Scene: Fern’s Living Room Apartment…Corey: Fern, before we begin with The Thousand Moon Project, you recently participated in major exhibition in London. Would you like to share with us what this event entailed?

 

Fern: A couple of years ago, the curator at the Barbican, Alona Pardo, contacted me by email and invited me to be part of the exhibit “Re/Sisters: A Lens on Gender and Ecology” to be held in London from October 5, 2023 to January 14, 2024. It covered the relationship between women’s bodies, the Earth, and the camera, moving from the protest movements of the 1960s to today. The piece of mine that she wanted was the Nine-Year Ritual of Healing with photographer Othello Anderson. The exhibition will travel to the FOMU Museum in Antwerp, Belgium, one of the best photo museums in Europe.

Corey: Can we begin with A Thousand Moon project? How did this project emerge, develop? What is the concepts behind it? When did it begin?

Fern: When I was in 5^th grade, my teacher Mrs. Gallagher allowed us to look at the pile of National Geographic magazines when we finished our assignments. I was very attracted to the rituals and ceremonies of various African tribes. This stayed with me my whole life. In 1980 I made a series of wall hangings out of raffia and canvas. These wall hangings became my costumes for the ritual performances. I did ceremonies for the full moon, equinoxes, and solstices with Othello Anderson who was the photographer. Then I wanted to make a bigger commitment, something that would last for years. The number nine became important as a healing number and Othello and I committed to a nine-year healing ritual. The rituals were to bring attention to issues about the environment: the abuse of our water, air, and food, as well as chemical pollution and climate change. We exhibited these photographs all over the world. Most recently, a number of the photographs have been included in the “Re/Sisters” exhibit.

Corey: How did photographer and painter Othello Anderson become a major part of this project?

Fern: I met Othello Anderson when I went back to school to finish my undergrad degree at University of Illinois Chicago. He was teaching sculpture at that time. I asked him if we could do a project together based on using the raffia and canvas costumes I designed and made. We ended up working together for 29 years. I performed the rituals and Othello photographed them.

Corey: Fern, can you talk about the logistics of this elaborate series? i.e., the locations and how it was funded?

Fern: The different locations became pilgrimage sites to perform the ritual every year for nine years. Finding the funds to pay for the travel expenses, lodgings, and food was always a problem. Grants helped sometimes. We could fly to some locations, and other times we would drive to a location that was somewhere closer. We did this on our vacation time from working and teaching. The rituals were meant to bring attention to specific problems and issues. An example would be the mountains of Virginia that were strip mined to get to the coal; then they used the resulting rubble to fill in the removed earth. If the property is not restored properly, it can cause flooding and disrupt watershed ecosystems. It destroys the wildlife habitats that contaminates the soil with chemicals use in the mining process. This was not good. We needed to bring attention to that wrongful assault on nature.

 

Corey: I know an image of one of the Rituals was selected for the cover of Suzi Gablik’s book The Reenchantment of Art that dealt with many of your same themes. Can you discuss briefly how this came about? You might also talk about your relationship with Suzi.

Fern: I read her earlier book, How Modernism Failed. I wrote to her, as I was very moved by this book. This book spoke to me, and I had read many of the books listed in her bibliography. In 1981, I was President of Artemisia Gallery in Chicago and invited her to come and speak. She stayed at my home with me and my family. And as our relationship grew, she came back many times. I took her to my studio; Othello and I were just beginning the photos of the rituals, and she was very attracted to the photos and proof sheets that were laying around the studio. Later one of those photos was selected to be on the cover of her book, The Reenchantment of Art. We became very good friends; I talked to her every day for 40 years until she died.

Corey: Fern, before we turn to your new project, you are a longtime friend; do you want to talk about our relationship a little bit?

Fern: When I first met you, I was living in the suburbs and had three children. The youngest one was starting school, so I thought I could maybe go back to painting. I hadn’t painted in maybe eight or ten years. I got a flyer from the Evanston Arts Center, and they offered an interesting abstract painting class. You were there as a teacher for the class. The students were an unusual group of women. Most of us were all educated in art to some degree. We met one day a week and continued together for how many years, eight, nine, ten years?

