February has been a difficult month physically but I think my energies are picking up. Good to report that I've finished a new work. This may well be the first in a new series. I combined three colours of lace-weight wool, much stronger colours than for my changelings, as you can see. I had a clear vision of the swoop of the closed neckline aligned with the rounded, open shape of the arms, but it took quite a few attempts to get it right.
You may remember, last year, during a group show at Core Gallery, three artists, namely Aly Helyer, Tom Butler and I, were chosen for an exhibition opening in April 2011. It will run under the very fitting title 'Extra-Ordinary', and on Tuesday, Rosalind Davis, who will curate the show with Jane Boyer, came to visit me at home to look at my work and make a selection for the show. She brought her laptop and used skype to link up with Jane in France. It was an interesting meeting and made me realise how much easier it is to write about my work than finding the right words in conversation, esp. when I'm a bit nervous. Making the art has been my focus these last few years and most of the time when I applied for exhibitions the work spoke for itself, supported by the accompanying texts I wrote. Now things are moving to a different level, which is good, but I felt after the meeting that I didn't represent my work, esp. my changelings, and maybe myself as an artist, very well - want to learn from that.
Materials: crocheted from a combination of merino lace-weight wools
Dimensions: 47 cm x 56 cm
3 comments:
hi Marjojo! happy to see new work here! it's like v for victory! i wouldn't know that those three colors would produce what you have there. can't seem to wrap my mind around why the red doesn't show up more even though close up you can see a lot of red yarn is used. (this is when i feel like my iq is not very high.)
i'm excited to see how this new series will develop. can't quite understand the title yet...
when we met, i think you spoke just as well as what you have written. John and i were taken by your passion and insight in your work, and art/life in general. i'll be curious what the curators really thought and if it is as you have perceived...:).
Hey Mien, The lack of discrete colours is mostly down to my not having remotely mastered my new camera yet. But it's true, blue is dominating, maybe because it combines with the green tint.
I'm glad you asked about the title, it made me think about something I came to almost on a gut-level. It is to do with several things. Most concretely here with the fact that the neckline is closed, but also with the prescriptive gesture of the sleeves - the arms flung up, triumphantly? waving for help? a child asking to be taken up? I wanted a
sense of being caught in a gesture, frozen, like a moment in a photograph, but here of a different, less mutable, physicality (implied?), by which I simply mean in a snapshot we know that movement/life will continue beyond that frozen moment, things will flow, whereas here the gesture has become half-permanent. For me it remains open if this sweater prescribes a gesture or if a gesture shaped the sweater. I fantasise a child either trying desperately to fit into this garment, push its head through, or, equally valid, just slipping out like from a chute and skipping, hopping away. These are thoughts after the fact, there's such a leap from making work to thinking about what it might mean, and another one to trying to formulate that. And so many traps: of over-interpretation, waffling on, pinning the work down. Oh my… I'll hop away now.
So pleased you are entering a 'different level' and that you receive the responses and audiences you deserve. In common with several artists I struggle with face to face contact and presentations/conversations. I prefer to hide behind the work itself or labour over an Artist Statement but that is not the way the world works. Maybe assertion classes!!
Post a Comment