The picnic table anchors this installation. It grounds the floating veils and sky-yearning columns that dominate the space, suggesting a narrative without ever explicitly revealing it. In this large-scale, site-specific installation, Gail Grinnell has transformed Weber State University’s Shaw Gallery into a reflective space that resonates with the lived experience of makeshift shelters.

Grinnell’s primary visual elements are a series of suspended textiles—translucent polyester interfacing inspired by her mother’s sewing cabinet—which have been cut out, painted on or otherwise treated to create a varied, textured surface that implies hours of meticulous handwork. Some areas appear translucent and lace-like, while others are more opaque and heavily pigmented. These textiles are hung in a way that creates a layered canopy effect, some close to the ceiling and others draping lower, creating an intimate space beneath; others are wrapped into columnar shapes that rise up to the skylights in the ceiling. The lighting, whether natural or artificial, plays a significant role, casting shadows and illuminating sections of the fabric, contributing to the overall ethereal and dynamic atmosphere. Beneath this canopy and in between these columns, sits a simple pine picnic table, slightly worn. It immediately makes this interior space exterior and centers a human experience.

In a video interview filmed by the Shaw Gallery, Grinnel mentions two locales that inform the work. She grew up in Richland, Washington—a town she describes as “grim in its origins,” it was taken over by the U.S. military during World War II to serve as a bedroom community for those working on the Manhattan Project.” The picnic table reminds her of family trips taken to escape. The worn blue tarp suspended above it references two summers when, as a child, the artist mended and washed cast off tarps to create a personal shelter and home in her backyard. Seattle, Washington, where Grinnell has lived and worked for the past 30 years, has one of the largest homeless populations in the nation and it’s hard not to see, in that same torn blue tarp suspended above the table, a reference to the makeshift shelters that increasingly dot our cities. Suspended and swaying, the tarps evoke the ephemeral nature of shelter and the fragility of home.

While Grinnell’s materials appear delicate, like paper, they are in fact quite sturdy and their resilience echoes the tenacity of those who inhabit temporary shelters—vulnerable yet enduring. Columns stretch towards the ceiling, transforming into arboreal forms or rising smoke, depending on the interplay of light and shadow. These vertical elements, suggestive of both growth and destruction, anchor the floating elements and invite a vertical exploration of space. The old picnic table grounds the piece in the realm of the familiar and the communal, juxtaposing the everyday against the backdrop of the significant.

Grinnell’s installation prompts visitors to ponder the ways in which we nurture ourselves and each other while standing on the grounds that bear witness to our histories, however contaminated and fraught with tension they may be. Her work stands as a dialogue between the past and the present, between the heart’s affairs and the overarching sweep of history, asking us to consider our place within these intersecting stories.

Gail Grinnell: …and there is this lingering thought, Mary Elizabeth Dee Shaw Gallery, Ogden, through Mar. 30

All images courtesy the author

Shawn Rossiter

The founder of Artists of Utah and editor of its online magazine, 15 Bytes, Shawn Rossiter has undergraduate degrees in English, French and Italian Literature and studied Comparative Literature in graduate school before pursuing a career in art.