Documentation of Art by local artists that should be documented: Julia Claire Wallace: began December 2007

In December 2007, Julia Claire Wallace was remembering some of the Art happenings of the past few months. She looked through the pictures that she had taken with the disposable cameras she had been carrying around in her purse. She decided to document them on this website, with the hope that she would continue documenting other people's art in the future.
She contemplated if her lack of memory and attention to detail would inspire the artists to document their work better than she could. She hoped so.

Blow
by Nancy Douthey
October 19, 2007

Nancy Douthey worked with the UH fitness center for months convincing them to let a performance art piece to occur in their pool area. Instead of creating normal fliers, she went to a T-shirt store and printed T-shirt fliers on misprinted T-shirts for a dollar a piece (one was scanned by Julia Claire Wallace for the picture above). She placed the shirts in the pool area days before the event to be taken by anyone who desired to have one. She also created the web flier pictured above which was placed in places such as Buffalo Sean's Houston Artblog.

The evening of October 19th was family night, so the pool was filled with children and their parents. Whistles (such as the one scanned above) were placed in containers around the pool before 6:30 with instructions inviting people to take them.

A little past 6:30 Nancy Douthey came out of building as a coach, blowing her whistle. She called everyone to gather together. She instructed everyone to blow in various ways. She split the group into two and had them face each other. She had the two groups blow to each other in various ways. As soft as possible, as loud as possible, etcetera. She maintained a very solemn and intense countenance during the entire performance. Lastly, she blew her own whistle at the groups as hard as she could.

She performed the piece twice to accommodate the local artists who came to see the event late.

(Participators included local artists such as: Michael Brims, Emily Sloan, Elia Arce, Sebastian Forray, Julia Claire Wallace, Shane Maeberry etc.)

note: The t-shirt inspired a funny story often related by Artist Patrick Doyle in which he misreads the word blow while looking in the mirror. He also claimed that someone tried to buy his BLOW shirt off of his back when he was drinking at a local bar.

note 2: A Blow t-shirt and whistle hung on the walls of the artist Elia Arce's residence after the event.

note 3: Local artist Tyson Urich commented that the small whistle on the BLOW T-shirt looks very similar to an ovary.

Untitled: October 24, 2007

by Patrick O'Brien Doyle

Patrick O'Brien Doyle walked through the Bruce Nauman opening at the Menil Collection dressed in a cardboard box.

(witnessed by most of the local artists involved in Andrea Grover's Participation Art class)

He is here!: A collaborative piece by Nancy Douthey and Julia Wallace, December 9, 2007

During an art meeting on December 9th Julia Claire Wallace and Nancy Douthey decided that they desired the help of Patrick O' Brien Doyle in creating an audio interview piece. He didn't answer either of their calls, so they made their way to his place of residence.

They noted that the car of a possible communist was parked in front of his home.

Nancy Douthey knocked repeatedly on his door with her fist as well as her knee in an ominous fashion while they covered his peephole so he would not be able to see who was at the door. Julia tried to see into his window by leaning over the balcony. After a long period of knocking they tried opening the door.

It was unlocked, so they called out Patrick's name and cautiously entered his home.

Julia Claire Wallace placed a color copy of a portrait that she had drawn of Patrick O'Brien Doyle on his refrigerator. It depicted the Houston Artist dressed as a deviled egg, lying in the street bleeding in reference to a previous performance piece that nearly resulted Patrick O'Brien dying in this very fashion.

Patrick O'Brien Doyle was not located in his place of residence, and Julia Claire Wallace and Nancy Douthey were.

Julia Claire Wallace began to write a note to Patrick O'Brien Doyle. It read:

Dear Patrick,

We are devastated to have missed you.

Julia Wallace

Sorry

But as Julia was writing Nancy cried out in alarm that Patrick O'Brien had returned home! She could hear a commotion outside and she saw him hugging someone 'cute' goodbye outside!

The two ladies panicked! Julia Claire Wallace quickly pleaded to Nancy to sign the note. She took it, signed it, crossed out the previous message and wrote:

we didn't! we were just in time!

Then the ladies rushed around madly trying to devise a plan to deal with the uncomfortable situation. They could not find any way to exit the building, They could not find any hiding places that suited their fancy.

They decided to sit on the stools and act as if this was a perfectly normal situation and they were simply waiting on Patrick O'Brien Doyle to come and join their meeting.

