Situated inside the dramatic architecture of a currently unused chapel in historic Lovely Lane United Methodist Church in Baltimore's Old Goucher neighborhood, this interactive environment explored the human endeavor to operate within a society which has distanced itself from nature in an ever-expanding manner. Utilizing an accumulation of handmade, and manipulated found materials, Webb imagines a future where, in the face of deteriorating environmental and societal stability, humankind and the natural world learn new ways to thrive in symbiosis. Viewers were encouraged to consider their bodies in relation to objects and people within the space — alternately obscuring and revealing, isolating and conspiring.

Advertising and staffing support for Proficiencies for Living in Ruins was provided by the Institute for Contemporary Art, Baltimore, and Lovely Lane UMC. 

Proficiencies for Living in Ruins
Large-scale, site-specific sculptural installation
Hot rolled steel, cast concrete, fabric, found objects
2018 - Dimensions variable- Lovely Lane Chapel space 50' diameter x 50' ceiling height.

During the two months that Proficiencies for Living in Ruins was on view at Lovely Lane United Methodist Church in Baltimore, several artists working in the areas of sound, music, and performance art reacted to the installation through the presentation of new, site responsive works. A series of evening and weekend events featured Baltimore-based artists Carrie Fucile, Stephanie Barber, and Tom Boram.

Melissa engaged each of these artists with a prior knowlege of their past works / working styles, and tasked them with creating a new work in response to the installation. Their reactions, performed within the installation, were as follows:

1. Proficiencies for Living in Ruins: Reconcilliation: A sound-based performance by Carrie Fucile. 

Fucile's 20 minute performance resembled a lonely ceremony or meditation. The sound element featured the sounds of songbirds, and 5 performers rung church bells from the balcony at multiple points. This artist has a unique style which combines sound creation, body movement, and object manipulation, creating a measured, contemplative result. 

Reconciliation is a performance of longing, grief, reckoning, and hope. This ritual looks to the past and prays for the future. It grapples with both personal and collective history while gently attempting to exorcise.
__________ 2. Proficiencies for Living in Ruins: Contemplative Opera: Written and organized by Stephanie Barber.

During this one hour, continuous performance, 30 performers, dressed in green, were asked to sing a series of phrases. They gathered in groups with others who were tasked with the same phrase, allowing the resulting melodies to change over time. 

A chorus of contemplators will fill the chapel with song, improvising harmonies and counterpoint to melodic lines about the bontanicality of art, humans, and our changing planet. 

- The sun goes down on every perspective. The sun indulges our trust in sight.
- What's tentacular when one direction holds the promise of success?
- Green green green, grass leaves and hope...
- Earth holds verticality to expectations, mocking the horizon's perspective.
- How much further from our fingers?
____________

3. Proficiencies for Living in Ruins: Green Frequencies: A pipe organ and light-based performance by Tom Boram.

Boram, an experimental musician and visual artist, utilized the pipe organ in Lovely Lane Chapel, which has been in the church since the building's completion in 1884. He pre-recorded himself playing the organ, then manipulating the resulting sound. He programmed super-bright LEDs using an arduino. These hung inside several of the hanging forms, dimming and flashing in response to the pre-recorded music as he simultaneously played the organ live. The LEDs projected a large shadow through the forms and onto the dome above as he played. 

A performance of pipe organ, computer, light, and shadow, Green Frequencies intends to consider the sensual qualities of green as radiant energy - resonating around 550 terahertz. The year 1983 saw the release of both the Misfits' "Earth AD", and the sountrack to the environmentalist art film Koyaanisqatsi, composed by Phillip Glass. The most important tracks from each off these albums are, respectively, "Green Hell", and the main theme, "Koyaanisqatsi". These share a common theme of humans living on an Earth they've poisoned. However, they both suggest a new growth pattern arising from a perspective that this contrived hell on Earth is still defiantly green. A lyric from "Green Hell" asserts that within this greenness we can seek the "Genie of Death" - aka nature - finding each other anew in the pall of technology.  _____________ Proficiencies for Living in Ruins is large-scale, site-specific installation by Baltimore-based fiber artist Melissa Webb, Proficiencies for Living in Ruins represents a partnership between the artist, the Institute for Contemporary Art, Baltimore, and Lovely Lane United Methodist Church. Situated inside the dramatic architecture of a currently unused chapel in historic Lovely Lane UMC, this interactive environment explores the human endeavor to operate within a society which has distanced itself from nature in an ever-expanding manner. Utilizing an accumulation of handmade, and manipulated found materials, Webb imagines a future where, in the face of deteriorating environmental and societal stability, humankind and the natural world learn new ways to thrive in symbiosis. Viewers are encouraged to consider their bodies in relation to objects and people within the space — alternately obscuring and revealing, isolating and conspiring.

