releasing, letting go
pouring down, pouring out, emptying out, depleting
reaching, reaching out, reaching beyond
excess
teeming
heavy passivity, stasis
flow, flowing
trailing, curling, coiling, looping, uncurling
drawing in, drawing out
knotting, tieing, untieing
dissolving, dispersing
hanging loose, hanging in there
leaking
leaking
leaking
That’s just for the arms. The colour red speaks something different: blood, rage, energy, power, fire, passion, flesh, heat, heart, love, wound, confidence. The arms maybe about the fear of all that, all that teeming life within without, the beauty of it, the terror of it, its constant flux, and at the same time the desire for just that.
Crocheting speaks neatness, industriousness, woman’s work, as does the shape of the dress. The long coiling arms underline and unspeak and speak anew adifferent alive.
crocheted from red cotton
dress 87 cm long, 50 cm wide
arms >350 cm long
12 comments:
Wooooow! Can we see a modelled photo? :)
woah, that's amazing! :) I know there's a story here about this piece!
wow - love it! arms that could reach the moon?
Marjojo, she is freakishly beautiful!!! looks so very normal if you don't scroll down. but it is so thrilling to see those arms...they are like warm tentacles, and i want to be wrapped around by them, even if i might be strangled by them. is one under a spell? :).
and i just love how the skirt flares out and is tightly knitted in contrast to the rest of her. so innocent and provocative at the same time.
actually...the more i look at her, the more i think of how she embodies love. maybe because she is that deep red, and how the arms fall into a pile like there is no end to them. like love that is sweet, gentle yet also intense and often needing and wanting more...? hmmm...
!very curious for the details you'll have for us!
so guess what?! i did go out running! two days in a row, too! actually, more walking than running but i did break out into a run a couple of times (one time out of fear, the other times it just felt good to). i found these trails in the nature preserve on campus where i work and they are just the kind i like! very woodsy but clear enough to walk through. i love it! will definitely go after work on a regular basis now, thanks to you!
and i am delighted by your frequent visits to see the clay creatures. there is a loneliness to them, so it is nice that someone likes to see them. what you said about the littlest one is exactly how i was/am sometimes while growing up, so that lit up my heart. :).
and thank you for the Manipelt story link. i did check for it under the German name but did not see it in any of the book collections i looked at. i really enjoyed reading it. definitely one of the more interesting fairy tales. the ending threw me for a loop there. it is strange how the princess came back and wanted to be known that she is the daughter after attempting to escape. what do you like most about it?
I just looked at your piece for a while without reading your post...
For me the robe expresses the impossibility to move.....wanting, reaching out, expressing everything through these incredible arms, expressing life through the colour of red but remaining immobile for some reason....
A touching piece!
Thanks for all your comments!
fluffbuff: won't model the dress myself as it's a bit too small for me, which I regret now, as I'd have liked to try
hrsj: still trailing the storylines myself, getting acquainted with the work, seeing its meanings change all the time
daniel: way beyond and back again when they are not too heavy
mien: freakishly beautiful - yes! Love your idea of WARM tentacles and the ambiguities of love you describe.
You asked what I liked about ‘Manipelts’ and I reread the tale and very much liked it again, although I realised I’d misremembered some details. What I’d remembered was the coat made of a thousand bits of fur from all the animals in the kingdom, but I thought she’d made it herself. I love the idea of this coat, of her wrapping herself in multi-animal-skin, taking on some of that wildness, some of that animal-beauty, a little bit of each animal, not fully becoming somethng else, and disguising herself until it was safe to come out again. I also like a girl with a plan, one who knows her own mind and what’s right and wrong and that she set her all-powerful father-king some urgently needed boundaries. Wouldn’t mind owning a few dresses that fit into a nut-shell, and that she hides in the deep dark woods, away from civilisation has been on my mind too. And importantly: the king she marries in the end is NOT her father, but another one, the owner of the wood she’d been hiding in, so you can unloop yourself. Relief.
uschi, almost forgot you: yes, I see some of that here too, it's that heavy passivity I'd thought about, the question whether she can really lift these arms in the end. So glad she touched you!
This is such a wonderful work - I think the absolute best art is the stuff with so many interpretations. It can reach out and touch (pardon the pun) so many different people in so many ways, which is surely what we all want to do. Now that you have finished it, will you be able to organise to show it? There are so may different ways you could display this piece to highlight different interpretations. It may have taken a year to complete, but there are many, many exhibition opportunities in it. Well done!
This is most definitely beautiful, a piece I would expect to see displayed in a gallery but am also so intrigued to see it 'on' (would that be appropriate?) I have had a long love affair with red wool and am knitting with it myself right now. Thank you for sharing this inspiring work!
absolutely gallery standard. The long arms remind me of how it feels at the end of a long and busy day. pretty, girly dress but with workers arms. wonderful contrast
amazing
i love this work
the handwork involved and all the energy that went into it, what it embodies and ways to interpret it
wow.
what to do with these arms, hands, overflowing with power and dreams ... growing like a plant overflowing its potted places...
you are visual thought manifesting!
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