Vignettes of a Family, is about the ways in which individual and collective memory shapes identity. In an effort to narrow down such a broad subject, I started with my own family history in an attempt to address universal concepts in a personal context. The questions "Who am I" and "Who are we?" are central throughout our lives and have long been a topic discussed among psychologists, spiritualists, and therapists. My goal for this body of work was to deal with memory as a tool to observing and understanding the past. Exploring memory becomes instrumental in defining and re-inventing identity. Memory is a process of retelling and connecting fragmented and dissipated stories in an effort to identify commonalities within the framework of "family”.
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PROCESS, MATERIALS, and COMPONENTS
The Panels
The printed fabric panels were created using scanned photographs, letters, and other personal ephemera. Using Adobe Photoshop, I constructed digitally collaged images with multiple layers. During this process I sorted through a variety of images and selected those I felt best represented the essence of each person I wanted to represent. The hand embroidery was an important meditative process that forced me to sit and stitch for hundreds of hours. While my hands were busy, my mind was free to think about and digest the underlying reasons for the project, the people, and the stories that have played a part in constructing my memories, which have in turn shaped my identity. For me, the act of hand stitching is a very personal, sensory experience. Although laborious at times, there is a satisfaction derived from the rhythmic, ordered process, and body involvement. There is a meditative quality that occurs in working steadily with a single-minded intention that forces me to slow down and quiet myself long enough to think and be in the moment. The stitching also adds a tactile quality, and an added layer of depth and dimension to the piece. The free motion machine stitching was a way for me to work a little more freely and spontaneously as I responded intuitively to shapes and lines, creating visual paths and extensions within the compositions using thread.
The silk organza panels are transparent and ethereal allowing the viewer to see through into the heart/core of the Self. Through my research, I have come to understand that when you get to know people, you get to know them from other angles and perspectives. Aesthetically, the spherical, triangular, and rectangular shapes that coexist within each column offer a sense of balance and variety. In the exhibition space, the ten fabric columns are suspended from the ceiling in a manner that serves as a path for viewers to pass through.
Significance of the Spheres
The spherical forms represent the multifaceted and multidimensional nature of people. They also represent the cyclical nature of how memory shapes identity. The circular form is such a powerful symbol with philosophical and psychological theories that relate the Self in conjunction to everything else. In an excerpt from Being Spherical, authors Phil Lawson and Robert L. Lindstrom describe the sphere as myth and metaphor:
“…As a symbolic representation of three-dimensional space, the sphere encompasses all things knowable - the atom, the cell, the earth, the sky and the universe. The sphere is the great container of all that is available to our senses and our scientific sensors. In the world of time, the circle represents the beginning, the end and a return to the beginning. The sphere and the circle represent both the journey and the destination. What is it that makes the sphere so pervasive and so mighty? Why does it appear with such regularity and prominence in every culture, region, faith and epoch? Why does the sphere inhabit even our dreams? Because, when thinking about the sphere, or when using it to describe our experience, we are contemplating the totality of interconnection. In the sphere, we see everything in relationship to everything else. In the sphere we see the patterns of being” (Lawson and Lindstrom, 2004).
Making the spheres was a two-person job. My sister Leigh was my assistant. I set out to create something that would be ethereal and structurally sound. There was much trial and error before arriving at the final method employed in making the sculptural forms. Lengths of coarse yarn were coated in a mixture of water, white glue, and Plaverpol, a fabric stiffener. The soaked yarn was wrapped around rubber punch balls blown up to different sizes. When dry, the balls were popped and a hollow shell remained. The spheres were joined together and coated with a neutral colored spray paint to further seal and protect them. Over one hundred spheres were created for this installation.
Significance of the triangular form
In Vignettes of a Family, the triangular forms represent my personal philosophy from a Christian perspective regarding the three parts of man – the body, the soul, and the spirit.
Images by Justin Pearson Photography
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