North On 71: Artist Profile -Brant Weiland

One of the artists in North On 71 is Brant Weiland.  Brant knows a thing or two about clay.

His piece, Family Portrait is featured on the postcard for North On 71 (center image).

One of Brant's projects this past Fall utilized a couple hundred pounds of chain made out of un-fired clay (greenware).  He wanted to use the chain to form the shape of the United States (the lower 48 anyway) as a vehicle for examining/discussing borders, boundaries and limitations.

His hope was to set it up on the campus at Northwest Missouri State University and have people interact with this highly recognizable shape/symbol.  By interact, I mean trample on until it was powder and discuss the meaning of borders and eroding/changing boundaries.

So Brant created a big ole stencil of the United States and laid out the chain around its perimeter.

With everything in place on a Friday morning in October, we set out at Zero Dark Thirty and installed (Un)-Obstructed.

A few hours later, this is what (Un)-Obstructed looked like.  By the end of the day, it was basically a dusty outline.

You can check out a larger sampling of Brant's work by clicking on this LINK to his website.

A couple more shots of some of Brant's recent work.  The image directly below is Heavy from a recent show that Brant had The Chautauqua Visual Arts Institution.

This is an early iteration of Chain Piece #3.

Let's see what Brant is working on for North On 71....

...... a bigger, better, badder version of Chain Piece #3.......

Normally I like to finish a post with a cool image like the one above, but I snagged this image in almost Ninja/Paparazzi-like fashion of Brant first thing in the morning working on a bowl.....His look says it all.

Check out Brant Weiland's installation of Chain Piece #3, along with Heavy, and Family Portrait as part of North On 71.