In the flow

This one is not finished yet. The blacks will be darkened, some whites will be added. This one is called Broken Memory. I'm not thrilled with it, although I like it better in jpg form. This one, completed last night,I am happy with. With this one I am beginning to get a glimmer of the content I am working with. I always work instinctively, driven by materials and some small object or mark to begin. I never see the finished artwork in my mind's eye. I simply begin. But When or Where to begin is always mysterious. It began yesterday afternoon when Zach and I were working on a CSS template together for the gallery. Suddenly I knew I had to begin. I hung large paper and made a yarn-like mark on it and got back to work on the CSS (I learned a lot, by the way.) After dinner the real work began. My hands are gritty, with compressed charcoal ground into the cuticles. I am happy. Several days ago I was wondering if this flow would ever return. Artmaking is so mysterious, a difficult task master/mistress.

So, what am I working with? It seems to me that the issues of memory, aging, nostalgia remain key. All the drawings refer to yarn in some way. Indeed, I am surrounded by it in the studio. As I draw, I think of the deep history of yarn making as functional, needed, mostly women's work. In the New England colonies, households were taxed according to the spinners therein. But here, in the 21st century, I explore handspun yarn as art with a history. In the drawings, it is as though the yarn elements are fragments and arteries of the deep unconscious, of the deep memories we are born with.

yarny drawings

Pastel, compressed charcoal and 4 feet of paper. Whole body drawing. My fingernails are as dirty as though I had been in a Ragdale studio for the day.

Transgressive wool

In the art world, one talks about transgression. Transgression can be loosely defined as breaking expected boundaries or expectations. Yarn is expected to be soft, warm, useful, at times even life saving. It is often associated with leisure, craft and women's work. Rarely is it thought of as an object, a material or a subject of fine art. So, as I progress on this project, I have to consider how this potential body of work transgresses expectations.

This yarn is transgressive because:

• It is not made for the express purpose of knitting or looping in someway into a useful object.

• Its purpose to to be a sculptural object or a field for narrative/political photography.

• It paradoxically uses its traditional softness to express a hard/harsh/violent reality

• It uses its allusions to its life saving properties( warmth, padding, protecting) as a field of discussion about war and death

• It uses a "women's art" to discuss a "man's pursuit."

Can Yarn Function as Sculpture?

This yarn, COMBAT CHAOS, begins to achieve what I set out to do. Combining specially chosen colors and fibers to express the emotional turmoil of the battlefield, little army guys are pinioned in beehives, cocoons of black wool, felted camouflage felt flags, mounds of netting and desert camo. Both sides of the conflict climb around and shoot in the confusion. Small flashes of light, tiny sequins, reflect the flash of the guns or the twinkle in a mute night sky.

Fleece installation

I have been playing with fiber today.

I like the relationships that are developing among the parts, although it is still too linear, simply curated objects rather than a full 3-d experience. I think the placenta dress needs to hang in space rather like the stuffed dress at the left.But with the wool market arriving in a couple of days, I will leave it as is for now.

Little dresses still speak story.

It is officially sabbatical time and more little dresses are speaking to me, laying about the studio waiting to become!

I anxiously await my sewing machine which is the Bobbin Doctor. Soon, it will return and I will sew the canvas that belongs to these dresses. The series continues.

Red-on-Red

Vacation is coming to an end. Paints are being put away. Walls sanded and re-painted to turn the place back into a gallery. I have painted, assembled, woven, and spun and driven over 3000 miles to visit friends and family. I guess it's time to get back to gallery work. For those of you who are local, these are also hung in the window of the gallery for a few days. They will need to come down on Monday, July 6 to make way for the next show.