Words with Iris July 2021 (A belated Blog)
It had been months since Iris and I connected, both of us have had a busy year. It is always so grounding to hear her voice carefully analyse the photos I have sent her. We stray into other topics then work our way back to my work. She set me a task; to make five of the same objects over a 9-day period and I felt strangely relieved to have a rigid path set for me. I determined to use a variety of materials and work as quickly as possible not agonising about the work just making and moving onto the next piece. Excellent, why do I not do this all the time??
Heart # 4 Linen, silk, sterling silver and steel pins 120 x 130 mm.
Heart # 2 Copper and silk 80 x 90 mm.
Heart # 3 Ebony and Silk 85 x 45 x 55 mm.
Heart # 5 Taffeta, silk, sterling silver, steel pins 110 x 120 mm.
Heart #1 Copper and Rose wood 100 x 100 mm
The result was a mixed bag but as Iris predicted it provided a platform for discussion and further making. I wouldn’t say I’m on point with relevance to my initial concept this year but that doesn’t matter, sometimes the work dictates direction, and we follow the breadcrumbs on the forest floor until the gingerbread house comes into view.
Iris has set me a new task while she is in Maine on Deer Island doing a residency there. Between moving house, cardboard boxes confront me at every turn, and the arrival of my first grandchild (a home-birth to which I have been asked to attend) I will attempt to produce work.
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Well, that was over 2 months ago! After a spurt of making with Iris’s encouragement things altered dramatically with the onset of another lock-down. I lived with those cardboard boxes for 3 weeks waiting to move and with no gear at home and all my work safely stored at the workshop.
Our Master Class this year in video making has been taken by the inspiring and encouraging Estela Saez. Initial Zoom meetings were fun, offbeat, and more than a little disconcerting with requests for impromptu 30 second videos…. We got into a rhythm of monthly Zoom meetings where we were encouraged to be experimental, giving and receiving feedback. During Dunedin’s relatively short lock-down (compared to the poor Aucklanders) we were asked to make a video using a piece of our work (prior to this our videos alluded to our work and were not to show it directly).
I had no tools and none of my work in the surrounding cardboard boxes so fossicked in the garage for what I had from a few years ago. Limitations of time and material can breed a different sort of work I find, making becomes imperative, analysis and thinking become limited as intuition leads the way. The piece that finally emerged after 4 iterations was raw hide, dyed with some left over red dye and stitched together in its final state with red cotton. It was indicative of the collision of recent events during a two-week period; a death, a birth, and a move from one home to another.
Memories, stress, deep sorrow, sheer joy, confusion, and a profound awareness of the fragility of our existence, all palpably strong emotions that tugged my heart during this short space of time.