The MakeRoom Artist Residency has been a project in the making for the several months. It involved conceptualizing the idea, formulating the offering and the application, spreading the word, reviewing submissions from across the country and interviewing candidates. Finally, this week, as I sit here typing the first residents are in-house and it feels really official. The residency has been in the making for a long while but this week, it feels like it actually launched. It's so exciting to see this come to life.
The debut artist residents, Morgan Vessel and Keegan Van Gorder (currently of Philadelphia) arrived and have been a bundle of productive energy and creative output. Their time together has been focused primarily on creating what they call Ceremony. Essentially, rituals which they custom prepare for people and small groups - to bring awareness to the normal routine of life, to aid one in deciding that new experiences are meaningful, to trust in yourself and your ideas, and most importantely to get "unclogged".
As part of the MakeRoom Artist Residency Morgan and Keegen were hosted at an artist reception in their honor. During the event myself and close to 20 others were excited to learn of their individual work as well as their combined work in Ceremony. As part of the evening they led a Ceremony wherein all were invited to write an acceptance speech to our own failures, the speeches were tossed into a failure bucket and then we all drew out a new speech from the bucket written by someone else and took turns presenting those speeches to the crowd with great gusto. The event was an experience unlike any other. It was filled with vulnerability, truth, liberation and lots and lots of laughter. We all felt thoroughly unclogged.
Since the reception Morgan and Keegan who I have been affectionately referring to as MKI for the Morgan Keegan Institute have been continuing their investigation and expansion of Ceremony as well as deeper developing of what they call The Religion. Through The Religion they are building a subscription based membership which will allow their followers to receive Ceremony kits in the mail.
Despite their full and productive schedule, I was able to sit down with them separately and ask a few questions. I’ve started to see them as a duo, a paired entity that creates as one and so I thought having them answer these questions separately could possibly shed some new insights into the creative mind. Think of it and as an interview with the forces that are the MKI, the pulse of a dynamic duo or 7 questions to help if you are feeling clogged.
Interview with artist, Morgan Vessel
1. What does the MakeRoom Artist Residency mean to you or for you?
This is my very first residency (and Keegan's as well) so I am realizing while I'm here how much meaning that has for me. I've never had the experience of having a space / place / designated time to solely work on projects and ideas without outside obligations or distractions. Keegan and I wake up, make breakfast, and then have the whole day to just work on our projects and come up with new ideas. Our creative process feels very easy and fluid, like we can't be stopped! This feels different than when we work on things together at our house in Philly, since we're also often working, trying to find more work, planning other things, paying bills, blah blah all those other things that break the flow of our creative work. Since we've been here in Minneapolis, we've also met a lot of new people who are interested in our work. They've invited us to a bunch of fun places and events in the city they thought we'd be into. Being here at this residency and meeting people within the context of our work has felt really fun and allowed us to make fast friendships with people. This residency at MakeRoom is very meaningful to me, for it's given us all of these opportunities to connect with people and place in Minneapolis through ceremony, and also given us unbroken room/time for personal growth and idea-making.
2. How will your time at MakeRoom allow you to investigate, explore or deepen your work?
Ooooh I already touched on this but being here really provides a great work space and time to explore our work. Everyone here (including Thomas!!!) has been so gracious with providing us plenty of information and direction in finding more places/research/events that will inform our work and allow us to investigate more fully. It feels like everyone is so open and supportive of all the creative freaks like us!
3. In 10 words or less what have you learned while at MakeRoom?
There is so much more to be done with ceremonies!
4. What is your favorite tool or skill in life?
This one is hard! I'm not sure if I could narrow it down to one so here's a short list: baths, weaving / my floor loom, ability to make clothes / my sewing machine, a large pot for natural dyes, zines as tools, treading water for long amounts of time (big skill), my serious fabric scissors, ceremonies as tools, touching my tongue to my nose, my tape recorder, ability to be open / be a freak.
5. In 3 words what do artists/makers/creators offer to the world?
Experience, wildness, "impracticality"
6. What is on your bucket list?
Keegan's bucket list for me: Touch the ear of a baby camel as she takes her first sips, sifting the sand of an entire beach, going to a library with crayons and turning an entire shelf of books into coloring books, wearing 30 pairs of underwear at the same time for a whole day, collecting all of the leaves that fall off of one tree for a fall, kiss a psychic, making a life-size plaster cast of my entire family, making a religion and getting followers, convincing my dad to change his name.
My list: Going to Sweden & Berlin (see some amazing Swedish weaving!), go to Mardi Gras, cross country road trip and attend a filming of The Price is Right (did these two things this past fall), Hot Dog Tour, make a great costume for myself to wear often, visit Gee's Bend in Alabama, swim somewhere big!!, get a claw foot tub to up my bath ceremonies, among many others.
7. Shapes, colors or words - pick your favorite.
Words
Interview with Keegan Van Gorder
1. What does the MakeRoom Artist Residency mean to you or for you?
Sometimes at home in my time since college, I have a hard time finding purpose and committed time to work on my art. Having the framework of a residency has given Morgan and I a surprising amount of directed and productive time that we don't normally experience in our daily lives. I feel grateful for the platform of an artist's talk and a week where the only expectation is research, rest and produce work. The residency has also had provided a surprising amount of meaningful new relationships that have opened new doors and experiences for us since our time here.
2. How will your time at MakeRoom allow you to investigate, explore or deepen your work?
Through having intentional and uninterrupted time to focus on making work, Morgan and I have been able to further develop the scale of our work under 'The Religion.' This time and the opportunity for community involvement has opened our eyes to new possibilities for what our work with ceremony can grow into and become. We've experienced new eye opening ideas that have sparked a new excitement for an old project.
3. In 10 words or less what have you learned while at MakeRoom?
It is important to build in pockets of devoted time (to make work).
4. What is your favorite tool or skill in life?
When I was younger and we were out and about on our errands my dad had a tradition of asking everyone we interacted with (grocery cashiers, gas station attendants, waitresses, everyone) "Do you have any advice for my children?". I like to think that this grew a skill inside of me of seeing people, being interested, and asking questions. While I don't ask the same questions that my dad did, this curiosity and openness has carried into practices and new questions in my social interactions and daily life today.
5. In 3 words what do artists/makers/creators offer to the world?
a therapeutic personally helpful experience/ connection to others/ the production of sometimes ugly sometimes beautiful sometimes functional and sometimes completely useless new objects. (sorry necessary to break the 3 word rule)
6. What is on your bucket list?
I would like to:
-spend more time with my grandparents
-see my friend Tina once a year or every often
-find a semi meaningful career
-continue to execute creative projects in changing and new ways
-stay connected to/nurture the relationships and the people I love
-eat and cook fucking good food
-break rules/question authority
-high quantity swim days
-wild dance, more wildly
-live with friends
-die well (my mom has a good idea of making tombstones that project videos of the dead underneath so maybe I'll make a good life summary video for that)