Charms & Charm Bracelets

Founded in 2001, Charm Bracelet is a collaborative project of Portland, Oregon artists Brad Adkins and Christopher Buckingham. more...

Blurring the lines between the roles of artist and audience, Charm Bracelet projects tend to be interdisciplinary in approach and often rely on the active participation of others. Adkins and Buckingham's first project, "Meeting People" utilized a mail art approach in which anyone willing to contribute to the project was offered a 4 inch by 4 inch (10 cm by 10 cm) square to treat as they wished, as long the resulting "art" weighed no more than one pound and could be easily installed in a grid alongside nearly 500 other artworks. The works were displayed for one month in a temporary gallery built by Adkins and Buckingham. With "Meeting People", Adkins and Buckingham considered their work to be the facilitation of introductions between the 485 people who participated in the project.

Their follow-up, "YOU", functions as an online archive in which anyone from anywhere, at anytime, could write and post a story about another person who inspires them. Whereas "Meeting People" concerned itself with artistic production, "YOU" situated itself in the world, to document real world stories.

In 2003, Charm Bracelet was invited to participate in Core Sample, a survey of contemporary art in Portland. Charm Bracelet's offering was a large clear vinyl elephant that could be filled with shredded showcards and announcements from the last 5 years of art shows in Portland. Approximately 85 galleries and hundreds of Portland artists contributed their ephemera during the 5 day run of the showing, with the elephant reaching near capacity. The elephant was subsequently exhibited in a group exhibition on the subject of memory at Consolidated Works in Seattle.

In 2004, Charm Bracelet launched "VIA LOS ANGELES", a website, powerpoint presentation, gallery exhibition, radioplay, and conversation that connects the dots between Portland Center for Visual Arts and Portland Wrestling Association, the career trajectories of Clint Eastwood and Chris Burden, and Joseph Beuys contrasted with John Carpenter. VLA has been presented at PICA, on public radio in Portland and Astoria, and been featured in The Portland Mercury.

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