The Fuel And Lumber Company

Float…Fly…Transcend...

Curated by The Fuel and Lumber Company
Alabama Contemporary Art Center
21 January – 18 April, 2021

Artists Included:
David Onri Anderson, Katherine Bradford, Krista Clark, Matthew F Fisher, Lonnie Holley, Osamu Kobayashi, Shona Macdonald, Rob Mazurek and Lee Anne Schmitt, Keiko Narahashi, Barb Smith.

Exhibition Précis:

Many of us have spent the better part of 2020 living with fear, anxiety, anger and sadness, often trying to maintain a sense of self and normalcy by gazing into a screen for companionship. We watch as our country is torn apart by a vicious virus, a racial reckoning long past due, and a political divide so deep it’s hard to imagine how we will ever be able to mend.

(I just left myself ...)

Seeking some kind of refuge, something tangible, we look to nature for a connection to the greater, living thing that we are all a part of. We look to move outside of the frame, outside the walls of the spaces we inhabit, outside of our own bodies.

(Float, Fly, Transcend...)

The title of this exhibition is borrowed from the Terry Allen song I Just Left Myself :

Well, I just left myself today / Hell, I couldn’t wait to get away / There’s a smear across the mirror / That I have been / But it won’t reflect on me again...

‘Cause I just left myself today / Yeah, I just packed me up and went away/ I did not float, I did not fly, I did not transcend / No, I just walked out on me again... again.

Making projections into an unknown future can be a dangerous business. As we deal with feelings of impending doom, we create space(s) for self-preservation in an attempt to meet the moment when it arrives. Until then, we remain suspended in space and time. As it relates to the works in this exhibition, the title is employed as an affirmation rather than a negation. Float, Fly, Transcend.

Barb Smith’s title in full:
A rescue, a shocked woman, maple, a broken bandsaw, heat, the sound of it, bumper residue, a rescue, the sharpness of it, the study of it, wax bite, tissue box top, the opening, the sharpness of it, boiled stoneware, friendly plastic, a rescue, pinching, pulling, horizontal motion, all about timing, all about coming apart, memory of a tip toe, granite dust from a monument making shop in Queens, the positive of language, chunk glass, Home, the digging, the sharpness of it, a skinned sponge, collaboration debris, the insides of eaten eggs, the repair, the hunt, or the absence of, building blocks, months of making strata, opening up, the sharpness of it, a rescue, pinching and pulling, several times, vertical motion, a spool of yellow thread, memory of a bubble wand, bringing the breath to, BB bags, some ballast, pewter on pewter, salt fired ceramic, not my explosion, a collection of wads, silicone boxes, one softer than the other, test results, some insistence on the rectangle, pressed lead basket, conductive thread, tongue depressor wall, a rescue, a space, fragment of an impression, the sharpness of it, symptoms, causes, and solutions, a hole, beaten bells on plastic, a silencing, a gift, dyed slip cast porcelain, Aqua resin fragments from a figure, 4 x 6 photograph stack, wood fired ceramic spike, steel, a stain, a skin, marble dust on tack cloth, a rescue, a compression, combustible matter, the containment of, a ceramic spike, in that place, the wetness of it, a stoneware roll, a rescue, a repair, touching it all, discovering the years between, the nestling of, lady parts, quick copper, quick plastic, instant concrete, quick wood, quick steel, quick aluminum balls, a rescue, unfired porcelain slip, compressed gold leaf, language ball, bb’s, gold leafed rock from Bard, cabochons, cedar, slingshot ammo, blue marking paint, 2 parts of 3, some game, some state change, tile stack, some days, two humps, oval accident, Precious Moments, the depth of, plexiglass, finger hole, the cast of a rock found the day NYC shut down, that path, that day, that temperature, catching only myself, filling with water, the memory of it, the sharpness of it, rocks repeating, on everything, the grief of that, the various inclusions, the gravity of, that friction, that holding, some language playing, jumping, a rescue, a repair, the skinned mixing cup, a tongue depressor, belonging, cast honeycomb cardboard, a failure to protect some unremembered contents, this admission, the shape of travel, the force of it, the curious damage of it, solidity, safety, nipples, pairs, plugs, more nipples, maybe currency, bronze shim, baby powder, red marking chalk, the spilling of it, a double rock, thread of a certain age, the softness of it, the balance of it, a gift, a story, a downward motion, a sleeping rock, a rescue.

Rob Mazurek and Lee Anne Schmitt
The Farnsworth Scores
A Film by Rob Mazurek and Lee Anne Schmitt, Directed by Lee Anne Schmitt
Sound by Rob Mazurek, Duration: 25:33, Shot on 16mm Film