By Ron Evans
WVC instructor and Wilson College MFA candidate Ellen Bruex (Smith) premieres her show “An Index of Beginnings and Endings” this Friday at the MAC. For the past seven months, she has taken an ethnographer’s lens to her personal experiences by keeping a close record of monumental and ordinary transitions as they happen. The artist utilizes poetry, the symbol and structure of doors, and a display of her Index to invite viewers to step through, reflect on, and share their own recent experiences.
Bruex (Smith) has also been adding color to the valley - and beyond - over the past few years with her creative partner Heather Dappen as muralist team Fight The Beige and this is her first ever solo exhibit. I reached out to Bruex (Smith) for a quick QnA on this unique show.
Give us a brief background in your artistic endeavors and your roles working at Wenatchee Valley College.
Like most adults who dare identify as artists, I’ve been making art for as long as I can remember. Officially, I have a BFA from Kendall College of Art & Design and I am working on my MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts (visual arts and creative writing) from Wilson College. I teach Art History, Art Appreciation, and Figure Drawing at Wenatchee Valley College... and likely other classes in the future. I am also an Art Department Instructional Technician at WVC, which is like a studio assistant. I help out all around the Art Department in various ways when I’m not teaching.
What was the catalyst for this show?
The main catalyst for this show has been the work and research I am doing as part of my Master of Fine Arts program. I am studying how beginnings and endings manifest in lived experiences and the ways in which endings facilitate beginnings (I call this “generative apocalypse”). As an interdisciplinary artist, I also wanted to challenge myself to combine visual art and creative writing, which is why you will see drawing, sculpture, and text in this show.
Another catalyst for this show was the unraveling and the eventual dissolution of my marriage. I started thinking about “generative apocalypse,” not knowing that I would be documenting such a massive ending as part of this project. Because of that, the cards and the poetry are at times deeply personal, and I hope that viewers will get a sense of – and perhaps relate to – the honest struggle and the healing that can come from going through really hard times.
I hope that people will walk out more attuned to the magic of their own new beginnings, tender gratitude toward that which could end at any moment, and an appreciation for the cyclical nature of it all. I will also invite viewers to participate by considering and sharing what transitions they have been experiencing recently.
Have you been working on the cards over a period of time, or were they all put together in a single explosion of creativity?
I started recording beginnings and endings on index cards in late August 2021. Whenever I experience something that I deem to be a beginning or an ending of any kind, I document that experience with the date and a short phrase on an index card. This has become a regular practice for me, so the cards have been created in real-time as things happen. The addition of doors came later, in a more singular explosion of creativity, and are made specifically for this show. The doors are a symbolic structure, and their surface treatment is inspired by and reflective of the index cards.
Talk a little about the thought process when you were creating these - was there always a ‘big picture’ concept in your mind, or were you simply focused on creating one message/statement at a time?
The overarching concept of my recent artwork has been to use lived experiences as a type of research to closely study life transitions. I started this process by simply following an urge to document my experiences, but without any idea why I was making these cards. It was a diary of sorts, a record-keeping of my own life. I did not initially intend for these to be seen by anyone, and I did not create them with an audience in mind. When the opportunity for a gallery show arose, the cards said, “Yes!”
Are these pieces for sale? Are they going to be used or assembled for any other project - book, zine, stickers?
This is an ongoing project, so I will continue adding to it as time goes on. The loose plan is that these cards will become an outline for a book of visual poetry. That book will be part of my thesis project in 2023, at which point the final project will likely be for sale. Stay tuned!
Side note: any fun updates from the Fight The Beige camp?
It is kind of funny that my show at the MAC is all black and white - not beige, but not colorful either! Heather Dappen and I have a significant mural project on Wenatchee Avenue to be painted in late spring or early summer. I’m intentionally not revealing the exact location because it’s not technically official yet, but we are excited.
Most recently, Heather created a mural in Portland! That makes three states for Fight the Beige so far: Washington, New York, and Oregon.
We’re always looking for more walls!
Socials:
@belugadijon on instagram (Ellen)
ellenksmith.com
@fightthebeige on instagram (Heather & Ellen’s murals)