They waited.

He did not open the door?

They looked outside, Patrick (Nancy Douthey did admit that it might have been just " a really tall man") had disappeared!

They quickly changed the note once more, crossing out the second message and writing the words "we did." and circling the previously crossed out 'Sorry.'

Then Nancy Douthey and Julia Claire Wallace ran like hell, breathing deep sighs of relief every once and awhile for the next ten minutes.

Hijacking Artlies: A Collaborative Piece Performed by Nancy Douthey and Julia Claire Wallace. October- December 2007.

Nancy Douthey and Julia Claire Wallace were enrolled in a class at the University of Houston taught by the intelligent and fashionable Andrea Grover. The head mistress of Houston's hippest microcinema, The Aurora Picture Show.

Apparently, Andrea had been asked to write something for an upcoming Artlies magazine that would be focusing on collaborative/participatory art. She decided to invite her new Participation Art Class to create something together for the magazine.

To make a very long and frustrating story short. The class members each thought of five ideas then voted, re voted, brainstormed, re voted, read the editor's statement, brainstormed, re voted, re voted, re voted, RE brainstormed, and then re voted again , and THEN they had a particularly AWFUL class in which everyone simply argued passionately.

At this point they had come to the conclusion that they were going to recreate something from the sixties. A "mocumentary". The class had mysteriously ended up choosing to recreate the one image that their teacher had brought in. A Fluxus event in which a shapely woman is covered in whipped cream and then licked.

Everyone went home feeling defeated and frustrated, especially Nancy Douthey and Julia Claire Wallace.

The next day, after many various class members about the terrible class, the two Houston artists found themselves discussing the subject on porch of Julia Claire Wallace's Art Space currently known as 'The Julia'.

Nancy Douthey wanted to talk out her frustration, and Julia Claire Wallace was thrilled to join in.

(note: This is the first of the famous "Art Therapy" sessions, that have inspired/contemplated many Houston Art Happenings.)

They discussed and discussed. They devised a rebellious plan to use their energy outside of the stifling classroom setting.

They remembered a story told by Ms. Grover at the beginning of their class, an inspiring story about collaboration and participation taking art from under the nose of authority.

The story of Buckminster Fuller being kidnapped by Ant Farm.

They would steal the Artlies project from their teacher! She would understand, she loves Ant Farm!

They decided to do their own recreation and trick Artlies into printing their own piece instead of the dreaded licking piece!

So they looked online and decided that they must recreate a phone booth stuffing, on the corner of Westheimer and Kirby. They emailed the class and everyone they knew. Everyone in the class spread the word and about 25 people showed up the next afternoon.

(Participants included Houston Artists such as: Lindsay Burleson, Emily Sloan, Michael Brims, Tyson Urich and Aisin Chacin. The fantastic photos were taken by Michael Brims.)

It was beautiful!

Julia Claire Wallace recorded her feelings and thoughts concerning the phonebooth stuffing in her blog. It was a wonderful learning experience for Julia and many of the other artists involved.

They did not tell any of the participants that they were part of a mischievous plot to kidnap the Artlies spot.

A week later they co-wrote an email that they regarded as genius to the magazine and it read as follows:

Dear ArtLies,

We are a couple of students in Andrea Grover's Participation Art Class. Andrea Grover came to us with the task of creating something concerning Participation Art for your magazine. After much heated discussion the class finally "agreed" to create the images that Andrea has presumably sent you.

BUT

quite a few class members were not completely fulfilled by this endeavor and decided to use the energy and inspiration to create their own "Mocumentary" photo. What ensued was an amazing experience on the corner of Kirby and Westheimer.

Unbeknownst to the participants that they were fulfilling a typical Ant Farm prank, we decided to hijack the mocumentation project. However, due to a lack of hacker skills we did not feel we could adequately dupe you into believing that these photos are from Andrea.

In the spirit of collaboration, we hope you will consider adding this image along with (or instead of) the previous selection. Only with your participation can this participatory project be completed.

Sincerely,

Julia Wallace and Nancy Douthey

They heard nothing from Artlies, and were disheartened.

But a month later Julia Claire Wallace and Nancy Douthey showed up to their Participation Art Class extremely late and were greeted with interrogation about a deviant Artlies project that their teacher had been emailed about.

They reacted with a gleeful hug of joy!

(More to come)