Such a long time

It has been such a long time since my last blog post!  Hints of activity have been blasted out on Facebook:  so easy, so fast!

Tonight, I will slow down for an admittedly drowsy bit of time and try to catch up on the events and activities in the studio.

A magnificent deal came my way on a new embroidery machine.  In fits and starts, including a trip to the shop, I have begun using it. There is a learning curve, but it is not too steep.  It works like any other embroidery machine...except you have to set up the thread-to-needle assignments. It is a bit fussy.

It allows me to sew up to 10 threads with no spool changes. What a wonder! Mostly I have been doing color studies: stitching identical designs with identical thread choices on different color fabrics to see what happens.

I rearranged the studio to make room for the new machine.  In anticipation of the need for more wall space to work large, I finished drywalling the garage.  I have one really long wall out there...over 14 uninterrupted feet.  Now to get it heated...or designate it the spring-fall studio extension.

I applied for the Guggenheim fellowship earlier this fall.  It is unlike any other application.  You practically write a memoir : about 8 pages of narrative about your career and 3 pages about your proposed project and beyond.  No resume.  No artist statement. And you have to provide 3 references. BUT no pictures...until asked.  I was asked!  So I have been combing through jpgs, trying to find the right sequence, the right story.  It is a big-deal-lot-of-work!  I cannot tell you how many hours this has all taken...and it is not done yet.  You can see my progress on picture selection etc. at http://susanhenselgrantapplication.weebly.com/

The body of work I did with my son, I DWELL IN IMPOSSIBILITY, will be exhibited at the Phipps Art Gallery in Hudson, WI as a solo show, in  October/ November 2019.

The EROS DRAWINGS are on exhibit in Wyoming, Minnesota for this month.

And the Art of Giving Project continues.  More artists books have gone to collections:  Pratt Institute of Art in NY; Brooklyn Museum of Art; and now Long Island University, NY.

Help me re-name this installation

Help me re-title this piece.  I think Portraits of Longing is pretty cheesy.


Here are some options I came up with today:
Parlor Games
Distant Memory
Pre-feminist Parlor
Identity Deferred
The Gaze
Domesticity
1967
Abandon




Here is a word cloud I made about the piece.  What do you think it's title should be?

Here is the statement I wrote for the show at Van Brabson Gallery

PORTRAITS OF LONGING

Portraits of vulnerability, uncommonly captured in wistful cotton.  They are Madonnas, lost girls, older men and women stuck in their youth, young women old beyond years. Their sexuality is hemmed in by fine Victorian handwork , but within their boudoirs, they are free

We often think of portraits as true and memory as relatively inviolate .  We own our own image and memories and see them as accurate.  But it seems to me that when we are depicted by another, possibilities other than accurate fact are possible.

As I age, the stories of my childhood blur and are sentimentally remembered as someone else’s life.  I remember my Mother’s story as if it were my own. I remember my story as hers, though she died long before I began to forget the string of the narrative. Even my Father’s stories morph across gender and become mine. It seems that the stories of families can never totally expire.

As the older generation of my family dies, I am increasingly drawn to the detritus of others. I find shreds of story in the closets and trunks of attics , basements and op-shops. Some items hold the stories of their former owners: the archetypes of a life shrouded in mystery.

This brings me back to portraits. What happens when the creator of the portrait embeds the image in someone else’s story?

In this installation the detritus is false, a re-creation of over the top Victorian handwork. By sewing, gluing, dying, painting and placing these items with one another, I hope to open up a shared human story of longing.