Our Starry Universe
Monica Canilao & Hardland/Heartland (AA + CQ + ETC)
at Art of This Gallery
Minneapolis, Minnesota
February 28 - March 22, 2009

http://www.artofthis.net
http://www.hardlandheartland.com
http://www.monicacanilao.com

It's getting warmer again here in Minneapolis, but for three frigid and all too brief weeks in February we were blessed with the wonderful presence of our friend Monica Canilao. She arrived with efficiently packed piles that were just waiting to explode out on to the gallery floor. Her fingernails were bright orange but under them she had smuggled us some authentic Oakland dust. While she was here she saw the snow fall, stood on a frozen lake, and went sledding on a starlight evening.

Frozen Waterfalls.

When we weren't exposing her to the extremities of winter we were keeping our minds busy and our hearts happy. Lines were put down on paper, structures were built, drawings were cut apart and reassembled, ideas were had and music was made. As our four heads came together the space was filled as we saw fit. What follows is the culmination of our time together.

This is Our Starry Universe.

The opening was packed with warmth and positive vibrating people. There is something to be said about early spring events in Minneapolis. It's almost as if everyone realizes that the world exists outside their carved shapes of survival and that it is still filled with friends.

This in progress shot was too rad to pass up. Continuity Error!

Piles and light. Rosy cheeks. A yarn laser will guide the way. The space was too small to take everything in at once, so we made people get close and stick their noses in the work.

New goth tags were to be caught .

Art of This Gallery, Minneapolis Minnesota. This is the beginning of the show. The wall you see inside those windows was created specifically for the exhibition. It formed an antechamber of sorts, a place for the viewer to collect their thoughts or forget about their day before passing through to the other side of the wall

Our craftsmanship (or conceptualism) was flawed and though we may have tried to hide our energies - they cannot be contained and will always emerge - this is fact. All walls can be broken through and should be.

The length of the antechamber,

until you pass through the wall and out into the immediate reality of our creations.

This is the realm of chaos that forms from our connected energies. Symbols, signifiers and codes, decorated and recontextualized until their meaning is new and pure.

Birds perched on a branch pulled from an island surrounded by ice. Our fragile hands barely holding together under the cold night sky while the world sits there watching. What will save us? What do we really need to be saved from? We could live in these piles for years, forming them up into something around us from nothing.

We understand that we hold each other up. We have to, or we will all disappear.

The desk and the destruction are all part of the process, and from it comes endless intricate pieces that fit together in various ways. Our intention is not to overwhelm or impose, but this pile is the most honest and logical conclusion we could have ever arrived at...

Come Closer.

Back wall buffs. The Peace Flag and Grandfather's black battle-axe.

We all have come from various mothers and this our monument to them. They are all part of the same tree, branching off into pairs, their roots sinking deeper, holding stonger and keeping things together. (and they are never slaves to their femininity!)

Gold Chains (Detail)

Monica's hand made birds (detail)

Our Puffy Skies. Graphite Caverns.

This is where Crystal and Monica lived, slept and ate chips while creating work for the show. The perfection of protection.

The entrance of the "Drug Lair" or the "Shit Cave" - depending on who you were talking to.

Late nights with friends helped fill the interior of the lair with sloppy drawings,

inside jokes, green smoke, corporate sponsorship, shouts, laughter, mad beef

proper crew representation, tribal cats, alien drawings and whatever other junk we could attach to the walls. People attending the show were encouraged to add to the mess, and they really did.

Deeper into the cave.

Just do it yourself.

This is the catalog for Our Starry Universe. 8.5 x 11. Full Color. Perfect Bound. 50 pages of documentation, collaboration, process and works created by Monica Canilao and Hardland/Heartland. First Edition of 100. $25

Contact us at hardlandheartland[at]gmail.com if you are interested in one.

or just go here: http://hardlandheartland.blogspot.com/2008/12/c-o-n-s-u-m-e_18.html

Monica will have some on hand once we get everything shipped out to her and we will probably get a handful of them to Needles and Pens as well. (Hey Andrew - that box is slowly filling with more and more stuff, I promise we'll send it soon!)

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So yeah, February was pretty crazy here in Minneapolis. The show could only be considered a success and everyone involved was more than happy with the way everything turned out. Special thanks to Brett and Conrad for their help and skills. Now it's March, spring is creeping up slowly here in the Twin Cities. Things are changing and rearranging and it's all for the best.

If you end up in Minneapolis, try to stop by Art of This Gallery, it is run by amazing people who are doing amazing things, or at least they are trying to, which is what we all really should be doing these days.

Until then.

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ROLL CREDITS
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Aaron Anderson (Hardland/Heartland)

Eric Timothy Carlson (Hardland/Heartland)

Monica Canilao

Crystal Quinn (Hardland/Heartland)

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