Barley Twist Column | Emily Jan & Chris Flower

Residency
Written By Elsewhere Living Museum & Artist Residency
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Barley Twist Column, Emily Jan & Chris Flower (Montreal, QC).

April 2017. Installation. Paper collage on found wood.

One day while working in the woodshop, Flower tripped over a stack of wooden “barley twist” furniture elements that abound in the collection, upsetting the pile. As he laid on the shop floor, a column rolled away from him and he saw an illusion of flowing directional movement in the rotating helix—giving him an idea. He created a makeshift lathe and drilled out several pieces, stringing them together into a floor-to-ceiling beam. Seeing the column spin, Emily Jan was reminded of cyclical movements in nature, such as the flight of birds. She sourced tiny drawings of owls from a book in the Elsewhere library and decoupaged them onto the spiral.

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Featured
Chris Flower
Chris Flower

Montreal based artist Chris Flower animates the inanimate. His photo-based work often captures unexpected qualities found in everyday common objects. Flower currently resides at the Elsewhere Museum in Greensboro North Carolina where he is conducting an exploration of unseen, invisible, or interstitial spaces, the in-between, and the unfamiliar side of the familiar.

During his residency at Elsewhere, Flower created Contained Elsewhere, Barley Twist Column, Stranger Things (Books & Memory), and Little Bear Zoetrope.

Emily Jan
Emily Jan

Emily Jan is a huntress of objects and stories. She hails from Montreal, by way of southeastern Utah, South Africa, Mexico, and California. Her sculptures and installations recall both the museum and the wunderkammer, combining the found with the handmade, and evoking the faraway and fantastical as well as the everyday. She is guided in her work by the spirit of exploration, kinship, and curiousity. From time to time she writes and illustrates books; you can find them on her website.

During her residency at Elsewhere, Jan created Rangifer - Polyphemus - Polypore, Barley Column Twist, Stranger Things (Books & Memory) and Little Bear Zoetrope.

Elsewhere Living Museum & Artist Residency
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Little Bear Zoetrope | Emily Jan + Chris Flower
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Rangifer-Polyphemus-Polypore | Emily Jan