Without reason

I loved you without reason, 

as if there is any other way.

Tourists and Visitors

The men I've dated have all been tourists in my life: visitors to New York; visitors to art viewing and art making; and visitors to the rigors of daily exercise. There have been sleep-overs and late-night walks home, but not a single one has moved in.

I am looking for the man who will be a cohabitant, not a visitor. I am looking for a true partnership, and I have yet to find it.

July 29 Artist Talk at Center for Book Arts

Hello friends, fellow bloggers, and blog readers. I am excited to say that I will be participating in an artist talk at the Center for Book Arts in conjunction with "Threads: Interweaving Textu[r]al Meaning." The show, which opened on July 8, is up through September 12. It is a lovely survey of unconventional artist books incorporating thread. Embroidery, quilting, crochet, and weaving are just a few of the techniques employed by the many artists.

Here is some info about the show, and the artist talk:

Center for Book Arts

28 W 27th St, 3rd Floor

between 5-6 Aves

1 train to 28th; F/V to 23rd; N/R to 28th

Artist talk:

Wednesday, JULY 29, 6:30pm

More details to come

 

Threads: Interweaving Textu[r]al Meaning

This year's Artist Members Exhibition brings together current members of the Center's artistic community and invited artists who use actual thread as a design element to convey both content and form. Artworks featured in this exhibition represent a broad range of book and related arts, including prints, books, sculptures, and multi-media installation.
Participating artists include: Jen Bervin, Inge Bruggeman, Macy Chadwick & Lisa Hasegawa, Rosemarie Chiarlone, Patricia Dahlman, Andrea Dezsö, Ipek Duben, Tiffany Dugan, Elsi Vassdal Ellis, Jonathan Fetter-Vorm, Dianna Frid, Ximena Perez Grobet, Tanya Hartman, Candace Hicks, Yoko Inoue, Vandana Jain, Heather Johnson, André Lee, China Marks, Pamela Matsuda-Dunn, Heidi Neilson & Chris Petrone, Tara O'Brien, Iviva Olenick, Yani Pecanins, Catya Plate, John Risseeuw, Donna Ruff, Meda Rives & Veda Rives, Stephen Sidelinger, Robbin Ami Silverberg, Edyth Skinner, Tamar Stone, Dana Velan, Elise Wiener, and Anne Wilson & Shawn Decker. 


Organized by: Lois Morrison, Artist and Independent Curator; and Alexander Campos, Executive Director of The Center for Book Arts.

Season Tickets

Embroidery on fabric. 2009. 4" X 4.25"

You wanted, I wanted

You wanted to reserve space inside my body. 

I wanted to crawl into a warm space I thought existed in you,

and later found empty.

So I have dismantled the past

to make my future free from you.

How do you end a relationship with someone that is personal and unsatisfying, and also involves a business collaboration? How do you walk away when there are so many threads strung in between you? 

It's time to yank at the threads, which have loosened over time, so that I am not longer tethered.

I am no longer tethered.

And the scraps keep coming

"I poured everything I had into you, and you were still empty." 2009. Embroidery on interconnected scraps of antique lace.

Sitting in Battery Park today with my brother, we listened to the River-to-River concert featuring Jenny Lewis, one of my favorite musicians. It was a beautiful day after weeks and months of rain. 

I brought along my art kit—needles, threads, and the piece of antique lace that I am now cutting into small scraps. It was the perfect setting to get some work done.

This piece is about the frustration I feel when my faith in someone I love dissolves. There is the loss of a relationship, and also the loss of belief in the other person, which can be equally painful and disappointing. In this case, it's not particularly that the person was empty, but that the love I wanted was unattainable. The relationship did not meet my needs, and I began to feel empty. 

But there is a night ahead of me in which anything can happen.

Happy July 4th to everyone!

Taking it Apart - What my process teaches me

The more art I make, the more my process teaches me about my work. 

My last two posts have focused on using a beautiful piece of antique, Irish lace for my "post-it note" pieces—my textual pieces on scraps of fabric. As I chose discrete sections of this lace for each textual excerpt, I began to realize that my post-it-note pieces are powerful partly because they are on rough-edged fabric scraps. They are small, a little raw, and therefore intimate. Sometimes I hem the edges of these pieces, and often I don't. The rough edges seem consistent with the experiences I describe.

So I decided to extract each textual snippet from the antique lace. As I cut, I feel as if I am betraying the fabric, yet I am setting my work apart.

Piece at left:

"My relationships are nutritionally deprived. It started with my recession boyfriend." 2009. Embroidery on snippet of antique lace.