https://harwoodmuseum.org/exhibition/debbie-long-light-ships/
Light Ships
March 19- October 9, 2022
Solo Exhibition
August 4-October 7, 2018
Harnessing Light
Curated by J Matthew Thomas
Bullet Cities (Detail) 2005-2007, 240 x 120 x 4 inches, Cast Glass
Bullet Cities, 2005-2007 is a 10 x 20 foot wall of lavender glass bullet casings that changes with the shifting light of day. The bullet casings were found and cast in the New Mexico desert over a 3 year period.
April 27 - June 22, 2018
Taos 1960's-Present
Vivian Horan Fine Art
35 East 67th Street, New York, NY
Vivian Horan Fine Art is pleased to present “Taos: 1960’s – Present,” opening April 27 through June 22. The exhibition includes a selection of work by artists who have continued the creative legacy of Taos from its early beginnings as an artist’s colony to the thriving artists’ community of today. “Taos: 1960’s – Present,” includes works by the late luminaries Agnes Martin, Ken Price, and Dennis Hopper, and 1960’s Southern Californian artists – Larry Bell, Price, and Ronald Davis – who brought the concerns of the mid-century Los Angeles art scene to Taos, and became pivotal influences for generations of artists working there. The contemporary artists in Taos give material form to their natural surroundings, and to their experiences living in an artists’ colony where art and life are inextricably intertwined.
June 4- July 16, 2016
Naima Trailer
Chimento Contemporary Downtown Los Angeles, CA
Artist talk with Larry Bell and Marc Fichou 4pm. Opening 5-8pm
Naima Trailer 2013, 9 x 18 x 7.5 feet, Trailer, Plywood, Light, Glass
November 30, 2015
Art + Tea, A monthly podcast of conversations with Artists, talks with Debbie Long in her Studio in Taos, New Mexico.
Additional artists' conversations on the podcast include
Larry Bell, John De Puy, Agnes Chavez, and Rachel Preston Prinz.
December 22, 2014
Article by Lynne Robinson
Photo of Debbie Long in her Taos Studio by Bill Curry
Debbie Long is an artist who works with Light. You might be mistaken in thinking her medium is glass through no fault of your own; the cast glass objects she creates are in and of themselves exquisitely crafted sculptural pieces, but in actuality they are merely conduits for the light that Debbie manipulates into these otherworldly experiences that are the sum total of her work.
Debbie was Ken Price’s studio assistant for many years and that long apprenticeship has paid off in spades. Although Debbie is certainly linked to Price’s creative lineage which includes artists Larry Bell and Ron Cooper among a few others, her work defies simplistic definition, nor can it really be compared to the aforementioned artists except in terms of their exploration of light.
This is art made from dreams. Dreams, but also dedication, discipline and hard work. A poetic inner vision made crystalline and manifest. Deep water and deep space converge here in these installations with their alien yet inexplicably familiar forms that capture, refract and reflect the light Debbie bends and shapes.
Light as we know, travels in the form of a wave – white light contains every colour in the visible spectrum – and with these pieces Debbie has somehow conjured a way to capture these waves as they travel faster than our eyes can see, to confine them in these fragile vessels that will contain them for as long as they remain unbroken.
Her Naima piece, a chamber of amethyst light inside a rusty old trailer, where hundreds of handmade cast glass objects collect light from the sun, transforming the interior as the fiery orb moves across the sky, was built for High Desert Test Sites 2013, an exhibition curated by David Hickey, Andrea Zittel, Libby Lumpkin and Aurora Tang, where the artist’s projects were sited in the desert along the I – 40 from Los Angeles to Albuquerque. The NaimaTrailer was sited in the Mojave Desert near Joshua Tree.
Debbie describes her work as a slow read, an apt analogy. Whilst visiting her huge new studio last week, where Naima is installed, I sat for a while inside another light chamber she has built into the underneath of her sleeping loft. Amber light shifted and became golden, then deeper shades of tortoiseshell as I relaxed, looked up, felt washed by waves of warmth flowing inward from without – or was it the other way around? In that tight space that could have just as easily felt utterly claustrophobic, I experienced a moment of transcendence beyond colour, beyond verbal description. It was as if a deep thirst had been quenched.
I came out of the little enclosed cubicle into the large, open room she works in. An assortment of amethyst glass objects were grouped on a table along one wall. They glowed with such intensity after the gentle golden light I’d just been bathed in, it was difficult to look at them for too long.
I crossed the room and stared out of a high window watching a few birds gather on the bare branches of a tree. I glanced down at the big table that serves as her desk, covered with papers, sketches, books and other bits and pieces of a meaningful life in progress and noticed a torn scrap of lined paper peeking out of a pile. I had to walk around the table to read what was written on it.
“What makes the desert beautiful,” says the little prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well.” (From The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
Lynne Robinson December 22, 2014
September 2014
Naima Trailer
Paseo Project Taos, New Mexico
Naima Trailer 2013, 9 x 18 x 7.5 feet, Trailer, Plywood, Light, Glass.
February 22 - May 4, 2014
Art for a Silent Planet: Blaustein, Elder, and Long
Harwood Museum of Art Taos, New Mexico
Yellow Light Box, 88 x 48 x 43 inches, Light, Glass, Plywood
November, 2013
Naima Trailer Featured in Artillery Magazine's coverage of High Desert Test Sites
Naima 2013
9 X 18 X 7.5 feet.
Trailer, Plywood, Light, Glass.
November, 2013
BBC Culture coverage of Art Studio America, a new book about American Artists in their studios, article by Rebecca Laurence
With Debbie Long, Marina Abramovic, Glen Ligon, Chuck Close, Jeff Koons, Alex Katz, John Giorno, Bill Viola, and Laurie Simmons.