Matters of the Belly and the Brain / A Brutal Action Leading to a Necessary Release/ (Feeling in Red) is an immersive installation, created for 'sindikit project space in Baltimore. 

Mixed media & found objects. Dimensions variable. 2017.
Photography by Joe Hyde

Clermont Forum II: Interpreting Clermont’s History Through Art, was an exhibition curated by The Rotating History Project, at Clermont Farm, a beautiful state-owned architectural study site in Berryville, Virginia. As a selected artist, I was entrusted with many pieces of clothing, fabric, trimmings, and accessories left behind by previous owners of Clermont, dating between 1870-1960. I utilized these historic pieces to create The Family Veil, a site-specific installation in an upstairs bedroom of the original, 1755 house.

During the course of building the piece, I published an 85 page, full-color, 12 x 12" book called Seam by Seam: A Study of the Historical Garments of Clermont Farm, which can be found here:

http://www.blurb.com/books/5166325-seam-by-seam-a-study-of-the-historical-garments-of

More information about the exhibition:
The Rotating History Project, in cooperation with The Clermont Foundation and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources presented an exhibition entitled The Clermont Forum II: Interpreting Clermont’s History Through Art. The six week show opened Sunday, April 12, 2014, in the historic buildings on the grounds of Clermont, an 18th century 360-acre farmstead in Clarke County, Virginia, in the northern Shenandoah Valley. The exhibition was seen as a means to imaginatively engage the public with the history of the site.

Clermont Farm is a well-preserved complex of buildings ranging in date from 1755 to the mid-twentieth century. Formerly in the hands of only four families since its original survey by an 18-year old George Washington in 1750, and previously used by Native Americans for game production and hunting lands, the farm is now owned by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and managed by The Clermont Foundation. Clermont remains a working farm, involved with local food production and agricultural education, as well as a state historic site currently under intensive study.

The history of Clermont is a continuous history of various peoples using and living on the land, sometimes peacefully and sometimes in violent conflict, a micro-history of America. The exhibition seeks to explore a period of time beginning with the settlement of the Atlantic coast by Europeans, the last period when native Americans were still the primary inhabitants, and still shaping the landscape, a place taken by Europeans, who in turn brought enslaved Africans to the same landscape. The goal of The Clermont Forum II: Interpreting Clermont’s History Through Art is to invite artists to explore and create site-specific works that draw on any number of the topics specific to Clermont’s history, such as the roles of women and African Americans, agriculture and rural life, and the architectural and material culture of the homestead and its surrounding communities.

In 2013, along with Baltimore artists Linda Depalma, Kelley Bell, and School 33 Art Center, Melissa received a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Artistic Innovation and Collaboration grant. The resulting outdoor, site-specific installation opened in June of 2014. The Co-Lab team's work addressed the building's northern exterior wall and adjoining 1900 square foot vacant lot, which up until now has suffered from neglect.

Linda, Kelley, and I worked for many months to design and execute this project. We fabricated eight birdhouses, each an ode to a different Baltimore architectural landmark. These were placed upon metal venetian-style poles around the site, including a pair of Charles Village "Painted Ladies" and Penn Station, complete with Man / Woman sculpture (designed and built by me), The Patterson Park Pagoda, Bromo-Seltzer Tower, and replica of School 33 Art Center (designed and built by Linda DePalma), and three cast formstone-esque brick constructions (designed and built by Kelley Bell) all became potential homes for birds.

Two sets of concrete steps, cast to resemble marble, and colorful awning structures above them serve as shade structures and seating area for visitors. Six 3' x 9' painted screen panels, inspired by Baltimore screen-painters, were designed and painted by Jessie Underhalter and Katie Truhn.

A participatory performance and site-specific light installation, which took place at the 2012 Transmodern Festival as part of "Alley Oops!" curated by Laure Drogoul. In this piece, 2 characters, played by Autumn Breaud and Melissa Webb, moved about the nighttime alley space, which was transformed by sculptural objects filled with blue light. They interacted with the audience, guiding up to 3 people at a time by the hand to sit upon round pillows, where they were each given light-eminating head pieces, as well as light-refracting glasses with which to watch the performers and take in the surrounding environment.

"In Between" was created in memory of Flo McGarrell, a dear, longtime friend and collaborator who died in the Haitian Earthquake on January 12, 2010. It was intended to create a transcendent state within the viewer and to represent the moments experienced immediately following sudden death, as outlined by the Tibetan book of the dead.

Below Street Level was a site-specific installation and cumulative performance which took place at the EMP Collective, as part of The Rotating History Project's "Down Through The Needle's Eye" exhibition. Performed by Theresa Columbus and Melissa Webb over a period of 2 hours, ladies dressed in early 19th century shirt-waist blouses and many-layered white cotton skirts hand-sewed themselves into their environment...Stitching into several points around the edge of each skirt, and connecting each strand of thread into the light-filled, cloud-like billowing fabric treatment above their heads. Over time this action caused the garments to form a lotus-like form around each of the performers.

