Homebodies explores the personal spaces of community members, the artworks and interesting objects they’ve collected through the years, and how those pieces live with them every day. Edition number 26 comes to us from Reno and Tuscarora, Nevada-based artist Elaine Parks. Working primarily in ceramics, Elaine is an accomplished artist who has been making and showing work in solo and group exhibitions for decades. It’s no wonder she also has a fabulous and impressive art collection of friends, too! Read a recent feature about Elaine and her practice in Southwest Contemporary HERE.

click images to see larger!

As with most artists, almost all of the work in my home is made by friends. In this way, I am always surrounded by my friends. I also have a lot of my work hanging, partly for storage and partly to see what I can learn from what I’ve made. With that in mind, I have so much of my work up. So if it’s not identified, it’s probably mine.

Left Image:
1. (very top) Hopeful Promise, Mallory. I purchased this assemblage from the last Valentine’s auction at UNR. I felt like I could have made this piece.

2. (hanging below) Piece by Barney O’Brian, a deceased LA artist. Made from a diagonally cut drawer.

3. (on top of shadowbox) Elaine Bird, Candace Garlock. Candace took a Tuscarora Pottery School class a couple of summers ago and noticed the blue flax flowers. I ID’d them for her. The pattern on the wings are of blue flax flowers.

4. (shadowbox) The wood components of this piece are from cupboards of the LA house I grew up in, that my dad built. The cupboards were replaced in a renovation, but I re-purposed the wood. The base is a table base, built by my grandfather. This is an ongoing work-in-progress, and is my “easy pet”.

5. (in the plant) Little Devil, Cody Breese Thomas 

Right Image:
6. (top left) The Worm that Has No Sperm, Germs. Germs was and may still be in a studio I used to have at the former Women’s Building in north downtown LA. This was a 70’s era Feminist studio building, hence the name, though it no longer has that focus.

7. (bottom right) Untitled, Tuan Phan. Tuan was a graduate school cohort at Cal State LA and had a show of similar work at NMA in 2009 in the triangular gallery.

8. (hanging, painting) Untitled, Mike Christy. In 2010, I cleaned out a full-to-the-brim warehouse that belonged to my dad. As an incentive to get the job done, I had a 2-month art and performance show, called pLAyLAnd, with 25 artists filling the space. As part of the show, Mike had a 20 x 30’ wall-hung salon style with his paintings. 

9. (table) a vase by Dennis Parks.

10. (window) These two bottles hold a 3-year collection of dryer lint, produced by my daughter and me, from 2009 – 2012, when I moved back to LA from Tuscarora to care for my elder parents. 

11. (left) Lovers, Eli Geiser. Eli picked up cobblestones from the street and used them as a drawing surface.

12. (right) Small clay object, Sabine. In the mid-80’s, during my first time in Europe, I spent a month at a ceramic residency. Sabine was a colleague there.

Left Image:
13. (bottom) Tomatos, Eli Geiser. Eli talked about how difficult it was to get the correct pressure of her knees.

Right Image:
14. (top) Evil Queen, Tiger Munson, grad school cohort.

15. (middle) My daughter’s diploma from UCSB – the most expensive thing on my walls – by far.

16. (bottom) Splatter-Dash Lamp, Frankie Brown, deceased.

Left Image:
17. (above flowers, very small) Turtle, Eli Geiser, made of tiny bones and tar.

18. (below flowers) Assemblage, Gail Rappa, formerly in the collection of Nevada collector Wally Cuchine.

19-21. (on counter) Cat Woman candle, Tiger Munson; Rattle, David Roessler, deceased; Doll Head, Teri Barnes.

Right image:
22. I can Change, I Swear, Kim Tucker.

23. (left) Japanese wood block prints from my family home.

24. (between the prints) Pieces by Eric Brooks

25. (right, top) Light Bulb, Dean Burton.

26. (right, bottom) Landscape, Mike Christy.

27. Table of Curiosities

Left Image:
28. (top) So Smart, Eli Geiser. Eli did a series where she translated each letter into a color and wrote sayings using those colors.

29. (bottom) Flowers, Eli Geiser.

Right Image:

30. (top bird) Hoot, Margie Enlow.

31. (wall, framed) Untitled, Jason Lockyear. Jason had a dimensional sculptural and video installation at pLAyLAnd about unseen and ignored things, such as insects in the urban landscape.

32. (wood sculpture) Totem, Kenzi Shiokava, deceased. Kenzi was one of the Hammer Museum, Made in LA artists in 2016 and showed at Stremmel Gallery.

33. (bottom right, shelf) Tuscarora Hotel, Kris Vagner. This is a photo transfer on a brick, of the hallway of the “Hotel” in Tuscarora.

Looking at the whole room.

34. Rug by Neal Taylor who did a series of rugs that he designed and then produced in China.

35. Lamp in the right-hand corner Peri Shefik.

36. Speakers to left by Jerry Snyder.

Closer look.

37. Like Plowing a Garden, triptych, Dennis Parks, deceased. This was a gift from Dennis for my 60th birthday. That’s Dennis on the right panel.

38. In Watermelon Sugar, Michael Falzone. Named for the Richard Brautigan book.

39. (Left, top) Home, Neal Taylor Shelf.

40. (bottom, shelf) Prototype 1, Kara Savant with Tiny Things by Eli Geiser. Eli is my closest art friend, living in Switzerland. The mouth is made of orange peel. I bought Kara’s shelf, knowing I had funny red things to put there.

41. (in black frame) Splatter-Dash, Frankie Brown, deceased.

42. (middle, top) Untitled, Pete Buchan (middle, middle)

43. Assemblage, Kenzi Shiokava, deceased. (middle, bottom)

44. Hand plate, Dennis Parks, deceased.

45. (right, framed B&W photo) Bog Hot Spring, Deon Reynolds.

46. (right, below) Ray Frost

47. (on cabinet) Rabbit, Hiroka Winter.

48. (right side, large frame) Window, Kris Vagner.

49. Diagram of Cow. I’ve had this for years. In my permanent move to Nevada, seemed like the time and place to hang it – along with the horns, which were around my family home.

50. (hanging on the left and on the cabinet) Items that had belonged to Wally Cuchine, deceased.

51. Knitted Condoms, Knitted Baguette Bag, Winder Baker, deceased.