My friend and I were walking through the Tara Donovan exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum this month, and we came upon a wall–and I figured it was a just a wall with a sheet over it, with pillows under the sheet. So we walked by. And then I stopped and looked at the sign (below). I looked back to the wall and thought, “Yeah, it is kinda hazy.” So I walked up to the wall, thinking, “Drinking Straws; what did the sign mean by that?” And standing at the wall, with my nose diving into the haze, but not touching anything, I saw the fuzzy outline of a black circle appear. And when I moved, the circle moved. The friend with me said, “Yeah, it has some kind of wax paper over it.” And I said, “No, look up.” And that’s when we could see it: waves of straws. The collective effect of the installed piece captivated me, and our eyes couldn’t fully focus. The black circle floated with us and the fog between our faces and the straws seemed to keep us just far enough away so our noses didn’t touch anything.
Todd Wellman 