Rachel Perry Welty, Lost in My Life (receipts), 2011. Pigmented ink print, edition of 3. 91.25 x 60 (Photo courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)
Rachel Perry Welty, Lost in My Life (price tags), 2009. Pigmented ink print, edition of 3. 91.25 x 60 (Photo courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)
(Note: All photographs can be viewed in a larger size by clicking on the image)
Every artist must work within certain limitations, and these limitations come in a variety of forms. It could be financial restraints, a lack of free time, formal education, or materials, or something as basic as having limited skills or knowledge. Rachel Perry Welty is a marvelous example of how an artist can use such limitations to her benefit.
Welty is a self-described “late bloomer” and didn’t attend art school until age 36, when she decided to follow in her mother’s footsteps and attend the Museum School in Boston.
“I discovered art around the same time that I became a working mother,” Welty explained to me, “so the only way I knew how to make it was to maneuver it into my day. I gravitated toward materials that were around me and that were easy to pick up and put down, as a defense against the frustration of regular interruptions.”
By making art throughout the course of her day and using everyday objects like receipts, bread tags, aluminum foil, and telephone messages as her medium, Welty found a way to make art in spite of her busy family schedule.
Rachel Perry Welty, Lost in My Life (styrofoam), 2010. Pigmented ink print, edition of 3. 91.25 x 60 (Photo courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)
Many of the material Welty uses, such as twist ties, styrofoam, and bread tags, are preservative in nature, yet in Welty’s work these objects perniciously erase the artist’s identity. Rachel Perry Welty, Lost in My Life (bread tags), 2010. Pigmented ink print, edition of 3. 91.25 x 60 (Photo courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)
It’s the minutia of middle-class, American life that most fascinates Welty. As a conceptual artist, the message is more important to her than her medium. Working in the tradition of artists like Mary Kelly, Warhol, John Baldessari, and On Kawara, Welty uses photography, drawing, video, social media, installation, collage, sculpture, or whatever method is the best fit for the idea she wants to convey.
To have your only child end up in the hospital with a serious illness is a parent’s worst nightmare. It was this harrowing experience as a mother that was a turning point for Welty as an artist. Altered Receipt: Children’s Hospital Bill for Inpatient Services and Transcription/Medical Record #32-52-52-001 (654 Pages) were painstaking artworks Welty created using actual records in response to her son’s illness. For Altered Receipt she devised a color-coded system that corresponded to each number and letter of the alphabet, and then painted over each of those symbols on the 37-page receipt.
Rachel Perry Welty, Altered Receipt: Children’s Hospital Bill for Inpatient Services (detail), 2001-2002. (Image courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)
When I arrived at her home in Annisquam, Massachusetts, I discovered an array of colorful gum packets, stickers, aluminum-foil words, plastic strips from food packaging, and other fascinating odds and ends spread around her office and studio. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)
Package strips hanging on the wall of Rachel Perry Welty’s garage studio (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)
Working in the tradition of artists like Mary Kelly, Warhol, John Baldessari, and On Kawara, Welty uses photography, drawing, video, social media, installation, collage, sculpture, or whatever method is the best fit for the idea she wants to convey. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)
Two 18th century portraits of Rachel’s great, great, great, great grandparents, Mary and John Rooker, hang in the family’s dining room. The portraits are a striking contrast to the rest of the decor in Welty’s open-concept, modern house. (Photo by Hornick/Rivlin. Click to Enlarge)
Although her son is now grown, healthy, and no longer at home, Welty continues to make art out of her everyday surroundings. When I arrived at her spacious, modern home in Annisquam, Massachusetts, on a sweltering summer day, I found an array of colorful gum packets, stickers, aluminum-foil words, plastic strips from food packaging, and other fascinating odds and ends spread around her office and studio.
The books on her kitchen shelf were wrapped in aluminum foil, a lasting tribute to her piece Lost in My Life (wrapped books) and above the kitchen counter was a recent piece, Cash for Your Warhol, by artist Geoff Hargadon. Several of Welty’s own artworks hang in the house, including a series of small, framed receipt drawings, whose tiny, intricate markings seemed to recall Welty’s upbringing in Tokyo.
During the dinner party that Welty and her husband, Bruce, hosted for myself and nine other guests, two 18th century portraits of Rachel’s great, great, great, great grandparents, Mary and John Rooker, peered over our shoulders. The portraits are a striking contrast to the rest of the decor in Welty’s open-concept, modern house.
At the end of the meal, Welty asked her guests to sign their names on the white linen tablecloth. The next day Welty sent me a photograph of my own signature, which she was in the process of embroidering with white thread. The artist has been recording the signatures of dinner guests since she moved into her home in 2009; every person who has shared a meal with the artist and her family in Annisquam has signed. Eventually, Welty plans to create a public artwork out of the tablecloth. It is Welty’s nod to Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, but also her own original way of using art as a record for her everyday life.
