Sketches for Emmanuel College Art Residency

Letting go, Washing away

Clay and ink on plate, 2012

Grandmother's Favorite Proverbs

The one who asks for too much, 

lacks as much in himself -Horatius

Go to a friend in need,

even at midnight -Czech proverb

Love me a little,

love me for a long time -English proverb

Optimism is heat -London

Beauty fades,

stupidity is forever -Nestroy

The world is a beautiful book,

but that does not matter,

to the one who does not know how to read -Goldoni

Life is a joke. I have always thought so,

now I know it -Gay

If you love a wife, 

sometimes leave her -Malayan proverb

The happiest one,

is he who wants least -Buddha

The more I get to know people,

The more I love dogs -English proverb

Believe everyone and don't trust anyone -Italian proverb

New day, new month, new year, new epoch, new life

Or so it seems. 

Thinking about timelessness,

duplicity

a life lived before

a new one beginning.

Carving the portraits of my great-grandparents, I ask,

was I my great-grandfather, the artist, who told fantastic tales

to his children, or was I his wife who bore four children?

to a father (once removed)

A lovely show, OTEC, asks participant to write a letter to one's father,
describing feelings and anything one wants to express.
The letter is confidential and may not reach it's source.
The process is poignant.

I wrote to my grandfather as I witnessed his transformation the last month of his life.  

Painting and Grouping

suspended images in water (notes on pg.4&5)

touch is where thoughts are formed

you can't speak for anything else

no such thing as the world- your world,

loose and shifting- play with it

still there unscrew all those things

wealth of material

how slowly ideas get formed and content coming in blames part of the present

new model, thought differently all along

everything is in the air

country or city with nature

arguing- choice of direction

how you were going to participate or not

20th century- specialization

cross discipline/ cross species

roots of science > art

rewrite fundamental discourse as one discourse- correlation between art and science

world is an illusion

deconstruction as a process- (Homi Bhabha) 

shifting material- fluid, solid and fluid again

(resin, wax) water, melt an ice cube in the form of a face

let melt into a pool and recycle into another

face picks up dist and dirt along the way

show video recording of process

Al and I Play

(glove bunny)

Of Cleanliness and Dirt

I love cleaning right in the morning in my pajamas before the shower. It is the time for work, for sweat, the process of scrubbing, wiping the dust and cobwebs away. I enjoy both, the mess, the dust particles that I know are of the same substance as me, as well as the spotless floor/wall, the water that flows to purify.

In relation to the soaps, they stick! (Temporarily) I have figured out a system of nail, sticky tack and soap that joins soap to wall. It is not a forever, permanent sticking, on the contrary, quite a subtle (precarious) attachment. But the illusion of hovering in space is lovely especially in relation to the same color wall. Soaps lose their soapy materialism.

At present, I question their purity. Over a flame that leaves a charcoal residue, I mark them again and again until enough black soot accumulates. Then slowly, with water, I remove one layer until a right balance remains. 

restructuring family

This morning's workplay

Stepping Stones

Grandmother and her father

In Relation

Grandmother's Ladies, a collection

working with 1%

working with grandmother's posessions:

flawed lovers, grandma and grandpa

dysfunctional family

me: in-between (above) and spine (below)