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the middle of the end . Maccabee Shelley. April 19 - May 24, 2025. Debut Solo Exhibition.

Opening Reception: Saturday, April 19, 6pm - 9pm.

4478 W Adams Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90016.

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headspace

“we should talk more”

Now that I'm looking at it thinking of calling it "we should talk more”

“Been thinking about the kind of headspace of talking on the phone, on a landline. Like absent minded but also totally present in that conversation

Oh, I immediately remember that hovering state of mind, a sort of suspended time—

Yeah! Sitting there on your bed twirling the phone cord in your finger…

Hah! I mean, I didn’t do that—and these are cordless—but I definitely get the headspace thing,”

or, the different language of that space/time: of the way phases of objects and technologies generate specific kinds of irreplaceable (but reproduceable?) relations, pleasures, desires. That’s what disappears or sublimates into obsolescence, that way of talking. Those speeds or paces of connection or communication. And they might not even evolve (like a technology itself), they might just be replaced, substituted, subtracted, exchanged, transacted-on. And all for the sake of faster, faster, fastest?—everyone’s always saying at the prime rate of the market. Instant items.

But not talking…. There’s a necessary lag there, an unavoidable waste of time. A functional forgetting.

I'll keep you posted and stay in touch. For the show I’m feeling “the middle of the end”

For the microphone piece you already have. What do you think about the title cross-talk

Crosstalk

I keep forgetting my phone when I go to the studio which is actually great but I'm a little ahead of my photos now.

I'm trying to ignore the urge to set up the space too much and just fill needs as I come to them.

Thinking about multiples and contextualizing them with each other and some kin/d/g of buffer with the space

Thinking about how I can make different changes at different stages of the process. Happy about the cross section.

Loving all of this. Definitely interested in hearing how working with different stages of the process is going (seems like an important exploration route in general). And sorry for the lag we've been stuck in the trenches….

Happy New Year!

Thank you. Unbelievable what’s going on down there. We can catch up when things settle down. Things are good here if anyone needs to get out of LA

Hey hey! Absolutely love the way this one came out. It would be great to catch-up this weekend—how is Sunday afternoon for you? Any time after 4 on Sunday works for us if you're available

The fires took over. And with all the political chaos on the menu it's a bleary slew of feelings.

Hope you're doing alright up there!

(Seeing the objects in the molds really creates some strange sense of time)

I usually just do old fashioned but it might be fun to do a video chat here to show you some new stuff.

5ish Sunday sounds good.

Woah! I think it really hits me when moving between the more translucent and the opaque color like this—very different emotions and memories are triggered depending on it being solid-looking or not.

Thanks! I had a really "illuminating" experience with this one. Under fluorescent lighting all I saw was surface but later I looked at with no lights except a high window and the clear part was glowing. The contrast read beautifully.

Also interesting because there’s a tension between the trace of the form (the actual shape of the calculator) and the pattern of the material itself. So there’s a double if not triple awareness of material and object (and context).

Hoping to get this off craigslist free. The text from the post would be a great title

Been having some fun

Web cams for the eyes. My roommate’s nose (alginate mold), clay mustache and a computer speaker mouth

“The idea of security” The shape of a thing and the guts of a thing. What makes the thing the thing? Use or function? Around and around like a game of telephone until it reaches the end of the line and the screen dims and the theater lights fade on lifting the suspension of disbelief and again you find yourself alone and thinking about how we should all talk more. So check the ground beneath your feet. Is it safe? Up to code?

The lifesaver is made of glass and it might break or it might sink.

Hope I can pull it off

Will definitely be something no matter what: as a finished result, a ‘failed’ achievement, or just an experiment

Thanks! I'm definitely of that mind. That the work is the result of my actions and I have to take it at face value too. I want to get my thoughts a little more documented and go through it all with you. For me to get it out

Woah that looks amazing! All of the bits and color in it. Can't wait to see it in person 😍

The cassette is depression pink, post-consumer, and vintage uranium glass with found electronics

Hey, want to set some time this weekend to talk about the press release?

