Excitement, Ideas, and Doubt, OH MY!

I had my first meeting with my mentor this past week, amazing!  Renée had so many great insights about my current work.  She suggested checking out "The Three Fates"and Case making insects...holy crap, what a great idea!  It really gave me loads of ideas and offered a lot of different avenues as to how I'll push through my frustration with regards to not necessarily having the "right" knowledge to know what to do sculpturally.  Renée asked about the shapes I choose and offered the suggestion to dig in and discover the deeper meaning in my choices also she encouraged me to go out and find found items to wrap.  Now, I do have to say I think the work is in an awkward stage and I'm not certain how I feel about that but am just going with it and continuing my exploration of my process and my "rituals" that seem to be very important to this particular work.

After my meeting with both Deborah and Renée I'm feeling so happy, energized, and hopeful about the direction the work is going.

my objects from last semester wrapped in nylon and coated with latex

this is a continuation of the above image and is now coated in plaster

The pieces below are wrapped in cheese cloth and are only a beginning, I haven't decided how they will morph.  One of the helpful things Renée said about cocoons and case making objects," the transformations occur while inside"....so great and gives me lots of things to think about and obviously this will take some time for things to transform...

vessels wrapped in cheese cloth

Below is just another experiment and I haven't decided what to do with them at all. 

some experimentation and such...

I'm trying some new things as well as working on how I will solidify my direction and trying to decipher and identify exactly what I'm wanting to express through this new work. I am discovering, this semester, I'm doing much more research, thinking, as well as sketching in determining how to approach the work. I'm feeling a bit unsteady and feel as if I'm tip-going through some muddy waters(at least for myself) concerning what shame and shaming women looks like.  Here are some experiments....

Still working on wrapping and coating it with latex

In Process, still adding more waxed thread

making the same objects out of wire mesh

coating the wire mesh with paper and latex

These are the objects (from last residency) coated again with wax and painted and placed on a satin pillow....

Finding the Way

I have been trying to settle into the new semester.  I'm finding it a struggle to focus in on the very large topic of shame.  I am reading and researching loads and trying to identify what exactly I am hoping my work communicates.  I have been offered really great gifts by two friends.  Fabric and sheets and alginate and plaster gauze to help in finding my direction.  I felt I had mixed critiques and am trying to let the  comments I don't need fall away and hone in on the information that will assist in moving through to the next step on the work.

Figuring Things Out

After a ridiculous amount of over-thinking about how to put all the parts together, I think I've come up with  a solution, at least temporarily. My meeting with my  mentor helped put things into perspective and allowed me to push forward and discover a solution.  I used fishing line to string together the sewn containers, this allows me to arrange the pieces in a way that I am able to suspend the containers along the line at different intervals.  Being able to suspend the containers at different points along the line provides a sensation  the containers are floating similar to how we carry old memories, feelings, old messages, and thoughts within our psyche.  For now, this is what I am settling on since we are galloping towards the cut off point of mailing our work to Boston.

Meeting with my Mentor

I had my fourth meeting with my mentor, Leslie, last week.  She was incredibly helpful in adding insights into concepts, ideas, and progress made during the semester.  Leslie, as usual, helped me step outside of my view of my studio practice and allowed me to see the work as it is and begin to see the next steps for the upcoming semesters.  Leslie has an amazing gift of asking questions that propel you forward in trusting your work and studio practice.   It's been an intense semester by stepping outside of my normal painting practice but, with Leslie's support,  feel it has been an important period of growth, I'm excited to see where the work takes me.

Three weeks to go...

There are 3 1/2 more weeks before the final report is sent in for this semester..CRAZY!
I guessI'll do a little recap of the semester through images.  I currently have three, closer to four, canvases I'm still working on and generally trying to decide how to respond to them. There are objects that I feel are resolved but a number of them seem to need more time...  Part of the challenge is logistical and not being quite sure about the best way of grouping or stabilizing the objects, I believe that will come through  trial and error and experimenting by creating smaller versions of the objects...it'll happen...
Here are the canvases as of today, the 13th of May.

Cheers!

The following images consist of four separate canvases....

90+ more....

After my last post I decided I would need more of these objects.  I decided to use two more canvases.  These particular canvases were from two people in my adoptive family. After choosing to use these particular canvases I realized that the  four canvases used for these objects all had been touched by adoption in some fashion.  The first canvas I chose, her mother had been adopted, the second, her sister, and of course these two I was the adoptee.  Anyway, I just thought it a strange coincidence, I hadn't purposely chosen to do it this way.

Below are the objects after one dipping in wax. I think I'll incorporate all these objects with one of the other canvases at some point but haven't decided exactly the best approach at this point.