What These Tree Pods Hold—Gifts, Creativity and the Art of Erin Louise Gould at No Land
In April 2017, Strangers Collective launched an art space on the Santa Fe Plaza called No Land. The space features solo and small group exhibitions by artists, writers and performers. Dedicated to those ready to take the next step in their careers, No Land gives artists the opportunity to develop and show full-fledged bodies of work. The space also houses a zine shop and library. It's located at 54 ½ E. San Francisco Street on the Santa Fe Plaza.
—Kyle Farrell, Alex Gill & Jordan Eddy
from the Strangers Collective website
When all that is received is a gift, all that you do is a gift, all that you make is a gift: every interaction becomes a gift. You become bonded with the world, committed to every being in a living, breathing, fluid reciprocal exchange.
Doesn’t that sound magnificent?
—Erin Louise Gould
from all that i have essay & poetry zine
No Land’s current exhibition—Erin Louise Gould’s art all that i have—is a walk into the mysterious and abundant world of the Kentucky Coffeetree and the pods it creates. The exploration is simultaneously literal and symbolic—as viewers learn about this fascinating tree of steadfast resilience, we also connect with how Erin relates to the tree and its pods and discover that here is an invitation for us to view anew.
Seeing Nature for Its Purposeless Individuality
Erin’s is a look at another of Earth’s beings without definition: the tree with its creation of pods is beyond being a “resource” for human use and beyond serving us as metaphors for awareness about ourselves. The Kentucky Coffeetree, as Erin’s art shows us, defies both of those definitions.
As Erin explains:
…the Kentucky coffee tree seeds used to be distributed by mammoths. Nothing alive today will eat their pods and spread their could-be-descendents; they evolved so that only mammoths and other megafauna could consume their toxic resins, seeds, and thick, woody pods…The pods now just fall and accumulate, uneaten, unattended, classified as ‘yard-waste,’ building up, waiting for mouths that will never come, waiting to be thrown away.
—from Erin Louise Gould, all that i have zine
Additionally, Erin asks:
What would it feel like to continue to exist in a world that you are no longer suited for? Are these [Kentucky Coffee] trees stubborn or is it resilience? Sometimes I wonder why they don’t adapt, why they don’t stop investing so much energy and so many resources into making pods that no one can eat and seeds that rarely germinate.
—from Erin Louise Gould, all that i have zine
She answers these questions with her visual art exhibition.
Seeing the Kentucky Coffeetree for its Creativity
The shelves, walls and corners of the No Land art space expertly display various artistic aspects of the tree and its pods with “printmaking, sculpture, video, writing, and found object installation that tells this intertwined story of life, loss, and multi-species resilience” (Strangers Collective website).
The various ways of seeing shows us that the tree has an existence and creative life that is outside of the context of how we as humans typically view nature.
Because the pods contain toxic seeds and their leathery shell is difficult to break, according to traditional human definition it would seem that the tree’s lavish production is worthless.
Challenging the idea of the pods as a nuisance and waste that must be thrown away, Erin shows us abundance.
She writes:
When I look at the cache of seeds I have gathered, the mass of the pile seems unbelievable. I collected each of these seeds with these fingers. I lost count of them months and months ago when I was somewhere in the tens of thousands…
—from Erin Louise Gould, all that i have zine
Creativity for Creativity’s Sake
Ultimately, the exhibition shows us creativity for creativity’s sake. The tree creates pods that seem to serve no contemporary purpose. And yet, the tree continues to create. And create. And create. Gorgeous, resilient pods.
When might an audience admire this creation? Possibly never. Possibly the purpose is creativity itself.
And yet, Erin arrived on this tree scene, resonating with the tree and its pods. She brings to these tree and pods an audience—us. Through Erin’s art installation, we see the abundant beauty of these trees and feel the response that creation evokes.
In her all that i have zine, Erin writes of the human body:
These bodies are containers
Like pods
Not just for blood and breath and viscera
But that ineffable depth of feeling
Seeing the Gifts in All
And in this, Erin, the trees and its pods reveal the miracle of creation and how to see everything as a gift.
As Erin writes:
I am trying to see how it feels to live with gifting as a daily practice, to accept that which I receive as a gift, that which I make as a gift, that which I am as a gift…
In such a practice, even those gifts given without intention create a connection…A gift from a vegetal being requires care, consideration, sharing, listening as reciprocity.
When all that is received is a gift, all that you do is a gift, all that you make is a gift: every interaction becomes a gift. You become bonded with the world, committed to every being in a living, breathing, fluid reciprocal exchange.
Doesn’t that sound magnificent?
—from Erin Louise Gould, all that i have zine
Virtually Visit “All That I Have” at No Land
You can see this exhibition online at the Strangers Collective website, here.
To subscribe to the Strangers Collective email list, contact the directors, or send donations, please see this Strangers Collective webpage, here.
I was fortunate enough to hear Erin speak within No Land (via Zoom) about her art at an artist studio tour with Strangers Collective, hosted by Santa Fe Art Tours.
Strangers Collective is dedicated to providing artistic space and audience to early career artists, such as Erin.
Visit with the Directors of Strangers Collective and No Land
at Creatives in Conversation!
Jordan Eddy, Kyle Farrell, and Alex Gill
will speak with us about:
The Evolution of Strangers Collective,
How it Led into NO LAND,
and The Importance of Amplifying Early Career Artists.
