I am interested in the role of artists as participants in a larger discourse rather than just as makers of a commodity that is largely inaccessible physically, financially, and aesthetically to much of society.  Through my projects, I aim to draw artists out of the solitary practice of art making and into a group of peers who are all engaged with the same themes, each in her or his own way.  I find that the process of creating a piece specifically for a show has several beneficial aspects: the viewing public has a point of entry into the show as a whole and feels entitled to personally explore the given theme as they experience each piece; the artists have an opportunity to specifically make work that need not please a dealer, collector, or museum, as we hang whatever is made as long as it fits in the space; and lastly, many of the artists have found that the combination of an assigned theme and the artistic equivalent of academic freedom leads to new directions in their work and eliminates the paralysis that a metaphorical blank canvas can evoke.

I think that visual artists use their minds in ways that the merely verbal don’t always have access to, and that these specific ways of processing feelings, events, and information are an artist’s special gift to the larger world. When only art that is ‘collectible’ is presented to the public, an essential function of a civilized society is short-circuited.   People of all epochs and on every continent have utilized art to make sense of the spiritual, emotional, philosophical, political, and erotic questions that every person experiences. When access to art is obscured by the monetary value of the art object, the transformative power of art is trumped by the transformative power of valuation.  The power of visual art is immense: although a text can be engaging and persuasive, it requires literacy, time, and a willingness to read carefully. A piece of visual art, on the other hand, can convey a great deal of meaning at the slightest glimpse and can thus create an instantaneous visceral reaction. To confine this wild magic to the realm of rare and costly objects runs counter to my notion the fullest expression of humanity for both the artist and her audience and serves to circumvent, rather than preserve all that is powerful about art and artists..

                                                                                                Nancy Mahl  January, 2009