Repreposessed
Making something from nothing.
Making something from something from nothing.
Reprepossesed.
There's a show coming up called The Spring Exhibition, here in Providence, and some of my most recent work is included. It is very fresh and raw work in the form of kinetic sculptures and wordplay ink drawings. The objects are recognizably domestic yet they reach for a more cosmic identity, involving some serious play, magical thinking and basement tinkering.
When I go into my basement I am reminded that as citizens of a consumer culture we all must sort through the accumulations that surround us. Some people throw it away ruthlessly, others fawn over the memories or the possibilities the objects stir up, others hoard. Sorting the findings and the precious things, connections and evolutions happen and that is the essence of creative artistic process. It is a process of discovery, intuition. It is translation, an autodidactic education.
These collected items, lingering in containers and in corners, are finding their way into the light. I hold them up, to inspect them in their curious existence, seeking a way to transform them, an investigation for deeper meanings.
Buttons have appeared in my work frequently. They are such wonderful curiosities. The are relatable and precious, and individual. They remind me of my great Aunt Betty, who sorted her buttons into folded tissue and then often wrapped the package with a rubber band and then enclosed it in a small baggie. I have tins and tins of buttons. Spending time sorting them and enjoying their design, color, texture, glimmer, quality is a simple, small delight.
At the end of December, 2024, I applied for a large public sculpture where buttons represented small glimmers of individuality, representing the holocausts youngest victims. In recent artworks I have used buttons as means of attachment, whimsical and functional, evocative of textiles and clothing, or fallen off in need of repair, saved for another day, beaconing for tenderness and attention.
For the proposal, the buttons became evocative of individualistic expression. Even one button can be seen as unique in a sea of a million and a half buttons. I had never considered what a volume of buttons would look like strung together until this project. The concept advanced in the competition, and while I did not get the commission, the process sparked a fresh artistic and spiritual inquiry.
Entering this new phase of making, using the treasure trove of collected materials, is a bit overwhelming. To drown out the noise of uncertainty it is wise to begin through the drawing process, which allows unconscious to surface. For the past five years, at least, I've played with images and words, to unpack the unspoken. I do love words, and the way Gertrude Stein plays around with them. They way they can be structures like the poetry of Shane McCrae to craft a feeling out of potential nonsense, and it sounds good, and it looks casual, however that feeling that something lurks below, is true.
This process of ink on paper, while well practiced, continues to surprise me. The sum-e ink on brown paper has become a process, of pause, breath, brushstroke, word. During this new inquiry into the kinetic and the domestic, the ink drawings connect the objects to a humorous insight.
While looking up the process of Sumi-e painting, looking for snippets of wisdom to share in a link, I remembered the Heart Sutra , the Prajnaparamitha, the perfection of nothingness. This is something I studied in the early nineties as a drop-in student for 5 a.m. zazen practice with Dogen Hori at the Harvard Divinity School. What I didn't know then, that I know better now, is that the Prajnaparamita can also be considered a mantra of not-one-thing-ness, rather than nothingness. This is what I am seeking in making these reprepossesed works of art.
Come celebrate and view this new work
at the recently established
324 Angell Street
The Spring Exhibition
March 19-May1, 2025
Reception April 26, 5-8 pm
