Yesterday over lunch in the little (half) kitchen beside the studio Mireia said something that set me thinking: you work with layers.
As I sat here sewing, as I was driving home last night, as I made dinner, as I washed up after breakfast this morning, and throughout the day I have been thinking about that seemingly simple statement: you work with layers.
Layers is not a word that I would have come up myself but it feels so appropriate. Layers are exactly what I work with – sometimes literally but nearly always conceptually. I like the imagery that comes with the word – bethat layers of clothing, geological layers … even the layers of an onion.
When I make and talk about my work there is layer after layer. Each one having its distinct and separate character. The physical layers might be sequential, the theoretical ones not necessarily. The talking could easily be as much a stripping away of layers as it could be a building up of them.
As I sit here now I am struck by Mireia’s choice of preposition: with. I look up a brief definition of ’with’ – accompanied by. A shiver runs down my spine. This too seems to be so appropriate – the layers, especially those layers of meaning, are things that accompany me. I like the immediacy and proximity of ’with’ … there’s a closeness almsot an intimacy. ’With’ even suggests something collaborative. I have described my practice as a collaboration with materials. There is something both active and open about ’with’.
While I am in this vein – the verb: work. It’s activeness, it’s physicalness, it’s everydayness all appeal to me.
In its entirety Mireia’s short phrase captures the essence of what I do. It is both specific and open for interpretation. For the moment at least it feels as though it is the sentence that I have been longing for – the simple definitive statement that describes what I do without either complication or reduction.
Thank you Mireia!
I work with layers.
