Associated Press
April 4 2004

Center displays works inspired by obsession and compulsion

By HELENA PAYNE
Associated Press Writer

BOSTON- A Boston artist has dedicated a museum exhibit to the type of
behavior that causes some to separate their M&Ms into colors, pop
bubble wrap until there is no more plastic to crush and focus all
their attention on the most minute detail out of pure obsession.

The exhibit at the Boston Center for the Arts is called “OCD,” as in
obsessive compulsive disorder. Curator Matthew Nash said it’s not
about an illness, but how the creative process can be driven by a
series of obsessions and compulsions.

“You should see my studio,” said Nash, who has shown his art in
Boston, Chicago, New York and Italy.

He is one of the people who separates his Skittles, M&Ms and Reese’s
Pieces into separate containers for each color. He used the latter
two sugary goods to create his art for the OCD exhibit, which lasts
through May 9 and features artists from New York, Pennsylvania,
Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Using the Halloween-like colors in the candies, Nash made a grid that
forms the images of soldiers, planes and other war-related pictures.

“The obsession of this is having bins and bins of M&Ms and hoping
when you’re done it looks like something,” Nash said.

Nancy Havlick has bins with objects separated by color, but they’re
filled with sugar eggs. In an attempt to fuse her multicultural roots
– English and Armenian – with her American upbringing, she decided to
start her own tradition.

With the sugar eggs, Havlick creates “rugs.” Make no mistake, they
aren’t to walk on.

The eggs are colored with a mixture of spices and foods often used in
Armenia, including mahleb, sumac, almonds, apricots, paprika and
rosebuds. She organizes them in decorative patterns on the floor.

“I’m deciding my own tradition. Rather than looking backwards, I’m
forging ahead,” Havlick said, laying one of the eggs in its position.

Havlick said she didn’t recognize her obsession with making sugar
eggs until she realized she has been doing it for a decade. But she
has also realized another fixation: carving out an identity from her
multiethnic past.

In her parents’ generation, Havlick said, it was much more common to
assimilate to the American culture rather than celebrate differences.

“My mother wasn’t cooking Armenian food. We were having hot dogs and
hamburgers,” she said.

The sugar eggs have become her own way of bridging the past to the
future and “to control the chaotic feelings” of life, she said.

And for her two children, the sugar egg tradition is working. Her
9-month-old son Jonathan’s first words were “momma,” “sugar” and
“eggs.”

Many of the exhibitors wanted their art to express something about
both the creation process and the result.

New York artist Jason Dean wanted to conquer bubble wrap after
working for an animation company where he did a lot of packing.

So he decided to make it an art project and see how much time it
would take for him to pop the largest roll of bubble wrap he could
find: 110 feet by 4 feet. It took about six hours.

That roll and other smaller ones are mounted on a wall of the exhibit
like paper towels above a kitchen sink. There is also a video that
features Dean’s “popping spree.”

“I kept thinking that they were a lot louder,” he said. “It just
sounded like fireworks and I kept thinking that someone is going to
question this odd sound.”

Joseph Trupia, another New York artist, used office supplies to make
drawings called “What I can do in 40 hours” and “What I can do in 8
hours.”

Another work in the OCD exhibit shows 600 photographs of rear ends.

“It was kind of a silly thing to do at first and it became a document
of the process of looking,” said Boston artist Luke Walker of his
gluteus photography.

Norfolk, Va., artist Jennifer Schmidt became fascinated with the
repetition of filling in ovals on test score sheets.

“The idea of the artwork showing evidence of repeated activity is
something we see in a lot of different forms,” said Martha Buskirk, a
fellow at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in
Williamstown, Mass., and author of “The Contingent Object of
Contemporary Art.”

The clinical disorder is even more consuming, said Diane Davey, a
registered nurse and program director of the OCD Institute at McLean
Hospital in Belmont.

“Obsessive compulsive disorder is really defined as someone who has
unwanted or disturbing intrusive thoughts and who engages in a set of
behaviors that are meant to sort of neutralize the thought and help
them to feel less anxious,” Davey said.

Davey said an exhibit like “OCD” might help someone to question his
or her own behavior and seek help if necessary.