You Can’t Spell Carport Without A-R-T
How Georgia-born curator Phillip McClure is turning four metal poles and a wooden roof into a backyard art gallery for creatives with outsider sensibilities.
[Blue Boy Gallery as it was being transformed from a carport to an art space Image Courtesy Blue Boy Gallery]
“I was in Lone Wolf, with one of my really good friends and my brother-in-law, and…they were talking about what they were working on,” recalled Phillip McClure of the moment he took the first steps towards creating Blue Boy Gallery. “And I was like, ‘I’m not doing any of the stuff that I want to do.’”
Passionate about curating and art, he started throwing ideas around in his head about how he might get back to what he believed was his calling since he opened his first exhibition back in his junior year at the University of Georgia. He thought about creating a gallery in a mailbox, but ultimately decided it would be too limited and gimmicky. In the Starland District, he eyed both Beth Vantosh’s “Bull Shack” next to Bull Street Taco, as well as the former location of Lester’s Florist, at the corner of 37th and Bull Streets, but never ended up approaching either building’s owner because he knew in both cases, it would be a temporary situation.
Then he had an epiphany.
“It needs to be at my house,” McClure recalled thinking. “What space can be used at my house? And the carport was just a roof at the time, steel poles.”
“That thought was in February,” he went on to say, “and in March we started building.”
On September 19th, from 6-9pm, the curator’s backyard at 406 E. 65th Street will open for visitors to see Blue Boy Gallery with their own eyes for the first time, as he debuts “Poems,” a two person exhibition featuring the work of Sara Hess (b. 1996) and Sara Malpass (b. 1967).
“It’s like a lot of galleries in New York, [where] it’s just this long, rectangular room,” McClure explained. “Which I think is kind of cool to pull that space out of this huge art metropolis, and then drop it into a backyard in the South.”
“It was the idea that I was waiting for to really get me moving,” he added.
A Psychic Garden and Mysterious Lists
As noted above, McClure attended UGA, where he received a degree in Graphic Design. During his time at the university, his elective choices lead him down the path of curation, and by the end of his sophomore year, he’d booked his first exhibition through a school program. At that time, he worked closely with UGA’s Lamar Dodd School of Art Gallery Director Katie Geha, someone he considers a mentor, where he learned the ins-and-outs of putting together a show.
He also had a studio space that shared a wall with then-painter Sara Hess and, although they hadn’t remained close after graduation, he took a look at what she was working on, and knew that he had to bring her into Blue Boy for it’s first show.
[Sara Hess with her ‘Biomorphic Paper Pulp Sculptures’ Courtesy Blue Boy Gallery]
“[Hess] refers to this place that she’s creating as a psychic garden,” McClure said of the artist’s work, which he called ‘biomorphic paper pulp sculptures.’ “It is this inner landscape that she’s trying to manifest outside herself. They're very subconscious in a way.”
The artist then adds text to the form, passing thoughts that come to Hess’s mind intuitively during the creative process.
Similarly, California resident Sara Malpass is using text in many of her works as well, with similar effects on the viewer, but coming from a completely different artistic perspective.
Malpass, said McClure, created almost all of her artwork during her 27-year stint attending Creative Growth Art Center’s NAID campus, “a studio center for adults with developmental disabilities.” Each day Malpass and other participants were bussed to the space where “they made art all day,” which they’re then able to sell as a source of income.
The artist divided her time into the creation of two basic types of work: Colorful folk art compositions, often featuring hearts; and numbered lists of cursive-written words.
[One of Sara Malpas's ‘lists,’ of which she done hundreds over the years Courtesy Blue Boy Gallery]
“I thought that they were very tender and very intimate, but also very mysterious,” McClure opined of the notes, of which several will be featured in the exhibition. “You can’t get much from them, other than what you can bring to it.”
“She’s either stream of consciousness writing these things, or she goes through books, and if something sticks out to her, she’ll write it down,” he went on to explain. “She must really love these words, to write them down so often.”
“If you are willing…”
For the opening reception on the 19th, Hess will be in attendance, and McClure believes that the sculptor’s words put it best in terms of what he’s hoping visitors to the new space will get from the show. “‘What of yourself do you feel called to spread?’” She’d asked him, noting that viewers will need to consider their own experiences and memories to fully appreciate the exhibition.
“I think when we see words, we expect to walk away with some understanding…of what’s happening..something clear, something wrapped up,” McClure noted. “And because both Saras are giving us text, but it’s so spare, that’s not really the experience. If you just read them for what they are, you won’t walk away with a story. You won’t walk away knowing what’s going on.”
“But if you think about yourself in that equation, and bring yourself to it…’ he continued. “If you are willing, you could come away with something.”
[Blue Boy Gallery in it’s final form Courtesy Blue Boy Gallery]
“Poems” at Blue Boy Gallery opens September 19th from 6-9pm in the backyard of 406 E. 65th Street. Open most Fridays 2-6pm and Saturdays 11am-4pm. Visit @blueboy.space on Instagram for more information.
On October 5th, Emory University 20th Century American Poetry PhD candidate Maggie Dryden will conduct a reading and discussion of the poem “Poetry” by Marianne Moore at the space. And during the exhibition’s run, two thematically-related movie screenings will take place, time and date TBD. Through October 31st.
Find the artists online at:
https://www.instagram.com/sarahess1/
https://www.saraehess.com/
Nice👍