It may be interesting enough that a former military barracks turns into a showcase for art each September on Governors Island in New York, but this year’s fair features a real first for the slow movement: the inaugural Slow Art Day art fair exhibit.

The idea to bring Slow Art Day to Governor’s Island began last spring, when one of the founders of the fair, Nix Laemmle, attended the 2012 Slow Art Day Chelsea gallery tour hosted by Alison Pierz. Excited by the concept of Slow Art, Nix told Alison that bringing it to the fair could add a new dimension. After brainstorming with Slow Art Day founder Phil Terry, Alison and Nix then decided to not only promote the concept of looking slowly but to create a Slow Art Day room at the fair that would feature artists focused on slow working.

As a result, Slow Art Day’s first-ever art fair exhibit features six artists who create slowly.

Estonian artist Jaanika Peerna is particularly invested in the slow movement, and her complex graphite drawings express that.

Graphite drawing by Jaanika Peerna

In addition to her slowly-made graphite drawings, Peerna created a maze on the floor of the Slow Art Day exhibit, which has succeeded in slowing visitors down as they enter the room.

A maze along the floor of the Slow Art Day room helps viewers literally slow down to view the art featured there.

Hong Seon Jang, the second featured artist, works with Scotch tape. The overlapping tape creates opaque lines to form a wooded landscape. According to exhibit organizer Pierz, the Scotch tape art intrigues and engages visitors.

Scotch tape art piece by Hong Seon Jang

Other works in the Slow Art Day room include a more traditional landscape oil painting and two abstract works.

Oil painting by Emily Adams

The two abstract works share an interesting connection. While one is a painting and the other is made up of coffee stains, each creator made their respective pieces via a slow process where they worked out personal issues while slowly creating their art over many days.

Abstract piece made from coffee stains by Maude Martins

Abstract painting by Dana Crossan

The final artwork featured is by newcomer Colleen Blackard, who creates densely rendered, representational works in ball point pen. The piece selected for the Slow Art Day room is from her newest body of work where she covers the drawing with vellum to abstract the image. The viewer is then invited to press the vellum down to reveal the image underneath. The interactivity of the piece is appealing to slow viewers, most of whom are surprised by the fact that they get to touch art.

Touchable vellum art piece by Colleen Blackard

This well-attended art fair runs on Governor’s Island in New York City throughout weekends in the month of September. If you’re in the area, stop by for a unique experience—and make sure you slowly visit the Slow Art Day exhibit.

-Report by Alison Pierz, Slow Art Day host; edited by Jennafer Martin and Phil Terry

A combination of anthropology and poetry made for a unique experience for Slow Art Day 2012 at Arizona State Museum in the United States. Rather than displaying artifacts as stand-alone pieces, this anthropology-focused museum uses them in context to illustrate cultural and historical stories. So weaving storytelling into Slow Art Day made for a unique approach to this event.

Working with the docents from the University of Arizona Poetry Center, the museum invited visitors to read a haiku poem written by one of the docents and find the object that it described or to discover a piece on exhibit that interested them. They were asked to really look at the piece slowly and then write their own haiku poem about it.

Some suggestions to help visitors look at the exhibits deeper included:

• Imagine using your five senses to get to know the piece—how would it feel, smell, sound, taste? What colors is it? What is it made of?
• Imagine having a dialogue with the object—what action words would express its story?
• Think about its history—how it might have been made, used or experienced and by who?
• Look at the label and make connections.

Over 100 poems were written and transcribed onto a large piece of butcher paper, which is now on display at the Poetry Center to encourage people who see it to visit the the museum and figure out which objects inspired them.

This interactive approach was a great success in helping visitors experience the exhibits in new ways. As one visitor reported: “Although I was reluctant to participate at the time (my wife cajoled me into it), in retrospect I can see that the methodology is a good one for getting people to begin to look a little deeper at a piece of art. As a retired scientist and military guy, I tend to focus more on what can be seen, measured, etc. and this exercise did, in fact, make me slow down for a second.”

For more on Arizona State Museum’s Slow Art Day experience, visit their blog.

–Report by Lisa Falk, Arizona State Museum’s Director of Education. Edited by Slow Art Day blog editor Jennafer Martin. Photographs courtesy Christine Baines and Arizona State Museum.

An open studios event, Slow Art Day 2012 at the Chinese Arts Center in Manchester, United Kingdom, saw a steady stream of 88 visitors slowly enjoying art while interacting with the artists and enjoying a snack of slowly made food (10-day sourdough, Amish Friendship Bread, tea eggs, cheese, radish seedleaves, and ginger beer).  Hosted by a collective of artists in residence, the pieces visitors viewed were all contemporary, nontraditional works-in-progress by members of the Life Friendly Collective, including many interactive elements, such as a collaborative story on the gallery wall initiated by Elizabeth Wewiora (pictured below).

Photo by Erinma Ochu

Visitors felt the context of Slow Art Day made them more likely to spend time thinking about as well as participating in the art pieces, and the overall response was very positive!

–Report by Jessica Mautner, on behalf of Life Friendly Collective. Edited by Slow Art Day blog editor Jennafer Martin