sensuous experience

 

 

Textile as a structure and a place of interaction.
Something that is a total experience.

Ancient textiles give this feeling.
Sensuous.

if you can trick people

What are the subjects that I consider essential?

Those that have to do with notions of sexuality, spirituality, and our nervousness about death.

Overt political art doesn't interest me.

I think it's better if you can trick people, if the topic is presented in a subversive way.

Then you can catch their interest with beauty, and they will think more about it later on. 

It will rise up within them, the hidden meaning.

They will see what they need to see.

 

adding more thread

 

We live on the edge of a disaster and imagine we are in a musical

mystery

in the sun, at the cottage

sunny

in the shade, at the cottage

how do the two,
the known and the unknown come together?
Weave.
but we cannot know the weave (feel, touch)
until it passes through love.
Richard Tuttle

"In ancient times the word mystery  meant something we're unused to now.  The word mystery originally meant a closing of the mouth or the eyes.  It meant an agreement or an understanding that something would not be disclosed.  The mysterious nature of some things was accepted then, much more taken for granted."
Ali Smith

last post

 

 

 

Packing it up.
Going home.

the wonder in every day life

 

 

Joseph Cornell: Wanderlust
a long distance love affair with Europe

He took care of his disabled brother and widowed mother - family obligations were important to him.
He had no formal training in art at all.
During his lunch hour he looked into all things cultural.  He collected books and travel guides.
He didn't give any meanings in his work.  If people asked him questions, he wouldn't answer.
He had a non-elitist attitude, yet was very involved in the contemporary art world of his time.
The independence of his voice was admired by professional artists.
In 1967 he had two retrospectives at the same time.  One in California, one at the Guggenheim.
His understanding of time was not linear.
He felt connected to the past just as much as the present.
He didn't connect himself to the surrealists, but was included in exhibitions of their work.  He wrote to the MOMA director that what they do is black magic and what he does is white magic.
He wanted to address the imagination of a child's, more than the erotic of the surrealists.
He had an almost scientific drive to understand the world.
He was distraught by the loss of life in WWII and also by the loss of culture.
He left 30,000 pages of diaries - recorded ephemeral moments and ideas.
He believed that Art and Science were united in their desire to understand the world.
The soap bubble - an allegory of fleeting life - was used in his work.
He wanted to communicate the wonder in every day life.

My notes from the free lunch time lecture given by curator Sarah Lea at the Royal Academy of Arts London, England.

still stitching

 

poetry moments

hand stitches

 

 

they are made one at a time, each takes one second
they strengthen
they soften
they are beauty
they are power
they are what you will remember about my work.

protection blanket

 

I made hold me  in 1993

It was one of the first pieces I made to protect me.

Making it caused me to realize how much I'd come to rely on quilt making to help me get through difficult personal situations.

I have little control of events that happen to those I love, but I can control my art.
I can find beauty - even create beauty, while chaos happens all around me.

'when you consider something like death, then it probably doesn't matter if we try too hard are awkward sometimes or care for one another too deeply"  Diane Ackerman

a good dream

She told me her dream while she made her toast.

'we were on a British motorway, in traffic, the two of us, you and I mom.  And you were driving.  And you were doing well.  You merged and I encouraged you and you did it.  we were going fast, the steering wheel on the british side.  Then i wasn't in the car with you any more, but watched you from a distance as you merged and went on.  You did it mom.'

She looked up the dream to find its meaning.  It means that the dreamer feels as if the driver is taking control of the situation.  If the dreamer is angry, then it's a bad dream.  If the dreamer is happy, then it's a good dream.

We decided that this was a good dream.

In england

 

I want some advice.

the days of my life

 

I am stitching.
Sometimes I look at my stitching.

"What the painter adds to the canvas are the days of his life.
The adventure of living,
of hustling towards death."
Sartre

the interior landscape of self

I find it valuable to think about the psyche as a landscape.
It's not that you get over trauma, it's somewhere in your landscape - maybe a swamp or a crater.
You can choose to hang out there, or pretend it's not there and fall in, or be poisoned by what seeps out of it, or be fully aware of its location but dwell elsewhere.
Rebecca Solnit