Jane Ingram Allen and collaborating artist Jami Taback will exhibit their installation titled In “Deep Water – We’re All in This Together” at Live Forever Foundation’s Vital Space Gallery, Taichung, Taiwan, Dec. 2, 2023 – April 2, 2024. The two Northern California artists began collaborating on this project in August 2021 and have continued to add to the installation, exhibiting it at 4 different galleries in the US in 2022 and 2023. This will be its first international presentation. The Taiwan exhibition of “In Deep Water” is part of a group show titled “Water Says” curated by independent curator Iris (Ping-chi) Hung). Jane and Jami have received support from the Live Forever Foundation for travel to Taiwan and to teach a workshop on hand papermaking and printmaking and to share their process and ideas about our current global climate crisis. The artists will be in Taiwan doing a site-specific installation and related public programs, Nov. 23 – Dec. 4, 2023.  Public Opening Reception and Gallery Talk, Dec. 2, 2023; Workshop, Dec. 3, 2023. 

For more info!https://ocula.com/institutions/live-forever/

Photos of the California “In Deep Water” installations are by Timothy S. Allen. The photo of the Rowan University installation is courtesy of Rowan University Art Gallery Director, Mary Salvante.

My art installation “Living Quilt for Santa Rosa” is blooming again for the 4th season, 5 years after the devastating Tubbs wildfire swept through this area in Santa Rosa, CA. It is great to see the golden poppies and blue bachelor buttons blooming at the same time when this photo was taken on May 27, 2023. The white alyssum flowers have already bloomed earlier in the Spring this year. The handmade paper quilt was made with dyed handmade paper pulp containing seeds for wildflowers in the same colors and pattern. The quilt pattern used was a traditional one called “Flying Geese” and the geese were in blue pulp with seeds for bachelor buttons and the white background had seeds for alyssum flowers. The borders for this strip quilt were made with paper pulp dyed the bright yellow-orange of California poppies and had seeds for poppies in the pulp.

This artwork was installed on Nov. 29, 2018, the year after the devastating wildfire (Tubbs Fire) that severely affected the Fountain Grove area as well as other parts of Santa Rosa, California. This artwork was done with the support of a grant from the City of Santa Rosa that asked artists to respond to the fire. I created “Living Quilt for Santa Rosa” with community participation and installed it at Rincon Ridge Park, Rincon Ridge Drive and Fountaingrove Parkway in northeast Santa Rosa, CA. When we installed this work and made the headboard and footboard with volunteers, we were all wearing masks due to the smoke still in the air and the polluted soil. There was also not any water in the park since the underground pipes had all melted with the heat of the wildfires that moved through this area. You can see the skeletons of burned trees and almost no houses still standing in the 2018 photo. In the 2023 photo there are many new houses that have been rebuilt on the hill behind the installation, and many bushes and trees are green again since water pipes have been replaced, and this year there has been lots of rain in California. The headboard for the “bed” fell down and was recycled into the earth after about three years, and the footboard is also starting to decompose and leaning heavily. The flowers continue to reseed and come back each year as the “living quilt” lives on.

These photos were taken by my husband Timothy S. Allen, and it is great to be able to continue documenting my art installation as it changes over time.

Jane was invited by Helen Hiebert, artist, author, teacher and papermaker, to appear on her monthly podcast called “Paper Talk”. Jane is the featured artist for April 2023. You can listen to the Podcast at this link: https://helenhiebertstudio.com/podcast/episode-106-jane-ingram-allen/

Here is an excerpt from the Notes that accompany the podcast with some images of Jane’s work:

Jane Ingram Allen is a sculptor and installation artist who uses hand papermaking with natural materials and collaborative processes to create  indoor and outdoor artworks that raise public awareness about environmental issues.  Jane has received numerous awards for residencies and community public art projects in the USA, the Philippines, Japan, Nepal, Brazil, China, Tanzania, Taiwan, Turkey, Indonesia and other countries.  She was a Fulbright Scholar artist-in-residence in Taiwan in 2004 and 2005 and a Fulbright Specialist in Turkey in 2015.  Jane is a former college art instructor and currently teaches workshops and writes about art for SCULPTURE and other art magazines as well as doing independent curating.  She was born and raised in Alabama and has lived in 7 different states and in Taiwan for 8 years. Since 2012 she has been based in Santa Rosa, CA, and continues showing her work in the US and internationally.

We talked about how she got into environmental art, which is so well suited for handmade paper. And we discussed several of her environmental installations.

Allen works often with seeds and paper, and her first project with seeds in the pulp was titled Earth Quilt, created in 1995 (the 25th anniversary of Earth Day). You can see the progression of Allen’s work with students installing the piece on Earth Day 1995 at SUNY Morrisville in Morrisville, NY; the wildflowers starting to come up; and the field in full bloom several months after the quilt was planted.

Happy Earth Day 2023!