Alternative Space: Kelly Bigelow Becerra; Karen Klugman

City-Wide Open Studios
50 Orange St., New Haven, (203) 772-2709
Alternative Space: Kelly Bigelow Becerra
Oct. 28-29, 2006.

Overheard conversation:

Artist's friend: "People are saying 'the little girl's room is adorable!'"

Artist: "Is that the word on the street?"

Artist's friend: "They might be referring to the girl's restroom but I don't think so!" Laughter.

The so-called "little girl's room" was Kelly Bigelow Becerra's relief paper sculpture installation aka "Harvest: Hidin' from the Hair Cut, Amongst the Sweet Corn." The installation, which looked like an old-fashioned sampler writ large, was made with scanned objects, archivally digitally printed. It also included a multi-media component, a soundtrack combining bird sounds with old time country and gospel music.

The music that was playing was "very specific: Gene Autry, early country, early gospel, the kind of thing I grew up with." Her grandparents, said Becerra, were "hardcore country."

"All my work is about my childhood growing up in the Midwest," said Becerra, who lives in the Bridgeport Artspace Building. She also has her own blog.

"I actually researched the birds" on the soundtrack, she said. "All the birds are really from Michigan."

"I think scans are more honest in some way than regular photographs," she said. "If you put your hand on the scanner, it neutralizes it all and lets me have the raw information. There are less variables, a shallow depth of field." She said she had actually scanned a tractor over the summer, part by part.

(Are scanners catching on as an artist's photographic tool? Photographer Karen Klugman, who wasn't in her room when I stopped by, also used a scanner to capture detailed images of flowers and dead bugs. A posted sign reassured viewers that the bugs were found dead, not dispatched for the glories of art.)

"When I make a composition in the computer, they are multi-layered. I can move the pieces around," said Becerra. By making sculptures rather than flat montages, she can obtain a sense of depth similar to that in Photoshop.