TRACEY SNELLING
Bordertown
It’s the kind of place where dust hangs in the air all of the time, clinging to everything and everyone; the kind of dust that leaves a thin film even on teeth, and settles into the scalp where, combined with inevitable sweat, it forms a barrier that no amount of shampoo seems to remove. The gringos come to drink and carouse and sample the women for sale. The stars of the strip club are not beautiful. They work the pole with detachment and indifference. Behind the closed doors of a seedy motel, two teenage girls get high while the room next door is filled with sex – motion without emotion. There is no love loss between girl and client, or for that matter, between native and those who cross the border to play. There is a palpable tension that exists in a place where desperate reciprocity sustains a delicate economy. A toxic mix of violence, sex, drugs and alcohol form the backdrop for a cultural drama that is becoming increasingly part of the American story.
Multi-media artist Tracey Snelling is a California girl. Quick with a smile and a story, she looks at least a decade younger than her 39 years. A tomboy who once worked as a firefighter with the California Department of Forestry, she loves the outdoors but now chooses to live in the ultimate urban environment – a Hispanic neighborhood known as Jingletown in Oakland’s east side. It’s a blue-collar place with just enough live/work artist lofts to keep things eclectic. “Sometimes at night I hear gunshots,” she laughs. “But most of the time I feel safe.” She likes places where there is cultural convergence. Something of an artistic voyeur, she incorporates much of what she sees into her work. The Jingletown neighborhood and several trips to Mexico provided the inspiration for Bordertown, an installation recently shown at the New Frontier exhibition at the Sundance Film Festival. “When I was in Los Cabos, I noticed the tension between cultures,” she explains. “A lot of college students come down and get drunk. People who live there make their living off tourism, but you can feel the hostility because they have to deal with these drunk ass-holes coming down with lots of money. I really felt the underlying tension.” By building smaller-scale replicas of strip motels, bars and brothels typical of the many small towns dotting the southwest border, and then layering in video and sound, seen and heard through windows and open doorways, Tracey created a familiar place that is surprisingly seductive. The viewer knows the basic storyline, and we want to know how it ends, but the artist isn’t providing the answers.
“I like to explore cultures using sculptures of buildings, video, lights and sound. I don’t just re-create a place. I put my experience with a place into it. All of my work is voyeuristic in some way. I like to see how people live and how they react to certain things. Maybe I’m interested in things I shouldn’t be observing.” She pauses at the thought and smiles as if there is something more that she chooses not to share. She admits that there is always a back story to her work; sometimes it’s a true story but more often it’s a figment of Snelling’s active imagination – think of it as a screenplay for a multi- media installation. Sometimes the narrative is subtle and open to interpretation, as is the case with Bordertown; other times it is more overt and obviously cinematic.
Woman on the Run
Something sinister is in the air. Carelessness and desperation are strewn about the shabby hotel room as clearly as the discarded high-heeled shoes and black lace bra hanging from the doorknob. Abandoned sunglasses sit next to a phone left off the hook. An open suitcase is perched on top of crumpled sheets, the bedside table is crowded with a cheap lamp, old fashioned alarm clock and empty whiskey bottle, and the room is wrapped in faded floral wallpaper that long ago lost its optimism. A newscaster’s voice drones from the old black and white TV set. A man has been killed and his wife is wanted for questioning. Look into windows and through open doors and there are clues everywhere – clues, but no clarity. Who is the victim? Who is the killer? Perhaps they are one in the same. The town blinks with neon signs announcing places like the Lucky Lounge, Lost Café, and No Tell Motel. The glow from the signage telegraphing what we know – this is a land of lost souls, and somewhere inside there is a woman on the run.
Snelling’s move to installation art was a gradual one. Born in Oakland, Tracey and her family moved to the more rural Mantica when she was 7 years old. From playing the flute and fantasizing about a career in the symphony, to outdoor activities that had her dreaming about shooting documentaries for National Geographic, her childhood was filled with creativity, but there was no clear cut direction. She eventually went to college in Stockton to study photography, but soon got bored and joined the Conservation Corps. “I did this great thing called Backcountry,” she says. “You live out of tents for five months and build trails. I loved it.” After that experience, Snelling applied for work with the Forest Service. She wanted to continue work in the backcountry, but the only thing available was a firefighting position. She took it. “I was a firefighter for three seasons in the Angeles Forest. I worked on an engine,” she remembers. “We would pull up to a fire, strap a hose pack on our back, tie into the engine and run up the hill. We had these foil things, and we actually practiced whipping it out, covering ourselves and dropping to ground because if a fire is going to burn over you, you don’t want it to touch your body. Fortunately that never happened, but it is really hard physical work that’s very dangerous.” Snelling knew she didn’t want to fight fires for the rest of her life, but the job was seasonal allowing her to attend the University of New Mexico to study art and photography. After graduation she returned to the Bay Area and started her career as a fulltime artist. “As a little girl, one of the dreams I had was working and living in a big studio loft in the city, “ she says. “I could literally see it in my head, and I have come pretty close.”
