Wherever It May Be

Tonight I'm posting the ultimate in me-ism - 5 shots of one encaustic construction called "Wherever It May Be." When I came home from the studio and downloaded photos of the piece, I showed them to Bonnie, my resident art critic. She pronounced it, "One of the weirdest things you've ever made."

So with that recommendation, here is the first view.

The overall dimensions are 36" H x 60" W. The deepest part is about 3 1/2", and the most shallow is 3/4". It's all encaustic with mixed media on panels.

This is the piece I mentioned a couple of posts ago. It's comprised of eight paintings or constructions that relate in some way to my mother. I wanted it to look like a narrative but not be an explicit story. Originally I intended to use photos, but it started looking too scrapbookish.

This view shows the dimension of various components

Instead, I decided to use repetitive images - circles, doilies, gothic shapes, and repeating color.

Closeup of right side

In the center above is the first piece I made for the combo. It began with a handkerchief with a hand-crocheted edge. My mother gave me dozens of them and they just about fit on a 12" square. In the outer circle is some text written in shorthand, and the inner circle says, "To the memory of my mother, wherever it may be."

The vertical blue piece at left above contains most of my mother's cocktail rings and a string of her pearls. The vertical piece at right above pays homage to the many wedding cakes my mother decorated and sold.

Closeup of the left side

In the brownish vertical piece at right above, I'm thinking of the rolled up pieces of fabric both as bandages for the many hurts my mother covered up during her life and also as memories rolled up and stored but now inaccessible.

The stripes on the horizontal piece at bottom mask a collage of handwritten notes and scraps that she kept near her chair at home. The yellowish piece at top left references her nearly lifelong practice of crocheting and the way that it faded away as she lost the ability to remember patterns.

A view of the piece from my chair on the other side of my studio that shows the work in the midst of my ongoing rummage sale.

I enjoyed making this piece because it involved juggling the shapes, colors and content all at the same time. It was also a challenge to use found materials and not have the work look too junky. If I had more time, I would make more of these constructions that I'm thinking of as wall books, but, no, onward and upward to the next new thing.