Wednesday, August 19, 2020, 5:30 pm to 6:45 pm MT
Clicking on the button below will take you to the registration page:
A few photos from Erin Louise Gould’s art installation all that i have at No Land:
“When I look at the cache of seeds I have gathered, the mass of the pile seems unbelievable. I collected each of these seeds with these fingers. I lost count of them months and months ago when I was somewhere in the tens of thousands…”
—Erin Louise Gould, all that i have zine
Installation Photo. Photo credit: No Land
”When all that is received is a gift, all that you do is a gift, all that you make is a gift: every interaction becomes a gift. You become bonded with the world, committed to every being in a living, breathing, fluid reciprocal exchange.
Doesn’t that sound magnificent?”
—Erin Louise Gould, all that i have zine
Installation Photo. Photo credit: No Land
“I needed them and there they were. This had been the entire story of my relationship with this species.”
—Erin Louise Gould, all that i have zine
Installation Photo: Monolith 3”. Photo Credit: No Land
Erin Louise Gould is a multimedia artist working primarily with sculpture, video, and performance. She is currently attending the University of New Mexico to attain her MFA in sculpture and participated in the Land Arts of the American West program in 2018. Before moving to Albuquerque in 2017, she lived in Santa Fe for four years after finishing her Bachelors of Art degree at Colorado College in 2013. Living with a chronic and painful autoimmune disease and surviving a decade-long eating disorder fed Gould’s interest in how we perceive and live inside our bodies and how our bodies sometimes seem to live without us.
Erin Louise Gould at No Land. Photo credit: No Land.
No Land Art Space and Strangers Collective:
No Land Art Space
54 1/2 E San Francisco St #7, Santa Fe, New Mexico
No Land hosts shows, events and residencies by emerging artists and writers.
Follow the steps up
and into
No Land.
Once inside, you will see:
Innovative installations.
Erin Louise Gould: All That I Have
Installation Photo. Photo credit: No Land.
Artists in the act of creation.
Doreen Wittenbols: International Passport Paintings
Photo credit: No Land.
Progressive paintings.
Emily Margarit Mason: Installation
Photo credit: No Land.
Creative performances.
Emmaly Wiederholt: Performance of Pick Me Apart
Photo credit: No Land.
No Land houses a zine shop and library.
Mirror Box, February 2018, by Strangers Collective. The show featured 35 emerging artists and writers, and included a curator and artist talk, as well as a closing performance by Emmaly Wiederholt.
Mirror Box Zines. Photo credit: No Land.
Strangers first utilized the space that would become No Land for collaborations with Albuquerque poet Mary Dezember (December 2016) and digital arts publication 1905 Magazine (February 2017).
Jordan Eddy seen here introducing Mary Dezember’s book launch for Still Howling with an evening of discussion and art by Allen Ginsberg (owned by John Feins) in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the publication of Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems.
No Land officially opened in April 2017 with the solo exhibition Marcus Zúñiga: YA VEO.
No Land has showcased the work of Erin Louise Gould, Drew MC, Jesús Castillo & Sonja Bjelić, Emmaly Wiederholt & Gregory Bartning, Kat Kinnick & Zahra Marwan, Barbara Justice & Adriana Barrios, Dandelion Guild, Ariana Lombardi, Nathan Smerage, Liz Brindley, Flying Wall Studios, Niomi Fawn, and Jessie Deluxe.
Installation view of Here nor There. Photo credit: No Land.
ABOUT STRANGERS COLLECTIVE:
Strangers Collective was founded by Kyle Farrell, Erikka James and Jordan Eddy in 2014 as a series of shows for emerging artists in private residences. The trio curated two 2014 exhibitions in James' Santa Fe apartment: First Fall in October, and Troublevision in December. What began as a salon-style gathering of friends swiftly grew into a full-fledged collective of emerging creatives.
The group's first public exhibition, titled Strangers, was at ART.i.factory Gallery in July 2015 and featured 17 artists and writers. Farrell and Eddy became primary directors of Strangers at this time, while James continued to engage with the project as a contributing artist. Strangers curated the following group shows from 2015-2016: No Land at Wheelhouse Art in October 2015, Cabin Fever at SCUBA's Caldera Gallery in March 2016, and Narrows, a three-week show at the Santa Fe Community Gallery in May 2016.
Gill became a co-director of Strangers in summer 2016, when Strangers teamed up with SCUBA again to organize a show called Dispatch at ART.i.factory Gallery in July. A second manifestation of Dispatch appeared from fall 2016 to winter 2017 at New Mexico Highlands University's Trolley Barn Gallery in Las Vegas, New Mexico. It featured additional contributions from NMHU faculty members, expanding Dispatch's art map to encompass both Santa Fe and Las Vegas. Strangers also curated a display of Ona Yopack's artwork in form & concept's Residency exhibition in August 2016. In fall 2016, Strangers curated the exhibition Long Echo at Center for Contemporary Arts. It featured the work of 25 emerging artists and writers, and engaged the broader community in a series of events called Echo Chamber.
NOTE: The above About Strangers Collective was written by the directors of Strangers Collective.
Blog author
Mary Dezember, PhD, is a poet and author of fiction and non-fiction. She earned her PhD in Comparative Literature, specialization in Comparative Arts, from Indiana University in 2000, with PhD minors in Art History and Performance Studies.
Professor of English, she teaches Comparative Arts, Art History, Creative Writing and Literature at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Her publications include several non-fiction essays and articles and two books of poetry: Earth-Marked Like You (Sunstone Press) and Still Howling (CreateSpace Independent Publishing). Her novel, Wild Conviction, is in the works to be published by Inkshares.
Here, Mary is shown performing at her Still Howling poetry book launch at No Land, hosted by Strangers Collective in Santa Fe, 2016, the 60th anniversary of the publication of the book Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg in 1956.