continued..and to be continued

from the far side of the room looking back at where we've been

from the area we were looking back at, now looking forward

hanging in the fireplace. baked and burned fabric and batter nest form, hollow..lined with soot and wax.. holds a small pile of pyrite.

upholstered chair with a small, rather beat-up table balanced on its seat, holding a pried-open shell form made from a mold of my torso and some old curtains. it is lined with burgundy velvet and salt spray. the outside is treated with cheap cosmetics (eyeshadows, foundation and nailpolish). on the floor: a scrap from a fur collar and clay seeds (also painted with nailpolish)

see: below

i got back from another awesome 2 weeks spent at the vermont studio center a few weeks back. wanting to keep the juices flowing and to resolve some older works, i decided it was time to start living out one of my fantasies- that of having free range (well..within limits) to work within the context of a domestic interior space. i'll ease you slowly through the process room by room, day by day.

this being "day one", welcome:

 after entering through glass-paned doors covered with a white lace curtain, this is hanging in the middle of the wall to your left. it's the latest incarnation of an on-going piece titled "harvest". over time, and in several locations, i've collected my fallen hair from my living quarters and clothing. the hair is crudely twisted into a twine with pomade and is then crocheted. the netting is shown draped on a heavily rusted farming tool, crowned with 3 rosettes made of wire, twisted hair and gnarly, thorny, fingernail clippings. the train is splayed open, pinned back at the sides, giving a billow to the form, similar to that of an orchid petal, as it is drawn up with a plumb-weight (made from a kitchen whisk covered wrapped in hair with fingernail thorns protruding and a handle covered in lace and wolf fur)

a view from across the room, looking back:

which takes us here:

this folksy macabre number is a collapsed network of telephone handset cords, neutral tones attaching to a sternum of red, orange and blue tangled with upholstery fabric organs, floral pattern cut-outs, lacy polyps and assorted fringes.



 

stewing in my juices. juicing my stew.

studio shots from my recent 2 week residency at VSC. 

sometimes toes are like fingers. (upholstery form with lace and embroidery)

visiting artist, chuck webster, called this thing "retarded". i'm sure he meant the good kind of retarded. (stool with tu-tu, drapery, lace)

happy holidays (plastic christmas tree with cosmetic pads and felt)

 pink collar patriot.(dress with felt and tissues)

Meanwhile, across town..

  (studio shots from the back wall)

fowl.

going rogue

mixed media with child's veil

 

this is my studio junk drawer, more or less. if stuff gets in my way, if parts of things aren't working still somehow have merit.. they go here to rest awhile.

small collage with machine stitching 

 

works in progress

(felt and pins)

listening to the news while chewing my dinner may have left me with some partially undigestable ideas about the theater of war.

(bandage, wire, lace and felt)

books...

i'm making my first books ever... the images are from some of the sketches i was working on as i was making the chair come out of my brain. (above are some of the first drafts as they were on the wall of my studio)

the cover (it's sideways..but that's the thing about books- you can totally flip them around.)

 The pages are color copies backed with interfacing and bordered with shiny dark purple fabric. They're further layered with machine stitching with lavender and red thread. 

accidental thread line drawings between the pages.

*i'm making 7 of these as "prizes" from my kickstarter page, but i'll be making more for purchase. please email to contact me for specifics.

some assembly required

So, I just returned from 2 lovely weeks at Vermont Studio Center. I met some really awesome talented artists and writers, took some walks in fallow fields where I collected corn husks, roots and berries, smelled some horses..but mostly kept my nose to the grind trying to figure out some logistics for the chair. I wanted to make it more stream-lined for purposes of practical storage and set-up, but also I wanted to make the lines of the piece more complimentary to the lines of Rebecca's dance. I decided I needed to reinvestigate the form itself. It had become to grounded, too much pasted -on carnage. My goal was to make it  more fertile; a plant/ animal hybrid, an altar for a pagan tranformation ritual, a womb, a shelter with a spine...

I started by reworking the seat.

 It's cleaner with less chance of snagging the dancer's fabric (or the viewer's eye). The outer petal/rind forms lace-on to the underneath and can come off for storage.


I also reworked the outside of the petals, bringing in more fleshy filmy stuff, adding green veins and layering more textures. They also now have center ribs that extend and can be used as a latch/ hook over the lap at the beginning of the dance.

(yes, those are my dancing shoes)

The top-most part is completely detachable. It is installed with a hand-made pin and swivel so that it may be kicked down with the sweep of a leg. (forgive my unwillingness/ complete inability to photographically demonstrate this---)

But it really does work:

(see?!)

better photos coming soon to ye olde website and some mailboxes near you.