. To fully understand our personal identities, we must examine both the places we interact with and the memories we have for a better understanding of the self.

In this show we explore identity, how they are tied to ideas of place and memory, and what it means to compare the self to the cycles of the natural world.

BIOS:

Erica Selby

Raised in a ranching family outside of Helena, Montana, Erica Selby has first hand experiences
with the life cycles present in agricultural practices, the borders drawn between the human made
and the natural world, and an interest in Montana history. Erica recently completed her BFA
thesis at the University of Montana with a focus on process-based sculptural installation. Her
current body of work seeks to explore the elements of place based identity through the use of
material and form.

Emmie Bristow

Emmie Bristow grew up in the valley of Helena Montana and attended the University of Montana for her Bachelors in English with emphasis in creative writing and literature. She recently finished her Masters of Fine Arts in poetry at Drew University, a low- residency program that allowed her to stay in Missoula while working on the degree. A large portion of her work centers around place and memory and how the two affect identity. Emmie is a sixth generation Montanan, and her recent family history is linked with Erica Selby’s family, which is where they have found a unique connection as artists. Focusing on the motifs of dust and dirt,weathered materials (wood, rust, etc.), as well as their own identities as Montana women, they have found a crossing in their work that excites and inspires both of them.

Instagram for E and E Create