Always Now (Almost)

This is my most recent embroidery. I have been working with this technique for a while and it has taken time meditating with it, light, slightly different materials, ways of framing it, to figure it out. I was happy with this photo, it was a perfect play on light and this 2 1/2Dness I am always seeking my work to exist within. 

It started with a kiss, ended in divorce, 

although it didn't exactly end.

This embroidery is of my ex-husband, he really worries about growing older and I wanted to give him immortality for Christmas. Just small gifts this year..

If his effigy is always moving, then it is never the same and always in the present, free from aging, but also living. 

Now all I need is a bigwig art tycoon, to buy it and make sure there is always a fan on it for eternity. 

(or until the cleaner unplugs the fan).

Ok, now that is immortality taken care of, NEXT! 

Here is a little film of it in action, though this was only the beginning of what became of it, after a very inspiring film-making day with artists John Orgon, Lisa Lozano, John Norwood, Cat Glennon and Tom Beale. But that will take quite a bit more editing then this little nugget.

A few other photo's taken along the way...

Tears

Breathe In. Breathe Out. has within it the representation of blood sweat and tears. 

This chandelier represents the tears. 

It was a leap of faith to make, especially the one pictured first as it was quite a progression from the others and wasn't really planned, I just went with the flow when I was so in the thick of it, that there was no time for pause, fear or wonder, its dive in or the idea dies, so I just did it and it made me feel really electric, one of those golden force moments. 

When I put the whole thing together in the wee hours of the morning before the opening, I had to leave the room, I was vulnerable with extreme tiredness and It was so beautiful in the dim light of my living room that my heart started to beat really fast and I had to watch a Mork and Mindy in the other room to calm down. I couldn't believe I had done it. When I proposed all this work with a month to make it, I feared this would be cast to the wayside, because it was so time consuming, but it was so vital! So I made it my 'at home work', so if I was home from the studio, which wasn't often, this is what I was doing and not a moment was wasted. 

Tears were such a present part of making all this work. I didn't make the work, just humming along quietly. I thrashed at it and against it, I cried all the time, in joy and despair, almost every time I actually stopped for a moment, I wept with exhaustion and worry. