New Work - Deconstructed Books

A few years ago when we lived in Ashfield, Mass. (one of the hilltowns of Franklin County in western Massachusetts), we helped our neighbors in the Spruce Corner area of Ashfield clean up and paint an old one-room schoolhouse. It had been unused as a schoolhouse for many years, but at one time had been a neighborhood meeting room for various functions. We came across a stash of old, dirty, mildewed books published between 1915 and 1945 or so that had been left there in an unused part of the building (the privy). We were about to throw them out when my partner Bonnie insisted that we save them and take them home. (She does this with animals, too.)

The books have been traveling with me from studio to studio, and I look at them every now and then, always meaning to use them in my work since they are so evocative of a different era. They are mostly novels and stories suitable for children or young adults. What attracts me to them is not really their content, but their physical appearance.

"Dancers in Mourning", deconstructed book mounted on panel with encaustic, rubber, tacks, pigment stick, 16"H x 12"W. (The title of the piece is the title of the book.)

I have been thinking about the disappearance of memory and the parallels between books without content and people without memory. What are we without our memories? Both people and books have a resonance from their previous life and a certain beauty that reflects the passage of time. I guess this wearing away by time relates to the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi where "an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing." (Juniper, Andrew (2003). Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence. Tuttle Publishing, quoted on Wikipedia).

The Clue of the Eyelash,  deconstructed book mounted on panel with encaustic, rubber, tacks, pigment stick, 16"H x 12"W.

This is not to minimize the really disastrous impact of memory loss on an individual that leads to the dissolution of a person's mind. I'm choosing to focus on the part of a person that is left when memory starts to go. There is a certain peace that arrives with loss of detail and a lessening importance of those things which preoccupy us so much, mostly relating to time and relationships. In wabi-sabi "nothing lasts, nothing is finished and nothing is perfect" (Powell, Richard R. (2004). Wabi Sabi Simple. Adams Media quoted on Wikipedia).

Boys of Liberty, deconstructed book mounted on panel with encaustic, rubber, tacks, pigment stick, 16"H x 12"W.

So these pieces are made in the spirit of wabi-sabi in recognition of their imperfection, impermanence and changed nature.

As a former English major, I was reminded of my favorite Wordsworth poem, where he describes the sense of serene melancholy and spiritual longing of wabi-sabi.

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
      With many recognitions dim and faint,
      And somewhat of a sad perplexity,                               
      The picture of the mind revives again:
      While here I stand, not only with the sense
      Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
      That in this moment there is life and food
      For future years. And so I dare to hope,
      Though changed, no doubt, from what I was...

William Wordsworth

Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, 1798

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.