Corey: Several years. We were all pretty much the same age and with a similar educational background; some of you had master’s degrees. You also got to be friends with the other students in the class. You’re still friends, even today.

Fern: Yes, these are my friends. It’s been at least 40 years.

Corey: Now let’s talk about the new project. What’s the title of the piece?

Fern: The project is titled A Thousand Moons. Let me explain. A thousand full moons are equivalent to 80 years and 10 months of one’s life. The project completion would coincide with my 80th birthday.

Corey: So, when did you actually begin the project? And what prompted this ambitious work? I know you are no stranger to large projects, whether paintings or series. As mentioned above, The Nine-Year Ritual Healing work was very ambitious.

Fern: How the work came about was that my cousin, Sheldon, would go to India to study with his guru. He came back from one of his trips and told me about his guru, who was going to be 80, but he couldn’t decide if he wanted to celebrate his 80th birthday—or 1,000 full moons. When Sheldon told me that story, the concept stayed with me. Then I figured Sheldon would be 80 soon, and I wanted to make him a thousand moons for his birthday. I got 20 sheets of paper, and I painted 50 moons on each sheet, totaling a thousand moons. Then, I couldn’t decide how to present them. Finally, I put them in an archival box, gave them to him that way, and said happy birthday. It’s now four years later. This piece really originated with that event and expanded from there.

I started this project at age 77. It was a very important aspect of the work to show the world that a woman at that age could tackle such a huge project. It is a large and complex work logistically, and also expensive. I had to buy a thousand canvases, and I wanted them to be black. Every decision was important. What size would the canvases be? Are they going to be round square or rectangular?

Corey: Is there any time when the project doesn’t seem to work in terms of your vision? Then what do you do?

Fern: You know ideas don’t always come forth fully dressed and presented. Sometimes you have to work through them.

Corey: In thinking about these two major projects now, do you see any connection between them other than the large scope of these works?

Fern: The A Thousand Moons project became another ritual for me. The scale was very important as it represents 80 years of time which is now a somewhat typical human life span. I shifted my measurement of time from weeks to days, to hours, and then to full moon months. Ceremonies are always about time; full moons, certain dates which we celebrate. Certain examples would include Christmas, Easter, Passover, etc. The Nine-Year Rituals were meant to bring attention to the environment. The Thousand Moons are about time and how much time we might have left.

Corey: Let’s talk about the process and materials for A Thousand Moons.

Fern: The moons in the beginning were plain unadorned circles. The more I painted them the better I got at it, and the moons became more detailed. Every day I would wake up with a schedule. I figured I would work with 20 to 30 paintings at a time. First, I addressed the hardest question: what color today? What color should the moon be? Choosing the palettes is always the hardest question for me, because I’m really a minimalist at heart.

Once I got to the thousandth moon, I was going to paint another 100, because I thought the first hundred might not be as good as the last hundred, and I wanted to be able to mix them in. The moons are all different sizes and rendered in many colors. As you know, the Moon is not just yellow every day. It’s got 28 official colors that I learned about through research. The varied colors appear when the moon is seen or photographed through stratified and irregular gas layer of Earth’s atmospheres. Marcella Pace spent 10 years photographing the various colors of the moon, and I used her information to influence my decisions on colors for the moons I painted. Compositionally, I had to figure the scale and the space around the circle. You know if it feels right, then it’s right. So, I did a lot of adjusting to the space in the overall images.

Corey: Now you have talked about the process for the moons but what about the starry background. It reminds me of Vija Celmins’s Night Sky paintings. Is there a secret to the technique?

Fern: No, I just took a toothbrush and used it to flick white paint on to the background while the moons were covered. It is very effective in creating an image of a starry night sky—like Celmins’s.

