"Smash that bluebird of happiness"

New York Arts Magazine, September/October 2005

Trong G. Nguyen

For her debut New York solo show at Gigantic Art Space, "Across+Down," Edwina White picked up a copy of the New York Times on January 1, 2005, took a look at the crossword, and resolved to answer each clue?in her own way. She talked to Trong G. Nguyen about carrying around a very abstract shopping list.

Trong G. Nguyen: Since you used the first New York Times of the year, does your show have anything to do with New Year resolutions?

Edwina White: To envisage a body of clues as the titles for 50 and more new works was overwhelming at first. So I settled on New Year's Day, a blind pick and significant date for us all. This would also be a good way to mark the project's time line. A lot of my New Year's resolutions have been inherently resolved in the course of the project. I went from wondering to wandering to making the deadline with the adrenalin rush of sleepless nights for the final blasts of invention.

TGN: Sometimes crossword puzzles have a theme. Does this one?

EW: I found that there were a series of occupations within the clues but I decided to free up and work on each one individually. The found objects and papers and film works all had a their own context, it was more about the interplay of word and image than the consistency in image making. People often asked me if I solved the crossword. I didn't want to. It was my concern to resolve the clues with images, so I cut the puzzle pattern out so I wasn't aware of a word's length. And I was duly liberated from the clues.

TGN: How did you hunt for clues?

EW: I had the clues with me all the time. My shopping list read: poison bottle for "Poisonous element, prefix," railroad tracks for "Engages in melodrama," a Victorian hair ornament for "Places for combs." And then there was the thrill of the blind find: a child's gas mask, for instance, ideal for "Muzzle packer."

TGN: Any images or items from the White family archives?

EW: Uh? My mother's gall bladder for "Volunteered." Not the gall bladder itself, but an x-ray.

TGN: Your background is in illustration. What were the firsts in this show for you?

EW: This enormous space has allowed me to shift freely from the limitations that are the co-ordinates of the page. I included screen works, a soundscape, poem objects and drawing-collages, all located by their numerical coordinates stenciled on the wall. It shows almost like a live museum. It's as if you're trapped in a puzzle. I made my first chess set, my first pinata, my first finished animations, my first direct wall drawing. To source and attach sound and adapt movement was a wonderfully satisfying revelation.

TGN: What's inside the pinata?

EW: Aha! That's the question on everbody's lips. The pinata's clue was "The hit of the party." The ingredients are a secret until there's a party. It's my "object to be destroyed." We're gonna smash that bluebird of happiness and celebrate the fact that nothing is really ever too precious.