This was the one that failed in the kiln I was showing you. Sorry to text late. It just got so weird especially the nose.

Like you said the nose is especially wonky (but in a great way). It is also strangely stoic; to me, it looks super proud despite the disintegration, like a captain solemnly going down with his ship lol

Morning. I emailed you (even) more notes just now. Just got into an idea I've been kicking around. Hope it's not too dark or crazy lol. I've been a studio rat and am really looking forward to coming down and being part of the community, seeing art, and eating everything

Definitely not too dark or crazy, if anything it's just the right amount of honesty with yourself hah. And what you're thinking seems evident in the works even if I weren't reading or listening to your thoughts. So far all the works follow a similar movement along their own dis/identifications with themselves: they were something, maybe even more than one thing, and now they've arrived at what's not-them. But the 'not-me' and 'not-them' that makes it possible to be themselves to begin with, and also to not be themselves by the end (of their transformation, their lifespan). It’s more ‘Me,’ ‘I,’ and you that makes them, them. So to me what you're thinking is right-on in terms of recognizing and wielding this movement between these polarities that aren't really poles or dualities but multiplicities and spectrums. It's right there in the "middle of the end" place. Sounds like the works and the weight of their message are all falling into place together. That vertigo. That point where a work isn't even recognizable to ‘the artist’ as something 'they' made anymore—it’s more like the work just happened. Like some wu wei….

The forms and materials and ideas began subtractively, filtering out "noise" seeking "information" like tuning an analog radio or television. Tracking a VCR. Later it became additive, altering and comb/in/ing objects, images, experiences. Like finding a familiar tune. This shift marks the transition to the not-me. As the dialog with studio and process developed rapport and eloquence, I found myself in more of an observer/supporter role.

Lingerers: a sense of humor that’s also a sense of loss and despair. But only as much as the connections to other people that these objects use/d/ to hold. The (melancholic) precariousness, fragility, and vulnerability of objects, technologies, systems—and the impossibility of any industry keeping-pace with its own rates of production, its own languages and populations.

Anyway, looking forward to setting the stage—everything is coming along in its own way and I'm happy to see all the thoughts you're sharing summon what we've been experiencing with the work.

Everything is in the truck. Fingers crossed I don't arrive with more pieces than I left with :)

There’s a weird back-and-forth I go through where at one point I’m recognizing/remembering the object and then completely forgetting where I am once I’m lost in the coevals of the insides and outsides. It feels like I’m (at least) two places at once, which makes sense because I’m lured toward some kind of nostalgia in the same instant as I feel completely alienated, and pretty sad despite the initial sense of humor the work brings near me. “Laugh and cry, laugh and cry, what’s the difference?” kind-of-a-thing. An alienation from commodity fetishism?

It’s amazing how lucid these are at their breaking point. (Drunk with clarity, or something like that.)

Thanks it's nice not just having this experience in a total silo. Let me know when the press release is ready. I'm excited. Also been thinking more about the night stand idea for We should talk more and End of the line. Looking back I did a night stand (milk crate) in my thesis. Would be kinda neat to update that to a real one. Speaks to where I'm at a bit and thus what I brought to the show.*

(All of my poems are written in sand)

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Born in Los Angeles, Maccabee Shelley studied environmental and Earth sciences before earning degrees in studio art and ceramics. Intrigued by the perception and projection of value and obsolescence, Maccabee translates refuse through various materials and processes exploring the space between object, image, and experience.

Works by Maccabee have recently been exhibited in: spleen iiiii (Reisig and Taylor Contemporary: Los Angeles, California); Junque Show (Morris Graves Museum of Art, Eureka, California); Power of Ten (Steve Turner: Los Angeles, California); as well as numerous other group shows and projects in Los Angeles and Northern California (where he currently lives and works).

{Biographical information courtesy of the artist.}

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* “I had the thought that this whole 'middle of the end’ might sound like a mid-life crisis kind of a thing, so I just want to be on record as the first one to say I’m aware of that haha.”