Corey: What I found really fascinating was how you set up all the different logistics involved in this project, like where you stored the finished work and where you’ve got the boxes of canvases that are going to be used later. Fern, can we take a look at where you actually made this work?

Fern: Yes, I set the apartment up like a factory; in each room I do something different.

 

Corey: You’ve got a room set aside for your studio area. This is where the work really takes shape. (We are now in her small studio, that was originally a bedroom in the apartment.)

Fern: Right, and every process was another series of problems to be solved. For example, I tried different kinds of material to wrap the paintings in, and finally I realized glassine is really the best material for this purpose. In addition to painting them, I had to wrap a thousand paintings. And then when the time would come to show the work, I will have to unwrap them. I finally put them in storage bins. I now have 50 storage bins so the show can travel.

Corey: And initially you really didn’t know where this would be exhibited.

Fern: I still don’t know. The Chicago Cultural Center might be one possibility. Another is in negotiation, so I don’t know as of this date what might happen with that venue.

Corey: How do you see this project exhibited in all its possible forms?

Fern: I hired a musician to create a musical piece to accompany the installation. Julius Tan is his name, and we’ve got 15 minutes of music so far. I would also like to have a panel discussion that would address the several aspects of the project. I’m thinking of an astrologer and an astronomer for distinctly different views of the cosmos, and maybe someone from a religious organization of some sort to talk about the spiritual aspect. There is also an emotional aspect to the Moon, because it really affects all of us in so many ways. It’s just really a notion that makes sense. I’m not totally equipped to articulate all the ideas myself that the work suggests.

Corey: So, this panel would really suggest how you hope the viewer would react to the work in a total sense.

Fern: I do. I mean I think I want them to be impressed. When I talk to people about the project and its scope, I really love the response—that the idea really is awesome.

Corey: Just the visual impact of this would be extraordinary because it would be installed wall to wall. On just a purely aesthetic level it will be exciting. Do you have some maquettes of what the installation might look like?

Fern: Yes, I would like you to take a look at the maquette that I have made as a way to visualize the way it would be installed. The idea is that when the viewer enters the space they would feel overwhelmed by the total emersion into the space, to see and feel time. The moons are to remind you to see the units of time in months. The miniature figures in the maquette are used to show the scale of the totality of the exhibit.

Corey: And then when the viewers get into what the piece is really about—the subject matter, the content, it will enhance their experience of the work.

Fern: Right, I think so. I’d also like to have a small monograph to go with the exhibition. And the people visiting the show could have a CD of the music, and even the video interview. That would all be the total experience. I haven’t done that kind of total immersion work before.

Corey: No, you never have. Now, we’ve talked about the origin of the work and exhibiting the project. We’ve talked about the logistics of it and the process of making it. Is there anything you’re thinking about that we haven’t covered?

Fern: I want to thank you for taking the time to help me bring my ideas into fruition. By questions and explanations, you have helped me a great deal. I feel a need to bring these issues of the environment to as many people as possible and making art is my way of doing this. The content is what is needed to bring weight to these ideas. We all have the ability to express our ideas in various ways: writing, protesting, speaking, teaching, and any other way that works for the person expressing their ideas.

Corey: Well, I wish you the best with the project. I hope to see it exhibited, including all the aspects you have described; it would be a fantastic installation.

Fern: Thank you.

Fern Shaffer has maintained an active professional art practice for over 40 years in many areas: as a painter; performance artist; lecturer; and environmental advocate. Her work arose with the emerging ecofeminism movement in the 80s that brought together environmentalism and feminist values. Shaffer first gained widespread recognition for a nine-part shamanistic performance cycle entitled Nine Year Ritual of Healing, created in collaboration with photographer, Othello Anderson.

Corey Postiglione is Professor Emeritus from Columbia College Chicago where he taught Art History and Critical Theory as well as Studio Practice for 25 years. He is also a practicing artist and has been acritic for many different publications for more than 30 years.

 

The interview material is a selection from a transcript of a longer video by Rey Gonzalez.