Four: Reflecting on the January 2017 Residency

The Object as an Image

Over the summer, I made some cyanotypes while visiting my grandmother. She owns kitchen utensils that were passed down to her by her own mother. A couple may have even belonged to her grandmother as well. These objects are beautiful in their own right.

Although they are still being used, they hold for me memories of my great-grandmother and her cooking. They also bring to mind issues of legacy and inheritance. Not only do these objects symbolize the values of hard work and devotion to family that was the legacy my great-grandmother passed on to my grandmother and the rest of her descendants, but they are also imbued with memories of her recipes, mealtimes and holidays spent with family, and a tangible symbol of her touch and labor.

My goal is to incorporate several of these images into my quilted collage work. I will also experiment with using them as part of a wall collage, that will draw connections between my hand photographs and hand shell sculptures.

The Unreliablity of Memory

"Time and memory are true artists: they remold reality nearer to the heart's desire."

- John Dewey

The Decisive Moment

I'm very excited about developments with the sand paintings. I just ordered some test prints today on paper and textile. I've also been considering how to display the images once I decide which material to use. I believe the new method of matching the landscape and ruins into diptychs drawing connections between the idealized memory of a landscape and its inevitable destruction and transformation is promising. I also have some ideas concerning how to display sand installations. Originally, I wanted to build or repurpose a table. Now, I'm planning to build a wall-mounted or hanging shelf out of plexi so that the sand can be viewed from every possible angle. I would like to know if a clear surface underneath will help to eliminate boundaries between the viewer and the work encouraging more intimate interaction.

Why Use Sand?

As I mentioned in my last post, I continue to use loose sand as the primary medium for these landscape memory pieces because of its visual resemblance to a natural landscape, references to working directly with earth (soil), and references to time and ephemerality. I will continue to create multiple works inspired by the same landscape to compare their visual elements and what they seem to communicate, to refine this language further.