{"id":469,"date":"2010-03-04T10:39:02","date_gmt":"2010-03-04T16:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15bytes12\/2010\/03\/04\/amber-heaton\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T21:12:58","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T04:12:58","slug":"amber-heaton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/amber-heaton\/","title":{"rendered":"Amber Heaton"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nFriends of Friends<\/em>, an exhibition of contemporary works that use paper as a medium or surface, opened at the\u00a0GARFO, on February 26. I spoke with participating artist Amber Heaton in early February as she was designing and constructing a paper sculpture to be installed in the exhibition space.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: Give me an idea of what your installation is about.<\/span>
\nIt will be a paper chain \u2013 one chain link for everyday I attended school from kindergarten through high school. My attendance record is estimated, accounting for a certain amount of absences per year. Overall the chain will have around 2275 links. They will get progressively bigger through each year, and the type of paper will vary.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Q: What is your interface with the gallery\/curator? Was there a common theme for this exhibit?<\/span>
\nCara Despain\u00a0and\u00a0Kenny Riches\u00a0invited me to participate. The idea of the show is that all the initial artists invite one of their artist friends to also make a piece. It is an exploration of curating. I chose\u00a0Jared Steffensen. I really wanted to choose an artist who would make a 3-D work, preferably some kind of installation.<\/p>\n

Q: What is your interface (if any) with other artists who are part of this exhibit?<\/span>
\nJared and I are collaborating on our pieces. We are making separate pieces, but they will interact and contribute to each other. He is making a paper [pine] tree installation, and part of my chain will wind around it and [help define the shape]. This was his idea, and I think it is going to be really interesting.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also good friends with\u00a0Claire Taylor\u00a0and\u00a0Laura Decker, so we\u2019ve been having art nights where we get together and work on our pieces for the show. This allows us to hang out and have fun, but also be working.<\/p>\n

Q: How\/why did you come up with the idea for this particular piece?
\n<\/span>After Kenny and Cara asked me to participate in the show, I thought a lot about GARFO as a space. It is housed in an old elementary school that is now an Art Institute for K-12 education. I really wanted that element to be reflected in my piece, and after a bit decided that my piece should be about my personal education as well. I just finished my second bachelor\u2019s degree and will hopefully be going to grad school next year, so it is something that is on my mind a lot. This show specifically focuses on paper as a material, so I came up with making a paper chain \u2014 a form most of us make multiple times during our early schooling. I\u2019m very interested in visual representations of time passing or passed, so I thought it would be exciting to track all the time I\u2019ve actually spent in formal education [K-12] using a paper chain. I think it will surprise me in the end when it is all finished.<\/p>\n

Q: To what extent does the space lead to the concept (or influence the concept)?<\/span>
\nThe physical space of GARFO will heavily influence the form the chain takes in the end. I know I want the chain to hang from the ceiling and wind through the gallery, but how that looks in the end will be shaped by the physical space. I think this is an important aspect of installation work versus sculpture.<\/p>\n