Becky Kolsrud "Road to Rondo" @ Tif's desk at Thomas Solomon Gallery

When gallery space is hard to come by and there are a lot artists that want to show, Tif Sigfrids, the director at Thomas Solomon Gallery in Los Angeles, California, has come up with an interesting idea. Why not make the work desk the exhibition space? During the summer, Tif has been doing a number of projects where her desk and the walls around her desk become a gallery within a gallery. This month Tif invited Becky Kolsrud, a recent MFA graduate from UCLA, to do a project entitled "Road to Rondo," to show works based on a short story written by Frederick Barthelme.

Ann is pretty, divorced, a product model who didn’t go far because of her skin, which is very fair and freckled. After lunch, she comes into my recently redecorated office- the company has done both of its floors in charcoal carpet, ribbed wallcovering, chipboard-gray upholstery, and gunmetal Levolors; the windows were already tinted. “I feel like I’m inside a felt hat,” she says, waving a manila folder to indicate the room. “Your socks don’t match, Henry.” She points to my feet, which are balanced on the taupe Selectric II, then holds the folder out at arm’s length. “The arrangements. You want to check me?”

The arrangements are for a regional sales meeting we’ve scheduled for the Broadwater Beach Hotel, in Biloxi; with the meeting still two weeks off, the preparations are complete. We picked Biloxi because of the beach, the Gulf, the rest of that; Ann did most of the work.

“What I really need is a new game.”

She tosses the folder on my desk and stands by the window, smoothing her salmon-colored skirt with both hands. “What happened to the ant farm?”

“Died. The ants ate parts of each other. The parts they didn’t eat they carried around- it wasn’t fun.”

“She swings one of the gray Italian visitor’s chairs around to face the window. “People don’t have ant farms anymore anyway.”

“I put it in the closet.”

She nods, then puts her handbag on the corner of my desk and sits in the chair. “We should get a radio.”

-Frederick Barthelme


Becky Kolsrud lives and works in Los Angeles, California. She received a B.S. degree from New York University in 2006 and her M.F.A. from UCLA in 2012. She is represented by JTT Gallery in New York, NY where she will have her first solo show in fall of 2012. 

Thomas Solomon Gallery
427 Bernard Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012
323-275-1687
info@thomassolomongallery.com
www.thomassolomongallery.com
Exhibition hours: Wednesday through Saturday from Noon until 6pm.