About the Installation
Site Location: Mt. Ashland
Title: It’s a Small World on the Bunny Slope
#artbeyond2021
Are you a parent of a toddler? For many children, the pandemic has made their world smaller. Very young children are coming into their own awareness during this most unusual time. Are they gravitating toward something that feels pandemic induced? Do you feel the social isolation of 2020 – 2021 has drawn them towards an unusual obsession? Artists Michael Parker and Alyse Emdur are making a series of sculptures titled It’s A Small World on the Bunny Slope of these things which will be exhibited on the bunny slope of Mt. Ashland.
About the Artists
Alyse Emdur is an interdisciplinary artist. Her drawings, paintings, videos, and photography based projects use earnest humor to face loneliness, existential crisis, social struggle and the desire to escape. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Artforum, Art in America, Modern Painters, Cabinet Magazine, Huffington Post, the Atlantic, BBC News, Wired Magazine, Vrij Nederland Magazine, Art Papers Magazine, and Foam Magazine. Emdur is a graduate of the Cooper Union and holds an MFA from the University of Southern California.
Michael Parker’s art practice shifts scale, material, and temporality while making things such as juicy ceramic installations, recumbent obelisks, steam eggs, artist-run spaces, and public sculptures. Parker started teaching sculpture at Southern Oregon University three months before the pandemic began. Previously he lived, taught and made art in Los Angeles. With solo and cooperative projects at Materials & Applications; Craft Contemporary Museum; LA County Arts Commission; Annex LA at M+B Gallery; Artists’ Loft Museum Los Angeles; Descanso Gardens; Palm Springs Art Museum; Current LA Biennial; LA Department of Cultural Affairs, The Getty Museum; Southern Exposure; High Desert Test Sites; Human Resources; Pomona College Museum of Art; The Armory Center for the Arts; Machine Project; California State Parks at the Bowtie; Los Angeles Trade-Technical College; Cold Storage. He holds a BA from Pomona College, an EMT-1 from UCLA, an MFA from USC. Parker is a recipient of the California Community Foundation’s Emerging Artists Fellowship, Center for Cultural Innovation Artists’ Resource for Completion Grant, Public Art Residency at Heart of Los Angeles and Printed Matter Award for Artists.
Connect with the Artists
Michael Parker
WEBSITE
INSTAGRAM
Artist Statement
We moved to Ashland a few months before the pandemic with a three month old. The pandemic has made getting to know this place and community slow so we wanted to work on a project that connected us to others’ experience. We often wonder if and how the pandemic is affecting very young children. Ultimately, this is a collaboration between two first time parents as they grapple with this moment in world history.
Related Events
Thursday, June 24th at 12:30pm
Virtual Creative Industries Discussion: Alyse Emdur and Michael Parker
Site: Virtual