Joey Cocciardi

The Lodge is delighted to present Joey Cocciardi's It’s Getting Dark.

A note on the firework situation by Joey Cocciardi

I watch my dog splash in the little creek where years ago she learned to swim.

It is the same time of early summer rains. A different year but the sound of the water moving is the same. I know she remembers this place and I know she now feels differently about the moving water.

Sound and movement are understandably sensitive to this hound. She clues me in on these heightened sense and, through her, I know more of the same place we both stand sharing time.

I zoom out and see her short life on a single plane where experience and growth is equal to the scars that mark her. Now these waters are both terrifying and exciting. It is a bigger and better place for both her and I.

In the act of making all components can be tabled. Thank you Rauschenberg.

And if all are equal and at your disposal (no rules, only options) then intent and result can live on an equal plane as well.

I like it. It is generous and hopeful and lets me be sad or whatever too.

I like to believe that our intent/results can extend to those who are most a part of us. I would share this with my dog. And to be absurdly optimistic, this may allow the work to resonate larger, longer, and wider than Fran, my dog.

Realistically, I am just doing my best to deal with these damn fireworks.

Maybe it helps. And then maybe process, work, intensions and results can all be out on the table and not in a box. Not painting or fibers, beautiful or sinister. And in this mess, when something tries to be louder than the rest, you isolate that something and you work on it.

If successful, like a dog conquering it’s fear of water, this thing becomes bigger than celebratory and greater than scary. Without the hierarchy it has no greater or less power than moving water.

The stream in the forest is loud and in LA it is another beautiful sunset.

At least, for now, this hound is out of the city.

It’s Getting Dark.

Joey AM Cocciardi (b. 1986, PA) graduated with a BFA in 2008 from New York University, New York, NY and in 2012 with an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI.

Working with a collaged approach towards representation and process has allowed for a multifaceted studio practice. Building on traditional fresco with casting and printmaking techniques has allowed for the use of a much larger material range in the work. The making is centered around how material and process can interact with and inform content. The hand documents the many ways to labor through an anxiety. I hope to calm a fear by laboring through a sadness, like making a firework slow and quite, smooth and considerate.