Today we’d like to introduce you to Mary Hale.
Mary, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I’m a registered architect, and that’s usually how I describe myself. As soon as anyone probes any deeper, “Oh, so do you do commercial? Or residential?”… I start floundering a little… after finishing a Masters of Architecture at MIT, I spent years working on institutional projects in large firms. I love buildings… everything about them. But when I began my own practice, ROYHALE Design, I mostly pursued architectural work that isn’t as easy to classify. I create impermanent, transformational spaces that are not meant to be lived in. I feel most satisfied in the grey area of conceptual design, experimentation and then discovery through making. I’m deeply involved in the fabrication of my work.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
My work is at the intersection of architecture, set design and installation art. I especially love to create architecture that amplifies human subjectivity and movement, most evident in the moving, “breathing” low-pressure inflatable spaces I’ve designed and built. This area of artistic investigation began while I was an architecture student. I took an elective art class in Body Wear, and for my final project created a wearable personal blimp prototype called The Monumental Helium Inflatable Wearable Floating Body Mass. Later I was commissioned by the New Orleans Chapter of the American Institute of Architects to create Itinerant Home, a wearable inflatable house for eight people. Both installations symbolically used iconic form that would be distorted through the amplification of the untrained, spontaneous movement of the wearers.
Recently, my investigation into immersive spatial experiences and movement has taken on a new dimension through interdisciplinary collaborations with talented artists trained in dance, choreography, video and sound. Thus, I’m interested both in how the architecture’s movement can be spontaneously choreographed by untrained users; and how trained movement artists can extend their reach through interaction with moveable architecture. The result is pretty awe inspiring either way. I think there’s a lot of potential to create a focal point for important human issues simply by capturing and amplifying their movement at the scale of architecture. I have projects on the books, but more in my imagination that I hope I’ll be able to bring out into the world someday.
What do you think it takes to be successful as an artist?
I seek complete intellectual immersion in an unfettered and thoroughly authentic design process. When I bring work into the world, I’d define success as finding people sparked by the same awe and satisfaction that I feel when they encounter the work. When someone walks into one of my projects and has an obvious emotional response (like spontaneously bursting into song), that’s just the best. I think my work can be unsettling to some, but just knowing that one other person finds it inspiring is all the validation I need… as an architect, I am creating work for others to occupy, so the participant response is important to me. Of course, the failures are important too because that’s where I really learn.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
You can see some of my work online at www.royhaledesign.org, and I am going to start publishing events and exhibitions through the blog there. I have a studio at Artisan’s Asylum in Somerville where I’m happy to meet people and talk with them. I have a new Instagram feed @royhaledesign where I’ll post progress, information and events!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.royhaledesign.com
- Email: mary@royhaledesign.com
- Instagram: @royhaledesign
- Twitter: @maryhalemary
Image Credit:
BODYMASS_01.jpg, BODYMASS_03.jpg, BODYMASS_03,.jpg: The Monumental Helium Inflatable Wearable Floating Body Mass. Photo credits: Biyeun M. Buczyk.
ITINERANTHOME-01.JPG, ITINERANTHOME-02.JPG: Itinerant Home. Photo credit: Mary Hale
DLNOIWW_PERFORMANCE.jpg: Dance Like No One is Whale Watching: Dancer, Emily Beattie; Projection, Cari Ann Shim Sham*; Inflatable Performance Space: Mary Hale. https://www.dancelikenooneiswhalewatching.com/
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