Threads of Consciousness: Kelly Heaton’s Live Pelt@ Ronald Feldman Fine Art
Anitra Haendel
Kelly Heaton
describes her multi-media installation Live Pelt as a documentary of contemporary
American culture, tracking our progression through new media with the scent of
times past.”
Fascinated by the
American obsession for the Tickle-Me-Elmo doll, she investigates as a scientist
(with a Masters from MIT and a MFA from Tufts), and uses humor to embrace the
horror of transformations an animal/human moves through. With the historic American
fur trade as precedent, Live Pelt explores humanity via a red thread that may
run through us all – unseen yet always present, like the threads that piece our
clothing together.
Heaton’s portrait
of a woman with closed eyes, wearing an Elmo fur coat (the exhibition flyer),
unfolds with layers of meaning during the experience of Live Pelt. The coat is
called The Surrogate, whose stages of conception and production are revealed
through detailed environments of characters: The Trapper, Btsy Rss, The Alchemist,
The Sociopath, The Industrialist, The Taxidermist, The Debutante, and The Fashionista.
Their interactions escalate toward the development of The Surrogate’s infrastructure:
an elaborate network of the tickle contraptions that cause Elmo to giggle and
vibrate.
The 64 Elmos
that form the coat were raised across America, then“trapped” through
Ebay (the name originates from England trading with the Hudson Bay), and Heaton
(or the “characters” she plays simultaneously) takes them through transformations
– from posing them in a school portrait, (placed alongside “The Ones that
Got Away” – stacks of Elmo faces…!) to skinning them (foots and paws
resemble human hearts), to stuffing, to mounting (you can bid for the heads on
Ebay and participate in the recycle), to swinging them down the cat-walk!
I appreciated the
details, where Heaton’s wisdom is communicated. At The Alchemist’s
busy worktable, behind a magnifying glass, on a page from “Do-It-Yourself
Murder” (which is also a component of The Sociopath’s laboratory)
is written: “definition of mortality: what qualifications must the system
posses to be classified as mortal?” Perhaps the omnipresent jack-o-lope
doll sitting atop a video monitor may hold the clue!
Like an electron that is a particle and a wave at the same time, one gets the
sense that Elmo remains a constant (Elmo’s soul?) while being, at the same
time, all of these mutations. I enjoyed the 12 inch square oil painting camouflaged
behind the gallery desk, in a gilded frame with a light above. The plaque reads
T.M. Elmo. It is a still life of a computer board, his energy source (3 AA batteries),
his sound piece (speaker), and the plastic case to hold the mechanism. Heaton
asks questions – she does not give answers – in a budda-like, inquisitive,
and serious way.
Within a realm
of connectivity, I hear in the gallery a wistful operatic slowed-down version
of the “Star-spangled Banner”, a woman singing “toys like girls,”
a sped-up auctioneer’s voice, a violinist playing The Dubutante’s Waltz,
Elmo’s eerie laughter, and talk of other visitors: Heaton’s magic enfolds
me. I realize that we are each “character,” with the potential to become
the “other” (in Heaton’s diagrammatic calculations industrialist
= alchemist = creator = fashionista…). This potential freedom to transform
comes with the innate responsibility of that freedom. In the Yearbook of Live
Pelt,
Heaton thanks
the members of the online community. “I hope you will accept this note of
gratitude as acknowledgement of your contribution to Live Pelt.”
Lastly, what
is in a tickle that makes us all laugh and be happy, if only for a moment?