Rachel Perry Welty, Lost in My Life (wrapped books), 2010. Pigmented ink print, edition of 3. 91.25 x 60 (Photo courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)
The artist has been recording the signatures of dinner guests since she moved into her home in 2009; every person who has shared a meal with the artist and her family in Annisquam has signed. It is Welty’s nod to Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, but also her own original way of using art as a record for her everyday life. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)
The day after the dinner party, Welty embroidered my own signature onto the tablecloth using white thread. (Photo courtesy Rachel Perry Welty)
Welty’s work has transformed the way I view these banal objects in my own life. I can’t remove a sticker from a piece of fruit now without thinking of her Lost in My Life series or her elegant drawing Sin and Paradise, made from sliced fruit stickers.
As deCordova curator Nick Capasso says in the catalog to Welty’s solo show at the museum, pieces like Lost in My Life show “consumerism run amok.” Capasso rightly points out that many of the material Welty uses, such as twist ties, styrofoam, and bread tags, are preservative in nature, yet in Welty’s work these objects perniciously erase the artist’s identity.
Rachel Perry Welty, Sin and Paradise, 2009. Fruit stickers and archival adhesive on paper. 21.5 x 21.5 inches (Photo by Clements Howcroft, Boston courtesy the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York)
Rachel Perry Welty, Sin and Paradise, 2009 (detail). Fruit stickers and archival adhesive on paper. 21.5 x 21.5 inches (Photo by Clements Howcroft, Boston courtesy the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York)
Rachel Perry Welty, Sin and Paradise, 2009 (detail). Fruit stickers and archival adhesive on paper. 21.5 x 21.5 inches (Photo by Clements Howcroft, Boston courtesy the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York)
Rachel Perry Welty, Lost in My Life (fruit stickers), 2010. Pigmented ink print, edition of 3. 91.25 x 60 (Photo courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)
Rachel Perry Welty, Lost in My Life (twist ties), 2009. Pigmented ink print, edition of 3. 91.25 x 60 (Photo courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)
The outfits that Welty has used for the Lost in My Life series hang in her garage studio. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)
For the piece Lost in My Life (price tags), Welty had her artwork printed onto fabric and then made a dress from the material. There are also price-tag throw pillows on the couch in her living room (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)
Welty has not been afraid to embrace technology in her artistic practice. She has an ongoing diary project on Twitter and in 2009 she created the Facebook project Rachel Is, in which she recorded an entire day’s activities in real time on Facebook, updating her status every 60 seconds. For her piece Karaoke Wrong Number, Welty collected all of the messages on her telephone answering machine not intended for her or her family, along with the machine’s time and date stamp. She then lip synched to each recording, creating a persona for each “character.”
“We’re always just a hair’s-breadth away from completely misunderstanding one another,” Welty told WBUR in a radio interview. “Somebody listens to it, pushes a button, deletes it, and it’s gone forever. And we do this in our lives daily with all of the information that comes in.”
The artist’s Deaccession Project began in 2005 when Welty decided to discard, sell, gift, and recycle some of the clutter in her life. As Nick Capasso explains, “this life-based performance is documented each day on a page with a photograph of the object in question, and accompanying brief notations that include number/sequence, date, description, reason for deaccession, and method of disposal or ultimate destination. The pages are then ordered chronologically in scrapbooks.” For Welty’s show 24/7 at the deCordova, the 2,028 pages were scanned, reprinted, and arranged in a chronological grid along a single 78-foot gallery wall.
For her piece Karaoke Wrong Number, Welty collected all of the messages on her telephone answering machine not intended for her or her family. She then lip synched to each recording, creating a persona for each “character.” The piece is currently on view at the ICA in Boston. Rachel Perry Welty, Karaoke Wrong Number, 2005-2009. (Image courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)
Rachel Perry Welty, Deaccession Project, October 5, 2005-ongoing. Installation of 2,028 inkjet prints (each print 9×6.5). Approximately 120 x 936 inches. (Image courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)
Rachel Perry Welty, Deaccession Project (detail), October 5, 2005-ongoing. Installation of 2,028 inkjet prints (each print 9×6.5). Approximately 120 x 936 inches. (Image courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)
Rachel Perry Welty. Installation view of solo show at the deCordova Museum. Seen here are Spam series: what do you really want (Rochelle, February 25, 2009, 9:05:05 AM EST), the Deaccession Project, and photographs from the Lost in my Life series. (Image courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)
For her Spam Series, Welty transformed spam email into poetry using a simple household object: aluminum foil. Rachel Perry Welty, Spam Series: what do you really want (Rochelle, February 25, 2009, 9:05:05 AM EST), 2010. One piece of aluminum foil. 8 ½ x 120 x 1 (Image courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)
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