CHICKEN SCRATCH: HONEST WORK was a group exhibition featuring the work of: Braden Belew, Victoria Cairns, Miles Callahan, and Diane Sung.

Labor is the main unifier in their work. It is evident in the work’s narrative, the laborers, or the individual stages of labor and process. Modularity, shorthand, note taking, tinkering, iterative making, etc. are other related ideas that are also present in the work of the exhibition. 

Labor on a larger scale carries greater implications like displacement of other beings due to human labor, kinds of labor, and positive/negative consequences of labor. 

The middle of America, our beloved region of the country because of the down-to-earth people and the ease of access to lush green landscapes. Mid-America is home to cow-towns named rightfully because of the importance of cattle farming on the surrounding economies. One of the memeable epitomes of honest work is farming. It is widely seen as being just as much a way of life as it is an occupation. It is one that is honest, humble and close to the natural world. 

The artists in Chicken Scratch: Honest Work see farming in the contexts of production and connection to the environment rather than with the more common political lens. Shorthand and notetaking is a valuable concept pertaining to this exhibition; many of the objects arise out of iterations and abbreviations that evoke something narratively or provide a basis for tinkering with parts that lead to wholes. 

The idea of iteration and abbreviating indicates a continuous growing towards and learning from: two ideas that are at the core of the exhibition. Combine these with other pillars–labor and language– and what is generated is the idea of production and the innate human drive to just keep at it. 

The exhibition’s notebook drawings, prints and plans speak to that idea of notetaking, brevity and represent on an intimate scale where language and image meet in one setting. The sculptural and wall work hold dear the same ideas, but not without more exploration into material, process and production.