making things
Most certainly my aesthetic view was born by way of a deep, ancient forest and quiet wanderings, books and pencils and clay, hours of solitude.
I've been exploring the relationship between handmade and machine made, in particular the conversation between cold, shiny surfaces machine-punched forms with textiles, thread and paper. How does light play off the combination of reflective and absorbent surfaces? How does predictability and repetition react to disturbance? How is time simultaneously urgent and still?
I'm interested in ordinary objects both for their intrinsic properties and their histories of use. I love objects that have been worn or aged and loved by human hands. I like seemingly insignificant objects that have monumental tasks, objects that carry us through the day and shape our lives, objects that haven’t changed much over generations, such as snaps, bits of clothing, icing tips.
I am intrigued by the conversation between differing materials. How does the history of an object or material translate into a new story? By removing objects from their proscribed territory and forcing them to take on new considerations, I look to set up a new vocabulary that works in its own self-referenced world. How to ask new questions that force us to reinterpret what we think we know about ourselves out of habit and social construct. I wonder about items traditionally used in “women’s work” and why this gendered definition marginalizes both the women who made specific items and the items themselves. How does tedious work transform from a boring, redundant task to a palatable, even enjoyable activity—such as making clothes? It’s the vision of the maker. Through seeing and looking and wanting to find meaning in the making of the object. It’s perhaps, the human need to feel meaning in one’s actions. The human need to make a mark. Mark one’s existence. A lace collar, a sock, a quilt design—both allow the human essence of the maker to infuse the useful object. The quilt’s purpose now is not only for warmth and survival, but art to welcome the eyes and mark memories for the future. What is that fine line between traditional craft and art, and can that very female vocabulary of sewing be wrenched away and taken out of the margins? Can that vocabulary be reborn into Art that has no bounds of prejudice? It’s a curious thing how objects and actions get boxed into mental, societal, political places. I’m interested in a vocabulary that leaves the marginalized assumptions behind, yet carries the elevated history of human ingenuity into another place. In that new space, with that weighted vocabulary, can a formal visual experience exist that invites new questions—political, social—about the way we see our world? I’m not interested in “women’s art.” I’m interested in Art. Can the materials become divorced from their gender stereotypes, become something wholly other, and yet cause us to reflect on those stereotypes and how imagined they are? The Art should stand alone, in its own self-referenced world, and then second there is satisfaction in redefining the vocabulary of “women’s” materials or work as some marginalized, non-serious craft-place and instead elevating it to a place of solid value.
My current paintings are studies in color and mark making, creating a chaotic scene and manipulating it by obliterating and revealing various areas. When the image seems to reach a place that is too safe and harmonious, I interrupt it. The interruption is difficult and I’m pushing myself to see how I can disrupt my own habits of hand and eye. The current paintings are small abstractions which take on a narrative quality, and I’m experimenting with adding drawings, familiar marks, letters and words. They skate the fine line of being illustrative, and so they are studies for future large-scale work. As with the mixed-media, I’m interested in a vocabulary of chaotic mark-making that is then punctuated with some incongruous element—as if trying to paint the eye of the storm and the storm at the same time. My instinct is to paint aggressively, but my eye seeks minimalism; the struggle between the two is what currently drives my painting practice. The marks are random but somehow become disciplined. I search to find calm, yet somehow the images feel like compressed energy, held in an invisible boundary. They are globes, ovals. Mandalas. I don’t know why. I’ve started to break the the circular form and interrupt it with a mark that breaks the surface. This brings forth a tension between the depth of the painting and the flattening, abstract relationship that the mark has with the picture plane. There is a poetry forming, and a pull to move on to large panels and canvas—I’m anxious to follow that path.
With paint, one must conjure everything up with one material, differing only by viscosity and color. It’s easy to produce something passable, difficult to hit a sweet spot that surprises. It’s exciting and wonderfully maddening. When it seems too easy, it’s time to force more questions and push the image to the brink, until it hovers with some indescribable mystery and intrigue and falls into its own independent life. Painting is an eternal precipice of wondering.