Ad Infinitum

I once wore a beloved linen dress until shredded patches appeared in the skirt area. Though discouraged by this fact, I still couldn’t throw the dress out. So, I put it away for safe-keeping. Years later, I got the idea that I would dig out that dress again, take it apart, and make a paper pattern from it. I had never studied pattern making before so the pattern I cut out was not well measured or even particularly symmetrical. The first dress that I made from this pattern had to be rejigged in a number of areas as it didn’t fit very well. The second dress that I made from this pattern was also still quite uneven and so I cut and fiddled around with the pattern pieces once again. The third dress that I made from this same pattern (I really loved the style of it ) was in need of further reworking, too, but this time, I began to tape back paper bits that had been cut off from the  pattern pieces that had “suffered” from my previous misunderstandings as to how to measure things properly. When I had finally made eight dresses from this bloody pattern (I’m not exaggerating!), I realized that the pattern was still out of whack as the hemline in the front of the dress hung down lower than the hemline at the back. (I never have gotten it right!) However, I loved these comfort fit dresses! Some were made of Chinese fabric, fancy brocade and even white eyelet. 

Soon after, I began making jewelry to match the fabrics or in some cases, buying fabrics for new dresses which would match the jewelry I had made. A rather elaborate jewelry-making workshop grew out of all this. And even now, 45 necklaces later, I can’t stop thinking about making new necklace and earring designs out of semi-precious stones and glass for possible inclusion in my dress making efforts. Some would say, “Enough of sewing that same old hackneyed dress pattern”. Or, “Enough of the jewelry making extravaganza”. But no, I have yardage for three more dresses just waiting for me to attack, and, jars and jars of beads and stones from which the 46th necklace can be made. No telling when it will all end.

An Arcimboldo Vision

A few years ago, I decided to invite friends to an Arcimboldo party at my house/studio. When we met for the occasion, everyone was to bring collage elements cut from magazines and newspapers or carry along found objects that could be incorporated into an experimental creation. I promised to provide a life-sized drawing of the profile of each of their faces which became the base for the cutout images and 3d objects which were glued and arranged around the paper surface. Some of the examples of the collages (picked from 23 participants) were stunning! (see examples below) There were many other original concepts as well.

Because of my admiration of Arcimboldo, a 16th century painter, I wanted to spread the joy of his modernist concepts to anyone willing to participate in this project. Arcimboldo (I've mentioned this artist before) beautifully arranged fruits and vegetables ( and even pots and pans) in a collage fashion that described an individual's portraiture. Delicately and classically painted, these objects represented all the facial features, clothing, and even the skin tone of the artist's subjects. Humorous as these portraits were, Arcimboldo was a serious, highly inventive artist. While his playfulness amused the Viennese courts (mid 16th century), he should have been acclaimed as one of the first modernist painters well before the 20th century decreed that there was a Modern Art movement.

This remarkable artist's transformative vision suggests to me that an examination of the mysterious relationship between man as an element in nature and man as a metaphysical entity can never be fully resolved.

Speaking in Silence

Many years ago, a friend of my grandmother's had moved to Hawaii and had subsequently sent this Hawaiian doll to her (see image, actual size 10" high). Later, after it came into my hands, the doll became almost synonymous with the domain of my childhood spent with grandmother. I had immediately acknowledged the importance of this doll, an object that for all of its solidity, now really existed only fleetingly in my memories from long ago. Speaking in silence, the doll and I had re-imagined childhood scenes together. Partial as these remembrances may have been, and certainly warped by years gone by, there was something magical about being in "conversation" in such a deep ephemeral realm.
A few years after graduating from art school, I painted a realistic version of this Hawaiian doll (greatly enlarged to cover a 5'x10' canvas), sewn onto a piece of fabric which was later embellished with appliqued patterns. Any realization of the madness of this act eluded me at the time, but I had thought at length about how the scale of this newly enlarged image had produced such a surprisingly dynamic energy that could perhaps be seen as something even rather menacing. There was a terrible fearlessness in the force of this forthright, sinister, painted figure, and yet, something innocent and even fragile as well.
What is serious about the adult at play, the artist as inventor? It seems to me that just the act of open-ended exploration can reveal a hidden dimension that is otherwise inaccessible to an artist. Some would call that act a negotiation with our eternally changing condition in order to mete out some unrequited need. Others would see it as a kind of happy hour where inspiration meets enchantment. Who is to say?

Puppet Person

Here is my 2D puppet drawing. Why a 2D puppet you might ask? I don't know. However, like other puppet figures, mine moves about unpredictably, hands waiving and then suddenly still again. Well, perhaps that only happens if you stare at it long enough.....(remember the famous etching of the head of Christ, his eyes closed, a linen cloth draped in the background area? His eyes open, so I was told, if you stare at it long enough.....)
I had been reading the Kenneth Gross book called Puppet, an essay on uncanny life, which talks about our willingness to bring something as inanimate as a puppet to life. Further, we breathe life into many other objects as well - typically - our house, our cars, and our boats. We name these things and we even talk to them: "Come on Fred (the car), I'm late for work!" But, the puppet as uncanny, as seemingly supernatural, can reenact stories about our world with an existential innocence. We agree to believe in that innocence because the puppet seems child-like, a diminutive substitute for the child we once were. "The puppet is without history, existing in the moment...." The puppet comes briefly to life because we want it to do so. We want to go along with the world that the puppet seems to invent for himself and the audience. And, we especially agree to allow feelings to freely emerge as we participate from a safe distance from the puppet stage. This pact that we have made with mysterious, inanimate objects, regardless of their short lived time span, helps as to recognize our connectedness to everything. The differences between living things and inanimate objects are indeed minimal. Just ask a physicist.

