Jenny Holzer pencils. Purchased at MASS MoCA 2/29/2008.

A few weeks ago, I took a hand dyeing class at Mind’s Eye Yarns in Porter Square. Hand dyeing yarn, besides completely awesome, is… involved. At least with washfast acid dyes it is. I’m not really familiar with kool-aid dyeing or jacquered dyes.

They’re dyes so you have to wear gloves, cover every surface that you don’t want Pollocked in newsprint and plastic wrap. They’re toxic so you need to wear a dust mask and have a whole set of different dyeing accoutrement (pots, kettle, tongs, steaming trays) that can’t get mixed up with regular kitchen stuff that you want to eat out of without killing major brain cells.

This hasn’t stopped me from thinking about it obsessively and setting up my own hand dyeing studio in my mind. I took the first step last week by placing an order with Pro Chem & Dye. In addition to the Winter Holiday 6 Dye Sampler (which comes with citric acid crystals and small bottle of Synthrapol), I also ordered a swatch of all the Washfast acid dyes they carry to help get me thinking about color stories for yarn once I get all of the necessary dye stuff together.

Last week I drove to North Adams, MA (the furtherest northwestern corner of Massachusetts for those unfamiliar with our great state) for work. My job usually entails a whole lotta sitting in a messy cubicle, writing IRB amendments, reconciling grant financials. So getting paid to drive 3+ hours, set up recording equipment and tent cards for a focus group and stay in a posh hotel room with a fireplace was an incredibly welcome change. As a bonus, I was invited to take Friday off to enjoy the Berkshires.

North Adams is also the home of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA). Awesome. MASS MoCA is currently exhibiting Jenny Holzer’s Projections (through Fall 2008) and a very large collection of Spencer Finch’s work entitled “What Time is it on the Sun?” (through Spring 2008). Doubly awesome. Honestly, I know very little about fine art. I do know that both of these exhibits are top notch.

Projections… what can I say? She’s fucking Jenny Holzer! This is her first interior light projection installation in the US. And it’s a doozy. Luckily there’s a video of the installation and a webcam broadcasting live when the museum is open. I have to say, it’s a poor replacement for seeing it in person. I also scored a few of her “truisms” pencils, which I’ll post pictures of when I get home.

Then there was Spencer Finch exhibit, including a few installations created specifically for MASS MoCA. It blew. my. fucking. mind. Finch’s work deals heavily with color, memory, perception, and the passage of time. My favorites were Trying to Remember the Color of Jackie Kennedy’s Pillbox Hat (1994), 102 Colors from My Dreams, Night Sky (Over the Painted Desert, Arizona, January 11, 2004) (2004), CIE 529/418 (CANDLELIGHT) (2007), West (Sunset in my motel room, Monument Valley, February 26, 2007, 5:36 - 6:06 pm) (2007) and Abecedary (Nabokov’s Theory of a colored Alphabet applied to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle) (2004).

The only problem with seeing such a amazing exhibit is that I couldn’t take every piece home with me. But then it turned out I could because MASS MoCA was selling a beautifully put-together monograph of the whole show.