And she’s right. Home is now a 1500 square foot, second floor open loft with high ceilings and an industrial vibe. This self-described “outdoor” girl has embraced her urban side. “As long as I get outside and do something physical like run or go for a bike ride, I’m fine,” she says. “Living and working in the same place is big for me. I can work on my own schedule.” In the loft, there is no delineation between “working” space and “living” space. It is jammed with all the things Tracey needs to create: computers, electronics, a pyramid of old TVs that she plans to use in a future installation, books, magazines, papers, photographs, extension cords (just about everything she does requires an extension cord), power tools, piles of materials from wood to plastic – some of it recycled and some of it new – and installations in various stages of construction or deconstruction. The sleeping area and kitchen anchor both ends, but in between is a chaotic collage of creative energy. “And you should see when I’m in the final stages of a project,” she laughs.
The breakthrough into the multi-media arena came by way of collage. Tracey was experimenting with layering photographs when she discovered her new direction. “I did a collage of a brownstone. There were all these rooms and the front wall was missing. It made me think of a three dimensional sculpture. What if I built a house or building? That was the first idea and then everything mutated from there. I don’t necessarily follow rules. My work is sort of like a collage. I keep adding layers of sound and video. It all gets combined.” Tracey expresses her multi-media storylines in a variety of ways: wall sculptures that often incorporate video and sound, three dimensional sculptures of buildings left free standing, or photographed in real life settings where they blend into the landscape, and full on installation work where she manipulates scale and space to advance the narrative and add intrigue.
Where Mr. Wong Sent Me
“Progress” never comes smoothly. It spreads in stops and starts – like a water stain drip, drip, dripping from a slightly opened bottle. The expansion seems inevitable but it is more push than pull, more squeeze than embrace. Chongqing, China is such a place where shiny new skyscrapers bump up against ramshackle shacks. Two worlds colliding, separating their people into those who move in the new order and those who have no place there. China is not unique in this; it is a universal condition where third world meets new world. Like bunched up electrical wires, the current is relentless, but also treacherous. If hopelessness persists, even in the shadow of newly found fortune, it might as well be a lit fuse. Here, tradition struggles in the wake of rules that are no longer absolute. For the people who live in this city in these times, it feels as if they are navigating a labyrinth of lies. Mr. Wong is a fortuneteller to the stars. He is known for his accurate predictions. What is he saying now?
As a 2008 artist in residence at the Galerie Urs Meile in Beijing’s Coa Changdi arts district, Snelling was fascinated by the dichotomy between the shantytowns surrounding the modern parts of the city, and she made it a focal point of her installation piece, Where Mr. Wong Sent Me, exhibited at the gallery in 2009. “Visually, old rundown buildings are more interesting to me. The cracks, dirt and graffiti, things that many people consider ugly, are somehow beautiful to me. I see a building that is interesting and I want to know about the people who live there. There is drama everywhere, but I think there is more of a tendency in the upper class to put on a mask and not show weakness or imperfections. That’s not so interesting to me and probably why I like the seedier side of things.” Snelling insists that she is not trying to make any point about socio-economic inequities or anything else for that matter; instead she sees herself as a storyteller. Like a good screenplay, her work has inherent tension and drama, attention to detail on time and place, and is always entertaining. Given the cinematic foundation, it’s probably not a surprise that Snelling is looking to make a film one day soon, but she has no plans to give up her multi-media approach. Right now she is working to complete an installation for a European show planned for the spring. It will be a nostalgic trip through the American West of surfers and theme parks. The Venice Beach sculpture is nearing completion, but she has a long way to go before the entire project is finished. It’s fitting that she has started with Venice Beach – a place with a seedy side full of colorful characters. Just like with the artist herself, we know the beginning of the story, but we will have to wait for the ending.
