Swell Series (2020)

Artist Statement

The Swell Series, conceived during a summer of lake swimming, draws on Lake Michigan’s dynamic personality. Each piece in this body of work is composed from a single board of Douglas fir which has been hand-selected for its particular rhythmic grain. Like small ripples carried by larger swells, wood grain rises and falls on curved forms that contain at once calm and restless energies. Whole unto itself while in playful tension with the wall on which it hangs, each piece is a canvas for the diverse patterns found in a single species of timber. Together, these works reference the joyful instability of a body cutting through an expanse of open water, away from the familiarity of dry land.

Phoebe’s work is constructed from solid wood that has been carefully cut into pieces, beveled by hand, and reassembled into curves which are then smoothed with keenly honed hand planes. The work is placed in active dialog with its site, alternately hugging and pulling away from the wall—departing from the fine furniture tradition in which she was trained, where work is often made independent of the context in which it will eventually be placed. In her art practice as in life, Phoebe manipulates gathered material with care, toward ends of her own design, in the ongoing project of crafting a coherent gesture from disparate parts.
Lake images courtesy of Min Li Chan.

For inquiries, please contact:
FLXST Contemporary
Chicago, IL
info@flxst.co
773-800-1470

Swell I

Vertical grain Douglas fir. 23 x 15 x 3 inches.

In July of 2020 I began swimming in Lake Michigan after a friend learned of my longtime dream to swim in open water and offered to take me with her. The first outing led to many more; though we visited the same beach, each time we met a different lake.

I was preparing for my first two-person show during a very strange and troubling year. It was hard to focus, or to imagine the future. In the lake, I felt my mind release its anxious grip and my body give itself over to the task of swimming. Many troubles awaited me on shore—but for that half hour, it was just us and the lake.

I didn’t set out to capture the lake swims in my work, but this plank of Douglas fir found me at the lumberyard. Tightly grained with an unusual shimmering figure, it reminds me of cutting through glassy water on a gentle day at the lake. I think Swell I captures a bit of that feeling.

Swim no. 35
Air: 48F ◦ Water: 58F
10/16/2020

Swell II (The Belt of Venus)

Vertical grain Douglas fir. 32 x 20 x 3 inches.

In a year of otherwise sheltering indoors, lake swimming made me newly aware of my environment. I began to study wind and weather forecasts, surf reports, lake charts. I learned why the eastern sky over Lake Michigan turns pink in the evening: a special version of alpenglow—when mountain peaks go rosy shortly after sunset—the Belt of Venus is this same red sunlight backscattered by particulates in the atmosphere.

As the sun set earlier and earlier—from 8:30pm in July to 4:20pm in December—I came to love finishing my swim under a pink sky. As the water and air grew colder, the Belt of Venus, which is brightest in the winter, grew ever more striking.

Like the rest of this series, Swell II began with a single plank of vertical grain Douglas fir that I rearranged, coopered, and smoothed with hand planes, all in my apartment studio. The horizontal form highlights the plank’s long rippling grain lines and its pink heartwood, which will darken with time.

Swim no. 50
Air: 54F ◦ Water: 40F
12/11/2020

Swell III

Vertical grain Douglas fir. 21 x 20 x 3 inches.

From July to December 2020, I swam through flat days when I could hear my exhaled bubbles scrape past my ears, and choppy days when I timed every breath lest I catch a mouthful of lake. I swam during daylight, at dusk, and in the dark; on sunny days and grey days. I sometimes swam alone but I mostly swam with a friend.

Swimming parallel to shore on wilder days, the swells would roll beachward under us, lifting and dropping us as they passed. I would surface for air and see my friend flying high on the crest of a swell. And with my next breath, she would be below me in the trough. Even today the memory still makes me laugh. Swell III is about the imperfect symmetry of swimming in good company.

Swim no. 36
Air: 43F ◦ Water: 57F
10/18/20