The University Art Gallery presents Baggs McKelvey’s Indigo Hallow, a site-specific installation in the UAG inspired by Shakerag Hollow, an ecologically significant area on the domain of the University of the South.
Maps and aerial photographs of the area, and—in the words of the artist—“the contours of the trail, the rushing of the creek, the steep incline of the ridge barring the sun’s full entrance, …the sounds of the birds,” were McKelvey’s starting points.
In all of her installations, McKelvey explores her relationship with the land and the environment. Indigo Hallow is not a portrait of Shakerag Hollow, but an intuitive and poetic response to that place. Visitors are invited to share in McKelvey’s response, and also to consider the meanings and implications of materials, of process, and of the act of representation itself.
The immersive environment of the installation is rendered in a ubiquitous, mass-produced, and powerfully allusive material—denim from discarded used jeans, crowd-sourced from friends, family, and through social media.
Cutting, knotting, and spinning the denim rope onto electrical wire spools was a communal project undertaken with friends and family, and the installation was made possible by the assistance of Cumberland Scholar high school student volunteers from Saint Andrew’s Sewanee-School. The denim will be respooled at the close of the exhibition, to be used again.
Baggs McKelvey lived and worked in Alaska for many years before returning to her childhood roots in the Southeast in 2012. Her recent solo exhibitions of the Indigo series include Houston Indigo at the Houston Contemporary Craft Center in Houston, Texas (2024), Beyond Indigo at the Gadsden Museum of Art in Gadsden, Alabama (2024), and Indigo at the Hunter Museum of Art in Chattanooga, Tennessee (2020-22). McKelvey earned an MFA from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. She now lives in Chattanooga, TN, and teaches at Chattanooga State.
Dr. Jon Evans, Dr. Grady Wells, and Dr. John Willis all provided invaluable assistance with the research for this installation, and the University Lectures Committee, SIPE, Religious Studies, Humanities, and Art, Art History and Visual Studies lent indispensable support. Thank you!
