studio report, T minus one week til camp

In one week I will be shipping out for a month to work as the Asst. Director for Snow Farm in Williamsburg MA. Sometime between now and then I need to locate some twin sheets and tie up all of the odds and ends and display particulars for a solo exhibition at Easthampton City Arts.

preview:

the new studio!

I'm working with two coinciding narratives- one being our private lives which are filled with our comfort and shame surrounded by stencils and heirlooms and afghans and memories of repeating floral prints; the other a curated public facade - a cartoon of class, gender and eroticized violence.

This is another reworking of a piece that started out very simply- I would obsessively collect my fallen hair from my sheets, laundry and floor boards...when I had enough, I spun it and used it to crochet a wedding veil. Pretty straightforward Miss Havisham.
This was then.
I realize I am not living in a Dickensian era.  I take a detour by the perfume counter. I am not even aware of my own musk.
Here - displayed hanging on a rusted gardening tool (some sort of 5 pronged raking device). The tool has been painted with various cheap cosmetics, the tips with the bright red lipstick that was also used along the border of the damask/ pelt shaped bronze, floral embossed naughahyde. The "veil" (which now becomes net, drape, specimen, specter) has been powdered and has clear lucite cut-crystal shaped bobbles attached at its ends. The sides are held back with tissues and antique flower pin-backs. At top: a "crest" made with A rusty garden trowel and a pair of pink stilhettos. Architectural flourishes made with styro-foam, tissue paper and liquid foundation.

Love seat turned inside out- swallowing an afghan, pillow and part of the window shear. Shards of broken chair legs protrude from between springs. Various growths made from upholstery fabrics- tendrils and molecular forms crawl out from and over what appears to be some sort of hive.