There are moments for me when its very much like a sunbeam breaking through a cloud – when something suddenly makes sense – even though it might have been said to me before.
This happened when I went to see one of my favourite artists as well as a Master Printer that she works with, who both gave me valuable advice.
Elaine Reichek makes work which incorporates embroidery, exploring themes which I find endlessly fascinating – often using myth to articulate contemporary concerns, making stitch marks that reference all kinds of language and ways of thought that really chime with me. In her beautiful live-work space she had pieces on the wall which were often about different forms of writing in stitch, using morse code for example. It was inspiring to meet someone who is such a significant pioneer and part of my education as an artist… I went to see her because I wanted to get a sense of the possibilities from someone who uses stitch as a conceptual mark. I showed her my artist book which incorporates a lot of mark-making by hand, and the new things I was working on…. I have felt a real need to get some sort of feedback on the notes I am scratching out, feeling my way around work so different to what I used to make when I was doing my MA….feedback from someone with huge knowledge, a historical awareness that will help me establish what has come before and where I sit …because when I make I want to locate myself. I want to know that the things that I am making have some anchors, little hooks to other things which stop them bobbing about on the sea. The recent pieces I have been making always make people say ‘tattoo’. I want to think about that in more detail. Something I read on body modification a few months ago made me question what I was doing and I wanted to think through a particular idea more deeply. I talked about it with Elaine and she pointed me in the direction of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter. Although I have thought about his character of Hester Prynne before I did not know of the historical reference to William Prynn, a man who was branded across the face with SL – seditious libel. This has given me some new things to think about….It was a real privilege to talk to her.
We also talked about the difference between then and now – and how this has changed…Sometimes it seems like an insurmountable task….I just want to bury myself in making work.. I know it’s impossible to think like that.
A lot of what I do starts out as a ‘test’. Then I realise I really like it, but I did it ‘just to test’. Then there is this moment when you have to gulp and do it not ‘like a test’ but trust that it’s going to be worth it. I think that moment is now.
I’d like to think more about my meeting with Elaine and come back to it later…. it was very significant to me but I really need to think more about it before I write in detail.
Afterwards I went to see Judith Solodkin at Solo Impressions. Judith is a Master Printer and does some incredible work, collaborating with artists to make multiples of their unique works, often using embroidery. This was why I wanted to see her – much of my work (almost all) is now comprised of the unique object. It has posed a problem with a number of my embroidered pieces that form part of my book, Conversations with my mother. I don’t want to split them but often get asked about them. I want to keep the project together, to show it as one…I don’t know if this makes me too anxious. Judith said I had displacement anxiety about the editioning / not editioning conundrum, which made me laugh. She said: “You can do what you want as an artist….didn’t you know that?” I do love just looking at practical things like thread and drying racks. It’s very soothing…
I finished the day with managing to squeeze in a trip to the Whitney. Although I did enjoy the photographs included in a section of portraits from their permanent collection, it was their special exhibition on Carmen Herrera that I found really entrancing that afternoon. I am curious about my tastes in things I like to look at, often preferring real abstraction – which I find most strange considering what I make myself. I have wondered if it means I am cleansing my mind of noise when I look at it…certainly when I do a lot of work in the studio myself I feel like I have something akin to Snow Blindness, pin-pricking white paper with a needle, and I like to soak in colour when I look at other things.
