By Charlene Giannetti

“You may already be a winner,” proclaims the aluminum foil sculpture on a wall in the Yancey Richardson Gallery in Chelsea, echoing a common spam message that seems unavoidable on the Internet. We immediately connect with the artist, Rachel Perry Welty, as she draws attention to the flotsam and jetsam of our daily lives, the everyday bits and pieces—yes, even annoyances—that she somehow manages to refashion into art. Welty’s work (including a video, pictured above) is now being exhibited at the Yancey Richardson Gallery in Chelsea.

Welty is a late bloomer, going back to art school at the age of thirty-six after years in the workplace and in the kitchen where she couldn’t avoid many of the household objects (Styrofoam, bread bag tags, fruit stickers and strings) she now uses in her creations. “I’m just the kind of person who notices the things that other people don’t,” she explained. “This is my life. I’m a mother, a wife and I’m in the kitchen a lot, the heart or the center of the house. That sounds so corny, but I spent a lot of time in the kitchen and naturally gravitated towards the materials that were around me. “

The world may be going “green,” but Welty said her work is not about recycling. “It’s the small moments that form the ballast of our lives,” she said. “Most of our lives are not these high-highs and low-lows. Most people are just involved in the business of living. And I’m interested in that.”

Welty majored in English literature and minored in French at Connecticut College before working as an art director for an advertising agency. “Being an art director was all about ideas, coming up with a brilliant concept,” she said. “I loved that part of it.”

Welty’s mother, Sarah Hollis Perry, also took a circuitous route to becoming an artist, attending the Boston Museum School of Art when she was fifty-six years old. The pivotal moment in Welty’s life came when she accompanied her mother to the review board meeting where a panel would critique her mother’s work. “I was blown away when I saw the work she was doing,” Welty said. She was also impressed with the comments made by the review panel, consisting of both Perry’s peers and instructors. “I didn’t know people talked about art that way.”

Following the meeting, Welty sat in her car, read the course catalog cover to cover, and decided to go to art school. The Boston Museum School of Art embraces older students; there are no requirements to take foundation courses. Welty said she took everything she could except for video.

Ironically, one of the highpoints of Welty’s current exhibit is her video where she lip-synchs messages that were recorded by mistake on her home answering machine. A great deal of practice went into getting the words and lip movements to match, as well as creating the appropriate facial expression. (See photo above). “The first message I got was a woman calling a priest to complain about the dust in the church that was making it impossible for the choir to practice,” she said. “She was so sure the message was getting to the priest. It was both funny and poignant. We all are a hair’s breath away from completely misunderstanding one another. We make these assumptions and have these expectations that the information we leave in places will get where it’s supposed to go”

Welty took familiar luxury shopping bags—Chanel, Prada, Hermes, Pink, Bloomingdale’s, Tiffany’s—and shrank them down into miniatures. “Because of what is happening in the economy now, we are seeing the power and allure of luxury brands as represented by these bags,” she said. “Even people who have the means don’t want to be seen walking around with those bags. They are feeling a sensitivity about conspicuous consumption.”

Visitors are invited to try their hand at fixing a puzzle about the World Trade Center in the center of the Yancey Richardson exhibit. Welty scrambled the pieces of a puzzle that featured the Twin Towers, photographed that new image, and created a new puzzle. “I was thinking about a community rebuilding effort and the impossibility of the rebuilding,” she said. “This was a poetic was of exploring that impossibility.”

She often collaborates with her mother, who uses handiwork skills associated with women’s work—weaving, knitting, and sewing. “She is knitting sweaters for trees out of surveyor’s tape and newspaper delivery bags,” she said. The two also are working together on a series of short videos.

Does Welty have regrets about starting her artistic career later in life? “I wasn’t ready [earlier],” she said.  “It wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have had the same things to say. I wouldn’t have had the same life experience.”

“You May Already Be a Winner”
Yancey Richardson Gallery
535 West 22nd Street
646-230-9610
www.yanceyrichardson.com

Woman Around Town’s Six Questions

Favorite place to eat:
Right now I’m kind of obsessed with the chef’s salad with smoked turkey, prosciutto, and avocado at Bottino in Chelsea. Their bread is amazing too.

Favorite place to shop:
MUJI at 255 Broadway

Favorite sight:
The sky line from The Promenade in Brooklyn Heights

Favorite New York Moment:
Probably has to be when I first moved to New York right after college. I was very poor and hated my job and felt like a foreigner, but my parents had given me a membership to the Museum of Modern Art. I would retreat there several times a week; it was my refuge in the city. I miss the old MoMA.

What you love about New York:
Walking, art, people-watching, the restaurants, the subway system, delivery, diversity, the smells

What you hate about New York:
The smells.