To give pause

2D or not 2D, that was never the question. Whether it was better to leave the pilloried drawing flat, or to take it to the land of sculpture - to force dimension? To make it live? To come awake? Sleep, I say, perchance to dream of immortality? Ay, it's but a rubbing! The mortal life it never seeks, that undiscovered country of blood and toil. Yet I, with conscience am made a fool by this mad resolution... With all my sins remembered, that current trend awry, I fly to 2D paperglyphs whose pale thought at once revives.

Sitting Ducks

I'm taking a break from my drawings! I'm stuffing ducks! No, not as in a cooking experiment with spicy livers and liqoured orange sauce, but as in piecing various fabrics together in order to form sculptural, three-dimensional life-size birds. Don't ask me why I want to do this, but when I found most of an old duck pattern that I had used years ago in making two stuffed ducks for my children, the 'thrill' was on! Using Kaffe Fassett's printed fabrics, felt, or lush brocades from the Stratford Festival Theatre, the serious duck-making began. Twelve ducks later, I continue to find all manner of fabric possibilities for use in my sculptural creations. In pondering the why of all this, I did some research as to what a duck might symbolize.

Apparently, ducks in a dream may represent spiritual freedom or the unconscious, though that thought doesn't seem to apply to my irascible state at the moment. However, the sturdy birds are also indicative of a certain earthly flexibility as they can blend or adapt to various situations and elude their enemies by flying, swimming, running or diving for cover. Unless, of course, they are sitting on eggs, when, as 'sitting ducks', they can be targeted. Both these scenarios could refer to the expression 'ducking out' of a certain issue, meaning unable to confront something straight on. Is this me? Serious work waiting?

On a more domestic note - in Chinese culture, a mandarin duck symbolizes affection and fidelity as they mate for life. These ducks are said to help couples achieve marital bliss and strengthen togetherness. And, according to Feng Shui theories, if you place a sculpture of a mandarin duck in the southwest portion of your house or bedroom, the duck "allows its owner or anyone near it to emit a strong love chi, making that person more loveable and attractive".

Wow what a resourceful bird and clearly my answer to the why of this activity. A dozen ducks placed in the southwest corner...a smoking love-chi wafting about...what happens next?

The Principle of Uncertainty

Over thirty years ago, I was part of a very diverse art community in Vancouver. Though I was a painter, a friend of mine, Toby MacLennan, who was a performance artist, invited me to join her in a number of her quasi-theatrical performance pieces. We began with a late-night sojourn to one of the parks in Vancouver. I was to bring my cello and she brought a tall music stand (made of wood) that was fitted with staff lines (five small tree branches), situated some eight feet high at the top of the device. The spaces in between the staff lines were left empty, allowing for the complexity of the stars in the night sky (on this clear evening) to congregate, clump together and shine through these lines, thus becoming musical notes. At first, I played the actual stars/notes as they appeared on and in-between the staff lines as though I were playing conventional cello music. However, it soon became obvious that the star-notes that came in clusters and nearly crowded out single note sounds, had to be dealt with in some other way. So, I began to trill this particular star/note configuration. And then, as there was only one giant measure from which I could work, I decided to "play" the stars backwards and forwards and from there, the "music" became improvisational. (I could tilt the staff lines up and down to form other groupings of stars/notes.)

This photo shows me looking up through the music stand/staff lines, and playing pizzicato notes. A flashlight was attached to the base of my chair so that I could see the staff lines up above. Do you see the impish white figure floating over my head?

After this particular night-sky activity, which consisted of just the two of us and a tape recorder, Toby scheduled a performance in the star dome of Vancouver's MacMillan Planetarium (1976). This performance included an opera singer and other musicians who "sang" the stars. The piece was called "Singing the Stars". Later, we performed in Toronto at the McLaughlin Planetarium and other venues which would allow the projection of a night sky on the walls and ceiling of an ordinary room.

This photo shows another variant of a music stand (see vertical posts) as sculpture, where an individual (that's me!) prepares to be both a part of the night sky (mask) and a musician. This activity, with its principle of uncertainty, is not far removed from my passionate work of assembling and layering sections of frottaged textures with figurative elements. Each art form consists of a kind of mystical faith that the spiritual, visual outcome will prevail.

Please see Toby MacLennan' s website ( http://tobymaclennan.com/ ) and hear a little "night music", or read about her other performances in the book "Caught in the Act" an anthology of performance art by Canadian women edited by Tanya Mars and Johanna Householder, pages 315-323.