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What If...

...Some Words is 4 polymer letterpress plates, the rubbings you make from them, and a series of prints made by the artist. The use of language in a law document is very constrained and highly constructed. The meaning of each word is highly specialized and determined. Poetic language is similarly constructed and carefully crafted. Both kinds of language are parsed but to quite different ends. The artist has chosen 4 words and their definitions for this collaboration with Spence & Sabitt. The words are called heteronyms, meaning they are spelled the same yet have vastly different meanings depending on their context or use. This artwork and its engagement, found within a neighboring business reflect the privacy and confidence required in the legal process. Proceeds from the sale of ...Some Words will be donated to Women's Space.

The Distance Between Us

Libby Wadsworth:

Introduction:
Libby met me over lunch and within a few minutes witnessed the only fight the BRIDGE curator, Lillian Almeida, and I had on this project. Thankfully, Libby didn't walk away in those moments. That speaks to her experience in the art world, I think. Her work for The Distance Between Us is a wonderful embodiment of this project, inviting the audience to finish it for themselves. She created a beautiful engagement with the language of the law, and embraced all of the boundaries around collaborating with a law firm. She then turned that language into a print mold that visitors to Urban Therapeutic can rub to create their own finished card. In essence, each visitor gets to collaborate with Libby and Spence & Sabitt, LLP, expanding out the circle of collaborators. Hooray!

Bio:
Libby Wadsworth lives and works in Eugene, Oregon. Her paintings, drawings, and letterpress prints combine the visual and verbal to explore the mutability, playfulness and power of language systems. She engages the back and forth between word and image, seeing and reading, abstraction and representation, ephemeral and concrete, refusing the idea that these categories are fixed and mutually exclusive. Libby is interested in the grey area between categories where multiple perspectives can hold simultaneously: this and this; and instead of or. Viewers/readers are prompted to become more conscious of the visual and verbal systems that shape our perceptions and understandings.

Spence & Sabitt, LLP:

Introduction:
We have been blessed with the collaboration of Leah Wilson at Spence & Sabitt, LLP. A friend and artist, she is also a legal professional. What a surprise and a joy to see her when we first entered Spence & Sabitt, LLP to see if they would particpate in this adventure. We have been welcomed and embraced by this law firm in a wonderful way.

Bio:
Spence & Sabitt, LLP is a law firm in Eugene, Oregon.