Photo of Debbie Long in her New Mexico Studio by Robin Friend
October 14, 2013
Naima Trailer featured in LA Weekly coverage of High Desert Test Sites 2013
"If You've Ever Wanted to Take a Road Trip Through the Desert, Do It This Week. Article by Marissa Gluck
Naima Trailer, 9 x 18 x 7.5 feet, Trailer, Plywood, Light, Glass
Photo Tina Larkin
October 12-19, 2013
Naima is a chamber of purple glass and light hidden inside a rusted trailer. Naima was selected by Dave Hickey, Libby Lumpkin, Andrea Zittel and Aurora Tang for High Desert Test Sites 2013, where artists' projects will be sited in the desert along the I-40 from Los Angeles, CA. to Albuquerque, NM.
Naima will be sited on a dry lake bed in the Mojave desert near Joshua Tree, CA.
Naima Trailer 2013, 9 x 18 x 7.5 feet, Trailer, Plywood, Light, Glass
We arrived in the Mojave with the Naima trailer after a long drive through the desert between New Mexico and California. Our site for Naima and High Desert Test Sites was a sprawling dry lakebed surrounded by a ring of low hills. We drove around the lakebed all afternoon searching for the perfect spot for Naima, unhitched the trailer, and camped for the night. We were in the most spare and wild desert spot. The sky was a huge bowl covering the lakebed. At night I was surprised by shooting stars.
The next day we were hit by a dust and windstorm that lasted two days. We camped in the desert, dust filling the air and all our gear. At night it was cold and gritty. We started to install Naima with the wind rocking the trailer. We stacked the 150 cardboard boxes filled with glass for Naima inside a tent. The wind finally stopped and I settled in to being out in the elements. We camped out for a week installing Naima.
It's amazing how much more you notice the sky and the light and the cycles of day and night camping out in the desert. I forget or ignore them in the city. I got to see over and over how dramatically the light inside Naima changed at different times of day - sunset, high noon, and even at night under moonlight, which was a surprise. Thank you to all the intrepid people who braved the desert roads and waited in the hot desert sun to see Naima at High Desert Test Sites.
August 13, 2013
The Naima Trailer featured on Kickstarter's "Projects We Love" with Marina Abramovic and Goeyvarets String Trio.
A big thank you to Kickstarter for including me in their "Projects We Love" newsletter this week. It features 3 projects. Marina Abramovic's campaign to create the Marina Abramovic Institute, a place she passionately describes as a laboratory for humanity where art, science, and technology meet. Her description includes a moving statement about the value and power of taking risks. The Belgian Goeyvaerts String Trio and Vox Luminis Vocalists' campaign to record their otherworldly and moving music, a video that put my heart in my throat. And my project, Naima: Light in the Desert.
Thank you again to everyone who has donated to the Naima Trailer Project so far.
The Naima Project will be on Kickstarter from August 9-September 8, 2013.
March 23- April 27, 2013
Tow Package
Mark Moore Gallery Project Space Los Angeles, CA
May 24 - June 15, 2008
Forest
Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM.
CCA Press Release
Forest, a new installation by Debbie Long at the Center for Contemporary Arts' Spector Ripps Project Space, is a forest of freestanding cast-wax trees made from stacks of massive tree stumps, car parts, and other detritus the artist finds near her home in northern New Mexico. Part of the installation Forest will be created on site at CCA.
Tree Stump Trees, Wax, 92 X 32 X 33 inches (largest)
October 14-November 8, 2008
Migrate Curated by Sabra Moore
Gallery OneTwentyEight
128 Rivington Street, New York, NY
Galley OneTwentyEight, opened in 1986, is the longest running gallery in the Lower East Side. Artist Kazuko Miyamoto is the gallery owner and director.
With Sabra Moore, Howardina Pindell, Kazuko Miyamoto, Linda Peer, Joy Walker, Janet Goldner, Iren Schio, Susanne Vilmain, Isabella Gonzales
In conjunction with Migrate Sabra Moore will read from her book "ON THE MOVE: A MEMOIR OF THE WOMEN'S ART MOVEMENT IN NEW YORK CITY, 1970-1990" at the Brooklyn Museum Sackler Center October 11, 2008
Tow Package (Detail), Glass (Unique Cast Glass Objects including Doge Ram, Cadillac, Ford, Chevy, Lincoln Hood Ornaments and Abstract Elements) 59 x 5 x 69 inches
September 18-October 25, 2009
LAND/ART New Mexico
Sculpture as Analogy to Landscape
Curated by Steve Barry
LAND/ART is a collaborative exploration of land-based art in New Mexico, exploring relationships of land, art, and community through exhibitions, site-specific art works, lectures, performances, and a culminating book.
LAND/ART New Mexico Radius Books, Santa Fe, NM 2009
Tree Stump Trees, Wax, 92 x 32 x 33 inches (largest)
March 18- April 25, 2008
Crossed Country Curated by Hannah Cole and Lynne Cooney
Boston University School of Visual Arts Sherman Gallery, Boston, MA
Panel Talk “End of the Road” featuring participating artists and current SVA MFA students, April 16, Sherman Gallery
Bullet Cities 2007
240 x 120 x 4 inches
Cast Glass
(Bullet Casings found in the New Mexico desert over a 3 year period)
October 27, 2007
NM 10
Cinemaland Chinatown, Los Angeles, CA.
Bullet Cities, 240 x 120 x 4 inches, Cast Glass
Bullet Cities, 2005-2007 is a 10 x 20 foot wall of lavender glass bullet casings that changes with the shifting light of day. The bullet casings were found and cast in the New Mexico desert over a 3 year period.