artwork unpacked
Sunday, 29 March 2020
“He takes my Rags” - the making
Video shows the making of “He takes my rags” followed by detail photos
Click the image above to view the video (requires quick-time) OR link here to view on Youtube
Mixed media – rags (discarded, washed, torn and purchased from a social enterprise); thread (partially used, discarded and purchased from an op-shop); buttons (gifted from a friend’s old tin of buttons put aside and never used); acrylic paint;
Canvas (new stretched canvas, painted red, supports the rags)
At first glance, a textile based artwork may seem very different from my usual medium of paint.
However the process of contemplation, of thinking, considering and feeling as I explore the idea,remains the same. Gathering materials - be they rags, threads and buttons, or paint, pigments and support; taking the first step, making the first mark, and responding to that is the same creative process, whichever medium I use.
The idea that I cant pin down in words is gradually enacted and embodied in the work. So hard to describe. The inspiration is not in words, or pictures, but an awareness that hovers just beyond my grasp and as I contemplate and pray and work, gradually it finds its form. It isn’t “about” transformation as much as an experience of transforming that acts as a physical embodiment of a spiritual experience. Yet, at the same time, it is cutting and folding and stitching and choosing. Making decisions and doing the work.
“He takes my rags”, is a physical transformation of a bag of rags into a single cohesive artwork.
It relates to my paintings in its limited palette, its compositional structure, its contemplative process of making, the time it takes to engage with the artwork, and its spiritual undergirding.
Yet with all that at one level, on another the physical making of the work looks rather more ordinary. I had the idea of working with rags as a painting support, but I wanted to transform them, not repurpose them. Whilst delivering some shredding to a local social enterprise that provides employment for men and women who experience challenges of various kinds, I discovered that they sell bags of rags that have been passed on to their op-shops but are unsuitable for sale. These op-shop rejects are washed, torn into pieces and bagged for sale.
Washing and tearing hint to me of cleansing and repentance.
Rejected, bought at a price, and made into something new hint to me of salvation and restoration, transformation and new beginnings.
I did not choose the bag. It was brought out to me, I purchased it and I worked with what was in it. An op-shop on the way home had a part used roll of variegated cotton embroidery thread - in red. Easter.
Laying out the pieces, I considered combinations and construction methods. Pieced or crazy patch? No, too planned, and I didn’t want it to be a quilt. I chose a piece to start with, folded and pressed it into pleats, set up my sewing machine, and realised the sewing machine pedal was in one of the many boxes stacked in my studio from our recent move. But which box? Hand sewing it is. Using an offset of fusible webbing from a friend, and a needle from my Nana’s sewing table I started pressing, folding, stitching, cutting and threading. Weaving pieces through one another.
Stopping to consider, and responding to what was there, I decided each time on the next step, working each fabric into the others. Keeping their individuality, yet uniting them, not only placing them side by side. Cutting sections out stitching them, or appliqueing them elsewhere, always composing in the space. Frayed edges, a tassel from the removed threads. And drawn, sketched with thread. Nothing wasted.
Old buttons from a friend’s tin, chosen and placed considering their colour, and size and grouping and method of attachment. Not just red, but which red? or blue? or yellow? Matched or different? Whats size? Each choice building towards the whole.
Paint, Observe, contemplate, make a mark. Red paint swirls and dances across the surface, punctuating patterns and rhythms.
A single flower bleeds into the white cotton.
Sets of three.
Metaphors hint at meaning, at truth, beyond themselves.
A cotton canvas, painted red, supports the stitched rags, visible through the spaces where the fabric is cut away.
The fabric, gently stretched and laced over the red painted canvas support, is pulled tight enough that the lacing thread sings when its plucked, but not so tight that it places undue stress on the fabric.
The signed artwork is ready for inclusion in “Transformation”, the Visionaries Lent to Easter Exhibition in the Vera Wade Gallery at the heritage listed St Andrew’s Uniting Church, Brisbane City from Lent to Easter 2020.
Geraldine Wheeler, Visionaries convener wrote in the “Transformation” Catalogue essay, “The theme, “Transformation”, has allowed for the contributing artists to interpret it in a wide range of ways, some relating to the biblical stories and events remembered in the time of Lent to Easter, some taking a more personal expression of the experience of the transformation of life and yet others reflecting upon transformation as observed in the natural world to which they can also give personal meaning. For some of the artists the making of their work is also an experience of personal transformation or therapy.”
May this Lenten period and Easter be a blessing to you in the midst of the challenges we currently face.