Security (part 2)

Janet Taylor Pickett created these amazing paintings, which I saw at the Morris Museum in NJ.  Her use of dresses as powerful symbols really resonated with me - so much of my art deals with clothing. In her great show at the Montclair Museum, she morphed dresses into architecture (something I will never do as successfully as she does, but I keep trying).   

I found a dress shape, and used it to experiment with photos of some of my older art. I knew I wanted a lighter dress shape on a darker (more menacing) background. In my Tsunami piece, I had used keys and keyholes to represent homes, and decided to repeat that motif here. I discharged key shapes onto dark fabrics and sewed together a dark, map-like background. Then I took my old nightgown...

...and used my trusty photoshop to add lighter patches with printed keyhole images. 

Security (2012 or 2013...not sure) 70"h x 42"w

This is the epitome of anxious fear. Her whole body/dress is an inward clutch. The background keys and the dress keyholes have a sexual connotation and the ripped sections of the dress suggest violence.

Her fear is embedded in her: safety pins and garter clips, clothespins and even salad tongs try to hold her safe. Which brings us to...

Never Enough (2013) 74"h x 28"w

No, no matter how hard we try, we will never be truly, absolutely safe...and we will buy any device that promises that safety. I have a theory: in past generations past, we saw actual, real people more than we saw printed images of people. Now, we see hundreds of perfect photo-bodies for every real person we encounter, and our perception of beauty has been warped by the disconnect. In the same way, we no longer endure the horrors of war, famine and pestilence, but we are inundated with images and stories of every possible catastrophe every minute of the day. 

Maybe that's why we're so fearful. We cling tightly..

..and our heads explode with passwords, PINs, codes and combinations. it will never be enough.

If you're interested in the process, take a look:

The white background is constructed with lengths of snaps and zippers, and the hanging rod is built into the top of this fairly heavy piece.

Fossil Garments 2008 (part 3)

Fossil Garment #7 (25"h x 39"w)

I have an irrational fondness for this one. It has an implied danger, a stress (those 2 white glove-hands pulling in different directions, and the black glove gripping at her). This piece is very tightly stretched over a frame, with all those buttons (and keys, and keyholes) attached with bright red thread. There are paper pattern pieces, too: is she being constructed, or pulled apart?

My friend and fellow-artist Rayna Gillman called these my 'dead baby series' . She has a point.

Generational Fossil (46"h x 30"w) 2009

I continued making Fossil Garments, but now used adult clothing. In this nod to American Gothic, the man and woman are portrayed by their clothing and tools. The woman is an apron/clothespin bag, the man is work gloves and tool belt...and an instruction manual for his head. He holds the keys, the name plates, she has the kitchen tools, and the change purse - the petty cash, not the money.

When I was a child, I made clothespin dolls, so I still have some thought of them as representing people. She holds these clothespin-people in her mind, and in her body.

A few quick words on technique: the bottom layer of clothespins here are printed on cloth, cut and sewn on to the darker background cloth. Other clothespins have been cut in half and sewn over the printed ones, and the clothespin bag was sewn over it all. In the first Generational Fossil picture, you can see several pieces of leather. I soaked the leather, then used clamps to press the wet leather tightly over coins and tools, giving me the impressions in the leather.

Overgrown Fossil (68"h x 49"w)

This is the one that was on the cover of Fiber Arts Magazine in 2010. She started as a nightgown found in a garage sale in Nutley. When I started deconstructing her, I found that the sleeves had been patched several times...and as I took it apart, the patching opened up to resemble wings. Her nightgown figure is overlapping a man's sweater in a way that makes the neck opening suggest her head. So - is she flying out of the green crocheted-and-felted jungle, or is she sinking in?

At her very heart is an image of the original nightgown, with all the patched parts spread open.