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Wednesday, October 24, 2012

hindsight

After my show at ECA in July, I was contacted by someone looking to relieve themselves of their too much styrofoam- could i oblige?
but of course..

I didn't anticipate how monumental this pile might be..

 I wanted to build something celebratory, emblematic of some rite of passage..I have been processing images of parade floats, wedding cakes and funerary caskets. They're practically overlapped in my mind- like the transparencies in science books featuring our bodies systems...





The finished piece, titled "Progression" can be seen at Parson's Hall Project Space . The show, "Body Radio" will be open for viewing once again November 3rd from 12-6pm.
Other materials include: maybelline liquid foundation (usually i go with cover girl, but i really wanted to try something new here), facial tissue, absorbent pads, red felt, foil cupcake liners, a cut-up party dress, plastic packaging, pvc pipe.
*******will write more about this and other projects, but am not feeling terribly verbose at this moment.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

detour

i've finally updated my website
please do check out new images from the show at ECA in july.

more must be done in the verbal descriptors, but for now there's new stuff for the eyes to take in and the brain to wonder about. unless you wonder with your hands and mouth which i often do.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

I'm not the me...



Please come check out my show at Easthampton City Arts if you are in the area.
It's freakin' air-conditioned!
for more information...

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

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.

Monday, June 4, 2012

heirlooming

this is a piece i'm working on currently. many hours of cutting and pasting the old fashioned way (with scissors, not a mouse). floral upholstery fabric reduced to veins and abstract organ-type shapes. surreal viscera and odd, erotic tendrils spread forth from the surface of this chair.



 originally placed up high on a tabletop, frank the cat knocked it down breaking one of its front legs clean off. now it hobbles like a hunched invalid. thanks, frank.

Monday, May 28, 2012

what becomes...

Several years ago, I made several parasite/worm/slug forms out of my worn-out discarded undergarments and stockings. An ode to my ever-passing fecundity..Here, I've restaged them with absorbent cosmetic removal pads and a cut-up plastic lace tablecloth.

 The floor had the perfect perfect pattern texture/ color for this work..I'm hoping it translates just as well on other surfaces..

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Next rework:
Here, I've combined what used to be two seperate pieces, entitled "Always a Bridesmaid" and "Winterloper". The first is made from a tangled bedspring meticulously covered in a deconstructed pink satin dress, embellished with lace trim, ruffles and netting. The latter is an upholstered form based on a fruit, an egg, or and ornament. Its quandrants part to reveal and interior lined with irridescent green sequins (this was my prom dress) and a white nylon stocking membrane network with stuffed satin seeds thoughout. Emerging for the pod's center is a rhinestone-studded (yes, phallic.but .no, not just dumbly phallic...also a bit wormy) parasite.

Shown together (with more formalwear included- my aunt's hoop skirt form, my mother's homecoming dress) dubbed "Runner-up":



There's some black beetles crawling around on there..made from, again, old undergarments. They didn't make sense to me anymore (visually) with the worms, so I seem to be trying to locate a new home for them.

from the "rear"

inside view from above

worm and its furry lair.

closure..



It feels a bit strange jumping back in time like this. I've since moved out of this house, narrowly escaping forclosure and utility lock-down.. I 'm living in a new place with a more spacious room to call my studio (it has wallpaper!).
Above, are the final images of the apartment tour (version 1...) Closet space with multi-media alien forms.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

installation shots continued: the bedroom

So, say you're standing in the middle of the kitchen. Look away from the velvet lined gloves cascading from the sink, away from the ironing board/autopsy propped against the wall, away from the odd amalgomy of vegetation, muppets and furniture...Look through the door, past the embroidery of teeth and jaws, past the mangled doily of hair mounted on a springform pan, past the disjointed prosthetic leg made of upholstery fabric and lace...into: The Bedroom.
The ceiling fan turns slowly. Padded, bandaged bone-like forms (like those hanging above the window in the living room, or on the frieze of Novel and Compulsive) , plucked feathers and brown paper towel spanish moss/tendons quiver with each click of the fan blade against them.
On the floor are two pillowcases knotted together. Each spilling its pathetic guts. Extreme pillow fight.

Pillowcase:lungs being overtaken by giant ants. Guts: worms, synthetic fluffy stuff
Pillowcase: swan on heart. Guts:red felt corpuscles.







Wednesday, February 15, 2012

gleaming the cube? no! Feeding the Tube.

This afternoon I installed this absurd and perhaps obscene tangle of consumption and novelty in Feeding Tube on King St. in Northampton.
I figure record collectors know a little bit about both..

                                                            (This is your experience if you're an 'indoor" cat.)



 ("outdoor" cat... standing on hind legs..)


Monday, February 13, 2012


before we go forward, we have to go back.

i will have to build up my threshold.

these are the materials: styrofoam, cosmetic pads, facial tissue, red felt, plastic 6-pack rings.
 this is one of several repurposing of the red felt i've posted over the past few years.
here's some of its greatest hits:
http://www.aliciarenadette.blogspot.com/2011/12/stewing-in-my-juices-juicing-my-stew.html
http://www.aliciarenadette.blogspot.com/2011/11/works-in-progress.html
http://www.aliciarenadette.blogspot.com/2011/09/progress-report.html
http://www.aliciarenadette.blogspot.com/2011/02/parasitic-valentine.html

interestingly- that the last one from this list was posted a year and one day ago. our incubation period is nearly ending, dear clump and cluster of red felt mass..


i've been thinking a lot about impulse buys lately.

Sunday, February 5, 2012


I'm in the process of making an edition of books made from images of drawings and collages I was doing while working on the Interminal Seed project at Vermont Studio Center.The books are 8" x 8" with 8 full color pages (copies). The pages are machine sewn onto fabric interfacing using multiple thread colors and stitching patterns.  The front and back cover are fabric. Books are hand-bound using heavy- weight floss and paint color swatches from the hardware store.





Each book varies slightly. If there is a certain color fabric you'd like for the cover, please contact me and I'll see what I can do...
$20.00