Community is necessary when living a creative life.
That’s the most important thing artist Linn Meyers hoped to convey to students during a talk and reception at Marymount University’s Main House last week. The event was sponsored by the Office of University of Advancement.
“Art making is often solitary and school provides a pre-fab community, but once the students are out on their own they will need a support system to keep making work,” Meyers said. “The people they surround themselves with, and the ways in which they create community, will be different for each student, but the goal is the same: to make space for creativity to be an important part of their lives.”
Meyers also discussed her unique wall drawing “Our View From Here” on Wednesday night. It stretches across the entire circumference of the inner-circle galleries at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum. Drawn over a three-month period with a type of marker often used by graffiti writers, the site-specific piece on the museum’s second level is more than 400 linear feet. Meyers worked up to 12 hours a day for 70 days on the piece, often with hundreds of visitors milling about behind her.
That didn’t bother her, partly because she had a similar experience when working on a piece at The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in 2011.
“I learned to tune out the activity, which wasn’t that difficult because when I am working I am generally very focused,” she said.
The drawing can’t be seen in its entirety from any one point: viewers must follow it around the museum’s inner loop. It has been on view since last May and will run through Aug. 20. After that, the largest work the D.C. artist has ever produced will be painted over.
“The wall drawings are conceived as impermanent, and that was part of my original interest in making them, so it’s actually very satisfying to know that they will vanish,” she said.
For more information on “Our View From Here,” go to https://hirshhorn.si.edu/collection/linn-meyers.
Photo captions:
Photo 1
D.C. artist Linn Meyers shares a moment with Marymount University students at the school’s Main House on Wednesday.
Photo 2
Linn Meyers (right) talks with Bridget Murphy, Marymount’s associate provost, and Sarah Hardesty, an assistant professor of fine arts.
Photo 3
Artist Linn Meyers discussing “Our View From Here,” a wall drawing on the inner-circle galleries at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.
