MARNIE POWERS-TORREY / Makerspace and Time

2019

Makerspace and Time, a collaborative multimedia assemblage artwork in the CCA Christensen Cabin. Granary Arts Fellow, Marnie Powers-Torrey, created a visual narrative, emblematic of those who assembled it and the place from where they came. Community members were invited to bring their small, everyday objects to incorporate into the work. Objects with an interesting texture or silhouette with a flat surface were documented with a monoprint. Other small pieces were sewn or placed in pockets. Any object bears a significance, particularly if one finds it interesting. Roadside detritus, attic and basement leavings, remanence of daily doings, and otherwise random but somehow beautiful and engaging items all become part of the vocabulary we use to tell a story of time and place.

The collaborative artwork was on exhibition in the CCA Christensen Cabin alongside the work of Marnie Powers-Torrey February 24 - March 8, 2019. This project was co-sponsored by the Book Arts Program as part of the J. Willard Marriot Library at the University of Utah.

About the Fellow

Marnie Powers-Torrey received an MFA in photography from the University of Utah, and a BA in English and Philosophy from Boston College. She is the Managing Director of the Book Arts Program at the University of Utah, an Associate Librarian at the J. Willard Marriott Library, and is the Master Printer for Red Butte Press.

As a maker, Powers-Torrey places equal value on process and product. The aesthetic and concept of a piece are inherent to its mode of manufacture, materiality, and the space and time in which it’s made. Through her studio practice— the investigation of materials & methods— Powers-Torrey finds and creates meaning steered by the processes she chooses to employ. Through making, she discovers the artifact. Through the artifact, she communicates intention. Her concepts are driven by the everyday—both the routine and the extraordinary, experienced through the multiple modalities of the real and the virtual, the direct, and the mediated.  She has learned how critical it is to integrate making into her busy life, and for her, the assembly of materials and exploration of ideas is synonymous with living.