Surface of My Skin

"Secrets rise to the surface of my skin."

Skin as a personal map or history, which shares hints about the past.

This is a re-work of an old piece that lost meaning for me. I like the ambiguity in this version, the crossed through, original text alongside the new version.

I recently fell while running (which doesn't happen often) during a heat wave in New York. I've been watching the cuts on both palms heal, and thinking how amazing it is that our bodies know how to heal. Other than bandaids and cleaning the cuts, I've left my skin to repair itself.

He Cleared a Forest

Last Friday night, I was out with some girlfriends at a bar in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Of the three of us, two (including me) are single and searching. One of us is dating someone who seems just right for her. In the context of talking about her previous boyfriends, including the one she moved to New York for, I said to her, "He (her current boyfriend) cleared a forest to get to you."

The text in this piece reads: "My man cleared a forest to get to me."

Back stitch for the text, French knots for the leaves, watercolor wax pastels for the trees.

Part of the Brooklyn Love Exchange, this couple met in Cobble Hill.

Here is my latest piece for the Brooklyn Love Exchange, "The 12th Annual Love Hangover."

A friend from my neighborhood, Boerum Hill, has been producing the Love Hangover in Brooklyn for quite some time. This paean to love is an annual musical event co-occuring in several cities. The Brooklyn installment has been in Gowanus for the past couple of years.

The text for this piece is taken from last year's (2010's) invitation:
The 12th annual Love Hangover
is only a week away
You still have time to fall in love
and break up
just in time to be soothed, vindicated or mocked
by your favorite musicians
singing duets of love
the happy kind, the sad kind, the mean, weird or mad kind
It's one more round around the heart
February 15th, what the day after brings.

To create the patterning in the background, I laid a doily down on top of the fabric and sprayed fabric paint on top. Trying to give voice to other people's tales of love has helped me expand my vocabulary and working methods. I'm enjoying incorporating new techniques into my work.

I had hoped to give the text in this piece a somewhat old-fashioned visual feel. I liked the idea of lace, but didn't want the piece to be too feminine, or the lace too literal.

Sheepshead Bay subway "stalker"

This is my latest piece for the Brooklyn Love Exchange, which I summarized from her unfortunate tale of a subway flirtation gone awry. The man/boy didn't truly stalk her; he simply showed poor taste in his communication and body language.

Bustin' out...

In this piece, I decided to embellish the model by adding a French knot necklace. I also cut out the inside of the letters in "Hens," Jon's tag.

Victoria's Secret, tagged and draped

In December of last year, Jon, the other half of FiberGraf, gave me a Victoria's Secret catalog filled with tags on and around the models. I have been sitting with this catalog open on my main desk for the past few weeks, getting to know the images.

Initially, I was uncomfortable working with this imagery. I am a woman who is not fond of most magazines geared towards women. Personally, I don't like Victoria's Secret, mostly because I feel it offers a stereotypical or typical version of femininity, one that doesn't fit me (literally and figuratively). The more time I spent looking at the catalog, however, the more I began to see humor in the images. Jon explained that graffiti artists often tag magazines and printed advertisements. I now see the addition of his tags as somewhat parodic.

I have added my own kind of tag to the models by draping fabric over them in the shape of skimpy dresses or lingerie. In one case, the bottom image with red marker, I used fabric with a conventional men's woven pattern.

Like all of our collaborative work for FiberGraf, we have found here a way to combine our artistic languages on new substrates. I plan to create more of these pieces and to continue to explore the way in which the content and meaning of the images change as we add and delete information.

Coney Island, where dreams come true

I love the mix of textures in this piece, which recounts the story of two psychotherapists falling in love. It says:

"From the first, I was inspired by who he was.

We spoke about everything and it was amazing how much we had in common.

He picked me up in Coney Island for our first date. We walked down the boardwalk, road the Cyclone together, and played arcade games.

Today, we're married with two kids and we still love Coney Island, the place where dreams come true."