Common Threads is a wonderfully heavy experience. The conceptual themes of the art exhibit on view at the Casselberry Sculpture House move swiftly through your senses — curiosity and ennui. Peace and inner reflection. Yearning mixed with forgiveness. The five stages of grief give way to enchantment. It's a visual and aural experience that leaves the viewer in a state of pensive joy, hypnotized for days and weeks on end, resonating and relating to one's own personal experiences. Moving stuff; beautiful as well.
The creators behind Common Threads are three multidisciplinary artists: Brittney Fucheck, Tim Reid and the late Marlenys Rojas-Reid. Together they transform the venue into an emotional experience that, as their statement goes, "considers the fragile tension of our lived experiences through a variety of mediums and processes. Exploring themes of grief and healing, decay and renewal, and the joy of discovery, the exhibition invites viewers to explore and consider new perspectives." This really sets in once inside and the door shuts.
The unassuming midcentury modern architecture of the Casselberry Sculpture House, tucked away in a bustling but manicured section of Lake Concord Park overlooking Quail Pond, looks like it sprang from a David Hockney painting. The intriguing juxtapositions start as you walk up to the venue's carport to see crib-like artworks made out of found wood, sticks and branches. Earthy and ornate, they look otherworldly, like they don't belong yet at the same time do. Upon closer inspection you realize it's not a crib, but a final resting place, with stunning cloth arrangements dotted with flowers. This everyday-looking house is now unreal, yet magically real.
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The artists gave Orlando Weekly a warm joint statement explaining the show's background. "We have felt so honored to have the opportunity to show our work at the Casselberry Sculpture House," wrote Fucheck and Reid. "To be able to experiment and display our work in an unconventional gallery space has allowed us to lean into our creative processes. This was especially relevant to Marlenys' piece 'Denial,' which was originally envisioned as a room, but wasn't able to be installed in an actual room until this show. The embedded meaning of the Sculpture House having previously been a home amplified the content of the work individually and collectively."
The exhibition has been extended through Dec. 1 by the Casselberry arts and culture staff. "Justin Luper was exceptionally supportive of us, both in terms of design decisions of individual works as well as overall curation of the exhibition," continue the artists. "We are so grateful for his generosity and flexibility. Thank you to the City of Casselberry for trusting us to uphold their standards while allowing us the freedom to maintain artistic integrity." An artists' talk has also been added to the schedule (6-8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 10, at the Casselberry Sculpture House).
The cool interior of the Sculpture House is calm, with the hum of electronics and ample natural light. A repeating voice comes from another room. Large pieces of handmade paper with stark black-and-white abstract imagery give the sense of a void, of something that was once there and now gone but not forgotten. One space displays ceramic shaped paper jars. Another is set up like a personal boudoir, with a chest of drawers with "personal" items and tubes of lipstick laying about. It looks lived in and then hastily left behind. There's a chandelier-like installation that resembles the cribs outside, made of the same materials — wood, bone, decorative metallic discs — occupying one corner of the main room, with flesh-like works made of sheer fabric with random stitches made of hair. The voice that was coming from the other room is now clear: "I don't understand you," repeats over and over with differing tones, like a spirit from another time there to mark its remembrance, and here is where the show begins to take form.
Individually, their motivations were their own, though strongly in unison. Fucheck tells Orlando Weekly, "My work currently reflects my journey through anxiety about death and loss, which was triggered during my early 20s by my mother's breast cancer diagnosis and subsequent recovery. The fear of losing her consumed me, leading me to prematurely grieve her potential death and preventing me from fully embracing the opportunity to spend more time with her. This experience motivated me to honor her by celebrating her passions: nature and animals."
She continues, "The transient nature of the materials I use reveals two insights: the inherent value of ephemeral objects I discover, and the importance of letting go when these items no longer serve a purpose. Whether it's branches, pine needles, wax or even bone, fungi and copper, some endure longer than others. Recognizing the briefness of my time with these materials instills in me a sense of urgency to cherish and utilize them. Importantly, this mindset extends to how I prioritize time with my loved ones."
Tim Reid says, "As a visual artist, I have been interested in the theory of cognitive dissonance. I was curious to understand more completely why it was so hard for me to admit I was wrong or accept new information that went against my existing beliefs. Many of these contradictions and hypocrisies surfaced during my marriage to Marlenys, and my creative practice was a way for me to make external representations of my internal landscape and to examine what was required to be a more considerate partner. ... When Marlenys passed away in 2019 after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, I was faced with a major wave of cognitive dissonance: My future no longer met my expectations. Part of the challenge of the grief journey is that it's not a path on which I want to be; I don't want to deal with all the pain. I knew my creative practice had to respond to my new situation and I chose to use materials Marlenys left behind and incorporate them into my work."
Reid's creative practice began in the digital realm, he says, but as it continued, he looked for ways to make tangible objects. "With Marlenys' passing, this path was accelerated," says Reid. "Building on the text-based work of artists like Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer and Ed Ruscha, I took my thoughts about grief and loss and expressed them using transparencies and an overhead projector, and embossing them on handmade cotton paper made from the same recycled white towels Marlenys used in her own studio practice. I incorporated my old black clothes as I looked for ways to represent a transition away from black-and-white thinking to allow for shades of gray."
With this joint exhibition appearing after her death, Reid finds himself speaking on behalf of his late wife, Marlenys Rojas-Reid. He says her work reflects her experience as a Latin woman living in the United States. "She expressed ideas of her own self-perception as well as ways she thought others perceived her. In her later bodies of work, she directly addressed her experiences as a survivor of domestic and sexual violence.
"As she heard personal accounts from others with similar stories and understood the terrible national (and global) statistics of domestic violence cases, it became apparent to her that this was a significant subject that required her attention. To that end, she used organic materials like silk, thread, cotton and her own hair to represent bodies in a violent encounter."
Reid continues, "Now that it's a few years past Marlenys' death, I'm faced with new experiences that generate cognitive dissonance. My memories with Marlenys become more faded and unclear, while I build new memories and a new life with Brittney and our expanded families."
That sums up the big takeaway here. Whether art is your thing or this concept sounds unfamiliar, everything the artists say motivated them to create this visual and sonic experience is universal to everyone reading this: life, death, family and the joy, the pain and the anxiety that comes with it. No one is alone when it comes to these things, and that's a communally beautiful thing.
