Process, page 6
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Update 2003:
In May 2002 we bought a place in
Vermont. Pete and I thought we could both find better studio space cheaper
up there. Our place has a barn with enough room for both of us. I had
my space set up to be useable this past winter. It's much bigger than
the room I was using at home. It's amazing how much more work I'm getting
done.
I don't know what's going on in
the "Art World" right now and I don't want to know. I'm making
what I want to make and trying not to give a crap that it's not cutting
edge or intellectual.
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I don't know if you
can tell from the image on page 4 but I had
begun thinking about lace.
In the early days
of September 2001 I was in a bad mood and was very drawn to work in black
and white. I began drawing black and white flowers in my sketchbook. When
you fill a page with cartoony, loopy flowers they begin to look like lace.
I know how to crochet
so I thought I'd make some lace and see what I could do with it.
I liked the idea of
draping a pall over some work. A beautiful pall. Life is like that: beautiful,
painful, dark, complicated and complex. All sorts of great things happen
and there are so many amazing things to do and see but there is also loss,
sadness and darkness.
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Making lace makes me think
about the Three Norns of Norse mythology or the Fates in Greek and Roman mythology.
They spun the threads of life for every person born. Needlework like crochet
and knitting can feel ancient and mysterious when you're doing it - as if you
have joined a millennia-old line of women cranking out the tapestry of life.
It's heavy, but it's killer.
I was also thinking about
what flower imagery means to me. Symbols don't generally have a lot of emotional
power for me. For example, to me a picture of a heart is not a good stand-in
for actual feelings of love.
But these flowers are a
powerful symbol to me; they depict a neutral cheerfulness. I find as I go through
my days that I seek to achieve a state of neutral cheerfulness in order to do
the things I have to do. If you are cheerful you are not depressed and you are
content enough not to think about the things you could be doing (or be not doing)
that would make you actually happy.
So these paintings are not
meant to be extreme in any way. They are not especially beautiful. They are
a little bit interesting to look at but they are certainly not masterworks.
I guess they're kind of about how many of us go through life settling for less.
Ideally the lace would come
in to remind us that we are in the midst of the beauty and mystery of life and
death whether we notice or not. As you can see I haven't completed the lace
though, only pinned up some pieces I made to see if it might work.
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| These are
fun to make and fun to look at. I really enjoy thinking about an enormous
doily made out of cheap, bright orange yarn. It is useless and awkward and
in your face. I feel like that sometimes. |
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This is my newest
work and the stuff I'm having the most fun making right now. They're all
pretty small. The two on the right are 6"x8" and the two above
are 5"x7"
Talking with my friend
Mary Byrne made me think about bringing the darkness that I felt was at
the back of the work more to the front. It's all fine and dandy to be
crochetting while cursing at and feeling doomed by our foreign policy,
loss of civil liberties and relaxed environmental regulations. I expect
that somehow my angry thoughts are expressed subtly in how the work is
executed and presented. However it's also okay to express those feelings
in a more direct fashion.
Some of the textures
and finishes used here came from a display of home-decorating faux-finishing
techniques I saw at the art supply store. I'm also trying to see how much
glitter and iridescence I can get away with.
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New Developments on Older Pieces:
The photo on the left
shows what you can do when you don't like the quickie frame job you had
done.
The photo on the Right
is an update on the newer large painting from page
5
I've begun
drawing drifts of smaller clouds and flowers on it. They're those little
dots you can barely see on the right side of the painting.
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