sketchbook

images and words to document my life and work

1/10/21

Small World, TX

Small World, TX is a zine created in collaboration with a few members of my home community in Brackettville. The introductory issue spotlights Brackett residents only, but I hope to work with creatives from other small/rural towns in Texas in future issues. I owe my sincerest gratitude to the contributors who volunteered their time and creativity to make this project possible. The contents of this zine were created in the fall of 2020. I hope sharing them at the genesis of a new year will inspire us into the future. I would love to grow this project, so if you resonate with its mission and are interested in contributing a written piece, artwork, PSA, recipe, or anything else you feel moved to share, please send me an email at gagedbrown@gmail.com. I am so proud to live alongside so many bright minds. Enjoy Issue one of Small World, TX!

7/9/20

In Progress: Desert Hackberry

Creating work lately has been a game of feeling in the dark. So much of what I think, see, hear, and feel these days seems impossible to engage with through artwork. There is an apparent and desperate need for widescale social action now. I am figuring out what this means for me as an artist, particularly as an artist who intentionally avoids compartmentalizing their creative identity from their personal, political, and social identities. The radical social and political activism I feel compelled to engage in is not reflected by my nuanced, semi-abstract drawings and paintings or paper sculptures. I often feel inadequate when my activism isn’t conveyed through each and every artwork I choose to make. I am deeply opinionated and concerned about prevalent issues, but creating work that appears to be completely separate from them leaves me feeling conflicted.

The artwork pictured above in three different stages has been in progress for the past couple of weeks. It began as a plain white banner of watercolor paper which I hauled down to a quiet bend of the Las Moras one late morning. After spreading it out on the muddy bank, I decorated the empty space with splashes of creek water, globs of sediment, and desert hackberries. There must be a quart of berries on there now, which I gathered from several different trails surrounding the creek. It took me hours of walking and picking to collect enough fruit. Don’t worry–I was mindful of foraging ethics, taking from multiple different individuals over a wide range and leaving plenty of fruit on the bushes for birds and critters. The creation of this piece has been emotionally restorative for me, and a great reason to get outdoors despite the 110 degree weather. Being outside is absolutely essential to my mental and physical health, but I don’t always do the things that are best for me, so a project like this creates incentive for healthy behavior. Who couldn’t use some of that right now?

I recently moved the paper from its birthplace on the bank to a studio. The orange pigment has faded somewhat but I’m pleasantly surprised with the varied forms and textures created by the seeds and meat of the fruit. While the drawing was still beside the creek, I submerged the left portion of the paper underwater for one night. I weighed it down with a stone, allowing the creek’s current to carve delicate designs in the sediment that accumulated on the paper’s surface. The marks resulting from this process resemble roots or an aerial image of tangled rivers. I find it increasingly rewarding to articulate the conceptual value of my artwork after or while it’s being made. That hasn’t always been the case, but the method is suited to my longing to create meaningful work even while lacking a clear sense of purpose.

5/19/20

Niedorff Art Gallery Presents: Show & Tell

Click to view my latest work in this virtual exhibition showcasing eleven emerging artists from Trinity University in San Antonio, TX.

Read my artist statement for the exhibition and view snapshots of my process below.

“Gage has lived on a ranch in the Southwest Texas border town of Brackettville for most of her life. Having grown up surrounded by thousands of acres of sagebrush and mesquite, she responds to this rare privilege through the creation of work that incorporates ecologically specific materials and processes. Her artistic decisions are guided by this landscape of low rolling hills, resilient desert plants, and impenetrable, sun-scorched earth. The artist’s home environment is integral to her identity and mediates her understanding of interpersonal relationships, especially with those who once shared the same home. In her selected works for Show & Tell, Gage draws upon her inherent connection to the land despite feeling alienated from it. Her work addresses the impact of navigating kin relationships corrupted by addiction and mental abuse by associating pecan trees with familial interdependence, mountain laurel blossoms with psychoemotional manipulation, and yucca baccata seeds with the variability of responses to shared trauma. Raw natural materials constitute the core of her work, emphasizing that nature both precedes and enables artistic musings and anthropomorphic concepts. The artist views her artistic process as a means of transcending a painful, fathomless family dynamic through refamiliarizing herself with the enduring landscape in which she was raised”.