Posts Tagged ‘words’
Personal Statement
My art practice and everyday life can blur into one another so much that it is impossible to separate them. I often use everyday materials that are already in my life but somehow call me to create something with them, such as brown paper bags turned into poppy seed heads, a broken umbrella, the biker leathers James gave me for my 34th birthday. One day I put on these leathers and my back went for no apparent reason, we both thought that I needed to make some art with these leathers, some healing needed to be done, my back recovered!
My own art journey travels to the invisible and tries to make it visible and overlooked reconsidered and repositioned. I like to combine things which are rarely seen together; relocating them, such as painted words on clothes, both clothes for humans and in the past horses. I often use text in my art practice and see words as having a lot of power, like prayer flags.
However I do not limit myself to making or recreating objects solely, I move freely from the flatter lands of painting and drawing, printing, collage and photography and into the rolling hills of solid object land, I also enter the disappearing and reappearing land of video from time to time. As well as the land, sea and sky itself with environmental and time-based works. Sometimes these all overlap.
James Slevin is both my partner in life and my muse. In the past it was usual for male artists to have a female muses. We work together, I make, but he somehow sees from a distance with more clarity where the piece is going and guides it in a very gentle and perceptive manner, not changing its destiny but helping it to fully reach it.
(This statement is to go with my resent work, which is hand made objects and instillation art, though it is connected to my painting I have a separate statement for my painting written by a great friend and art writer.)
Memories of interventions and other things in the Burren
Walking on rocks the sea covers.
Watching words in the sea
being covered and uncovered by sand.
Wind blown drip drawing
indigo and gold.
For a moment the sea looks white like a milk pond.
Two crows on sea warn grey rocks.
Do the boat like vessels still drip indigo tonight?
Where is the dolphin sleeping tonight?
Is there shelter beneath the great tall cliffs?
Swell of wind blown grasses and sweet flowers.
Sea and rain hollowed rocks hold little pools of sea water.
The stony beach looks different today, hills of rock.
Roaring sea.
Returning home, stepping on sun-warmed rocks.
Rock pools like rivers.
A trail in the sand of an unknown bird.
Tide lines.
The Wall paper scroll series
While we were living in Spain, I made a series of works on wallpaper. Much of these were of words repeated over and over like: Love and Unity,using the Burgundy stain from an almost black corn on the cob, which James had bought for some exotic cooking!Sorry I stole it from him! Along with indigo pigment. I mixed these two colours to get the transitional colour, so there would be kind of waves of colour going down the scrolls.
I also made this drawing of a woman (left) as if from the inside out; thoughts and feelings are brought to the surface with words. I did a piece about sort of New Years resolutions, which hints at the almost absurd expectations that we and society put on each other! This is called Be Good! I wrote a Shamanic type conversation I had with a tree, called advice from a tree. Followed by piece where I wrote single words I chose from Herman Hesse’s book, The Alchemist, and which I also questioned the idea of using other peoples’ work in the piece itself. I also did on on the possibilities of a Free hour, and some of the this I could have done! The scrolls are all 6 or 7 feet in length.
I have recently bought another roll of wall paper, so I will see where this elongated series of work goes to! The first attempt has been as a very long piece about the difficult and dangerous journey that many Tibetans have taken from Tibet to Daramsala through the Himalayas, including the Dalia Lama. This piece has been inspires by James and his site Peacerider, to be inspired too!
The Power of Words
I think of the words we use as being very powerful, that they go out into the universe whether they are written, spoken or sung. Positive words have positive vibrations and so with the opposite. I try to use positive words in my art practice or at least neutral words. Names of places often seem to influence what happens in the place, such as in Northern Ireland could it be possible that if “Stormont” had another name (Starmont maybe?) would peace have been a little bit easier to achieve? To me millions of people writing and saying a word that conjures up images and feelings of torment, and the mount of storms! (tormenta being the spanish for storm) cannot be helpful when aiming for peace! Peace talks in such a building, sounds like starting at a disadvantage! What are we calling for? The words I used in the “sheet in the sea” pieces were based on this idea, as well as for me of being a visual affirmation of harmony between humans and the rest the natural world.
Love Unity Love Laughter Love Live Love Light Love Love Love!!
Interventions on the beach at Fanore
Today was a lovely day, part of it involved a journey to Fanore beach. I did something that I had not done for a while, that was go for a walk on the beach on my own with my old camera, sorry no images yet, I will have get the film processed! The sand was formed into miniature sand dunes with little islands of no dunes, in these islands I wrote words, such as: Love, unity, joy, smile, laugh and Free Tibet.
I also found the piece of silk from a Foxford blanket that had been a wedding present given to my parents. I had been carrying around in my camera case for years, taking photographs of it in different situations. The pale blue piece of silk was very fragile and had come away from the rest of the blanket. I repaired the length of silk with horses hair. It reminded me of the the white silk scarves that it is traditional for Tibetan Buddhists to give when they met someone. It also reminded me of the Tibetan prayer flags also known as Wind Horses. I took some photographs of the silk going across a large rock, in places it was a bridge and in there places it was a pale blue path. It was fun to do these playful interventions again.
The last time I did an intervention on Fanore beach was 7 years ago when I stuck bamboo leaves in the sand I had written words about the surrounding area on the leaves, then waited for the sea to come in and to see what would happen the leaves; how the words would be effected by the sea and how the leaves would be dispersed and float on the in coming waves, and I documented this. I enjoy the playful, poetic, absurdity of these interventions!
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