Phalanx by Gregor Turk

This installation serves to demarcate a section of the 35th parallel (Georgia/North Carolina border) with 17 convex security mirrors. The artwork debuted August 21, 2017 in conjunction with the total solar eclipse, which passed directly over Hambidge.

Statement
As a Georgian, a Southerner, and an American, my identity is partially defined by abstract lines drawn on maps— the 35th parallel, the Mason-Dixon Line, and the 49th parallel respectively. For this project, I wanted to provide hikers with a meaningful yet absurd encounter with a remote section of the Georgia/North Carolina border. The configuration of shield-like security mirrors is intended to mimic the dot-dot-dot motif often used for the symbol for boundaries found on maps.

About the Artist
Through his ongoing interest in borders, spatial delineation, and cultural markers, Gregor Turk’s work typically incorporates mapping imagery. In 1992, he traveled by foot and bicycle along and adjacent to the course of the world’s longest straight border—the 1,270-mile section of the U.S./Canadian border formed by the 49th parallel. That border is demarcated with a 20-foot wide clear-cut and nearly a thousand boundary markers. His 49th Parallel Project resulted in international exhibitions and a documentary video broadcast on public television. Turk has permanent installations in airports, parks, a library and re station. He received his B.A. from Rhodes College and his M.F.A. from Boston University. Between degrees he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia. He was the recipient of Hambidge's Site-Responsive Installation Fellowship, which was supported by the Post Foundation and the Hambidge Travel Program. His studio is located in Atlanta.

Massa Confusa by Scott Hocking

Commissioned by Dashboard in partnership with the Hambidge Center, Massa Confusa was completed over the course of 5 weeks between June and August 2017, and opened under the direct path of the total solar eclipse. Based on ideas of chaos, prima materia, alchemical transformation, sacred geometry, creation mythologies, cosmogonies, numerologies, red clay, iron oxide, historical and ancient histories of Hambidge and the Blue Ridge Mountains, Cherokee and Mississippian cultures, ceremonial and archaeological sites, obscure objects of worship, and the varied symbolism of the terrapin, the installation incorporates numerous Platonic and Archimedean Solids, approximately 200 terra-cotta artifacts, and 1 burnt offering of the primordial egg (the Massa Confusa), to create a mystical sacred space in the temperate Appalachian rain forest of Rabun County, Georgia.

About the Artist
Scott Hocking was born in Redford Township, Michigan in 1975. He has lived and worked in Detroit proper since 1996. He creates site-specific sculptural installations and photography projects, often using found materials and vacant locations. Inspired by anything from ancient mythologies to current events, his installations focus on transformation, ephemerality, chance, and discovering beauty through the cycles of nature.

His artwork has been exhibited internationally, including the Detroit Institute of Arts, Cranbrook Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, the University of Michigan, the Smart Museum of Art, the School of the Art Institute Chicago, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Museum, the Mattress Factory Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Kunst-Werke Institute, the Van Abbemuseum, and Kunsthalle Wien. He has received multiple awards, including a Kresge Artist Fellowship, a Knight Foundation Challenge Grant, and an Efroymson Contemporary Arts Fellowship, as well as residential grants in France, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Brazil, and throughout the United States. He is represented by David Klein Gallery, Detroit.

reclaim – (re)imagining an abandoned intention by Rachel K. Garceau

A cast porcelain site-responsive installation created in the summer of 2018, partially funded by an NEA grant.

Statement
When I first encountered these ruins two years ago, I felt an impulse to mend the sections of the existing structure which had fallen, replacing the solid, fallen stones with hollow, porcelain forms. After learning more about the history of the site, I discovered that the intended building had never been completed. This new understanding added an important element to the work—not only is it a repairing of the past, it is an opportunity to continue to build upon the abandoned structure, each new stone, an opportunity for a different future.

About the Artist
Rachel K. Garceau is a studio artist living and working in the Atlanta, Georgia area, and has been recognized as a 2015 Emerging Artist by the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and one of 2017’s Women to Watch by the Georgia Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She utilizes slip-cast porcelain forms to construct site-responsive installations. Her work is often born from a curiosity about an object or a place and a desire to come to a deeper understanding of it. She has been published in Studio Potter, Ceramics Monthly, and NCECA Journal, and also appears in CAST: Art and Objects Made Using Humanity’s Most Transformational Process.

graft by Rachel K. Garceau

A cast porcelain site-responsive installation created in the summer of 2018, partially funded by an NEA grant.

Statement
This project began as an exploration of points of attachment and points of former attachment, both in nature and in my life. Through the collection, casting, and assembly of branches, sticks, and twigs from places I have lived, I have intertwined the elements of my geographical history into a new interpretation of home.

About the Artist
Rachel K. Garceau is a studio artist living and working in the Atlanta, Georgia area, and has been recognized as a 2015 Emerging Artist by the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and one of 2017’s Women to Watch by the Georgia Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She utilizes slip-cast porcelain forms to construct site-responsive installations. Her work is often born from a curiosity about an object or a place and a desire to come to a deeper understanding of it. She has been published in Studio Potter, Ceramics Monthly, and NCECA Journal, and also appears in CAST: Art and Objects Made Using Humanity’s Most Transformational Process.

Listening Stones by Eve Payor

A site-responsive installation created in 2024.

Statement
Rabun Gap has always held a profoundly healing energy for me, having spent many summers as a youth playing in the lush rain forest with its clean mountain air and babbling brooks. Mary Hambidge chose the perfect spot to allow artists an opportunity to be inspired by the natural world and deepen our relationship with Mother Earth. As a musician who feels the music of these mountains, I offer Hambidge Center these Listening Stones to enjoy.

About the Artist
Classical oboist, radio broadcaster, DJ, sound artist, photographer – there are no boundaries where art lives. For decades, Lady Eve has continued to contribute to the sophisticated modern movement blending orchestral and electronic sound. Her solo music productions are available on TKG Music, and she has collaborated alongside many forward thinkers in electronic music, including Fax (Indian Gold Records/Static Discos/SEM Label), Hataken (Roland Tokyo), Kim Cascone (Anechoic Media), Dom Beken & Lx Paterson (Malicious Damage), Lee Hutzulak (Dixie’s Death Pool), Coin Gutter (VIVO), T Power (Digital Soundboy), Jen Mitchell (Atlanta), and spoken word artists Gustavo Alberto Garcia Vaca (Los Angeles), and Graham Colin (New Zealand). As part of the ambient ensemble Gunshae, she has composed melodious orchestral drone and experimental oboe noises which have been released as full length records and remixes for artists including Pure Filth Sound, Ryat, Connect_icut, Submerged, Fax, and Grievous Angel.

Untitled by Anthony Campos

Created during Anthony's two week residency at Hambidge in 2024. These ceramic figures are intended to be changed by the surrounding environment.

Statement

My work at the moment is subtle and playful, serving as a vehicle to carry my endeavors in material research, surface treatment, and experimentation. The imagery is genuine to me and evolves along with my material exploration and development as a person. Constantly chasing some indescribable amalgamation of all I have thought, dreamed, and created only to be put aside after its completion. Each work fueling the engine to create its successor, always needing to evolve in some way.

Ceramics is my primary medium as clay holds onto the energy put into the building process and retains that information throughout its many stages. In all the media I use, texture and surface are always present. Even in my drawings and paintings, there is no erasing or wiping with the intention to hide. All things will reveal themselves at some point so they might as well stand proud. This thing I must feed; we walk hand and hand together and see the world the same. It materializes my human emotions as I manifest it through my work. Continuously creating comes with this constant struggle to fuel this automata with one purpose.