Here is my artist statement for the show:
"Below Street Level is a site-specific installation utilizing the outdoor, arched and recessed areas at the bottom of the Faust building to explore themes of labor, mass production, and accumulation. As a longtime Baltimore resident and maker of garments, costumes, and other custom fabric goods as both a means of employment and as a primary aspect of her art, Melissa has become increasingly interested in the history of the once booming garment trade in our city. Specifically, the industrial shift from custom tailoring to mass factory and sweat shop production during the 1800's, driven in large measure by changes in the style and function of clothing, the invention of the sewing machine, as well as ever-increasing consumer demand. This work interlaces the struggles faced by garment workers of this time period with the excitement of innovation, commerce and success experienced by business owners and pioneers of the needle trades."

Shown here at the Sondheim Semi-final Exhibition in the Meyerhoff Gallery at the Maryland Institute, College of Art as both a live performance and a static installation. This participatory performance was first mounted for Copycat Theatre's "The Rooms Play", Spring 2011. Participants entering the space were invited to cut shapes from cookie dough, asked to stand against a wall to measure how much they had grown, and one person in each gathering of viewers was singled out and given a birthday cake, which was shared around the room in sections while the other participants were encouraged to sing to them.

The original intention for creating the piece, within the context of The Rooms Play structure, was to create the illusion of a nostalgic ideal of home, safety, and innocence. Viewers were lured into the comfort of the space created by the sights, smells, and sounds of a loving grandmother's home... but upon closer inspection it was all a false, pre-packaged reality. Kitchen appliances, forest trees, and picket fences were only cardboard flats with obvious wooden stands... if tasted, cookies revealed themselves to be made with only salt, water, and flour, the smell only a store-bought scented candle... and an elaborate birthday cake was made from cardboard and antique doilies.

Photographed by Edward Winter.

The Temporary Nature of Ideas was a large scale, participatory and performative installation. It was first presented as a site-specific piece at the 2009 Transmodern Festival, and was subsequently mounted as a solo show at School 33 Art Center in  2010. 

Viewer/particpants were presented with the following promt:

Feel free to use the space and materials provided to make a personal object in celebration of an unfruitful, unexplored, or abandoned idea. Your object will be a tribute to this idea, once alive and vibrant in your mind's eye, but now retired and unrealized. When you are finished, please use the clothespins and pulleys in the gallery to incorporate your idea into the growing environment.

Below is the artist statement for this series of work: 
As a fiber artist, I love the process of making- of obsessively crafting an object, a costume, or an installation, then combining the fruits of these efforts to create entirely new realities through the use of performance and audience participation. I tend to construct detail-oriented, otherworldly scenarios that can be viewed and interacted with in a casual manner, and where the performers are encouraged to react and improvise. The work becomes fully realized through this continuous interaction between the performer, the viewer, and the surrounding environment.

I am interested in removing the separation between the viewer and the work of art, as well as between the audience member and the performer. I want to enable others to become directly involved with the work, and to give them a role in determining the ultimate outcome of each piece. This concept is evident in The Temporary Nature of Ideas, a series of large-scale, living installations that I began in 2009. Viewer / participants, using provided materials, are invited to delve into the process of making with me, and to be a part of the growth taking place over time within the space.

There is an inherent collaborative nature to all of my work. I see interactive and participatory work as collaboration with the audience. I feel that collaboration and intuitive processes go hand and hand because what another individual or in this case, many individuals, can bring to a piece is yet another unknown element, another layer of mystery to unfold. In this way the process continues throughout the life of the piece.

Featured performers were Kelley Bell, Theresa Columbus, Jackie Milad, Monica Mirabile, Spoon Popkin, Nicole Shiflet, Lee Sinowski, and myself. Photography by Edward Winter.

A live performance for the 2007 Transmodern Festival . Created by Melissa Webb, M. Jane Taylor, and Company.

In the original living installation, stilted ladies in turn of the century dress sip tea, sniff flowers, eat cupcakes, and open gifts at their tall table. Hard-laboring garden gnomes provide them this luxurious lifestyle.

At first the gnomes work happily, but soon become disgruntled due to decreased break-times and excessive use of their bodies for croquet wickets. A passionate protest ensues.

The ladies' loyal butler tries to moderate to no avaiL until they are offered peace in the form of cupcakes.

Satisfied (for now) they get back to their work. And so the cycle continues...

"Opulent overlings and unprepossessing underlings glide and tromp forth in a frolicsomeâ?¦ yet begrudging display. A highbrow coterie of long-legged, albeit dainty darlings shares a stilted co-existence with a lowbrow crew of the submissive stripe. A walk in the park with the Chic She's and Shabby He's of yester-year..".

Photos by Uli Loskot and Alexander Webb