It has taken me weeks of experimentation to come up with a suitable substrate for this project. It had to be hard and strong, yet look flexible. I have been thinking about it for a long time.
The hot australian summer has delayed the process, but now it's cooler and I am back in the studio.
A child's dress, found, cut up, wired for strength, bandaged and sealed. A growing collection of dresses, trousers, shoes and tiny boots is taking over my armchair in the corner of the studio.
Tiles and china are broken and filed. Small found objects are arrayed on my second work-table and I have a new pair of tile nippers. Soon the 'dresses' in the picture will covered in mosaic.
I am engraving words on tiles, embroidering them onto scaps of fabric. Words from my parents, teachers, relations, colleagues, friends and lovers.
How it feels to grow up female, carrying those words with me over the years.
How it feels to grow up female, carrying those words with me over the years.
Small clothes and shoes in mosaic. Tiny words tucked away in the design.
Each piece of work to represent who I am today...
(click on highlighted to text to take you to the start of this project)
11 comments:
How wonderful!
This sounds an intriguing and serious project. I am instantly struck by the tension, which I feel as something of a discomfort, in the juxtaposition between the two ideas (constructs?) 'growing up female', and 'who I am'.
But presumably this is the point, or one of them. Good luck and good courage with it, and looking forward to seeing and learning more.
Lucy, not too much tension, I hope!
Sorry, that sounded a bit pompous really! But while I don't think I'm especially ill at ease in a female body, or even in fairly typically assigned female/feminine roles and activities, I suppose I do feel there's surely more to who and what I am than my gender, and the external constraints and expectations placed on it in my formative years... doesn't everyone?
Anyway, from reading the former post, and the fact you have chosen to say what the title will be, you've clearly know where you're going with this, and I'll be very interested to see what you make!
Lucy, thankyou for your comments.
You could never be pompous. I do enjoy blogging for the very reason that we can 'talk to each other' (You and I have been 'talking' to each other for years).
'I suppose I do feel there's surely more to who and what I am than my gender, and the external constraints and expectations placed on it in my formative years... doesn't everyone?'
I agree totally with what you say.
I have never envisioned this work to be purely based on any perceived negative aspects of being female. There is much joy to being me and I intend to celebrate that too!
I've been waiting to hear more about this project and now with another snippet my imagination is beginning to gallop. You must be excited!
There is something magical about clothes when you are small, and that never really goes away completely. Small shoes, small clothes, have such power in the right context, with the right story. To have one's life broken small and fitting into these objects, seems exactly right in a way I would never have considered.
sounds like a fantastic art project, herhimnbryn!
H- looks like and sounds like this will be a very powerful piece - looking forward to instalments as it progresses., Go well. B
lad you found me again..so I could find you back. I love this idea.
I have just hopped over from your other blog. I have not posted on my own arty blog for some time(though I post on Live Simply/Simply Live every day), but this is so good and so thought provoking that I have begun to think it is time I started up again! I loved the Rosalie Gascoign clip, and your mosaics, a medium I sometimes find fussy, have a stillness and calm that is very beautiful.
thank you..
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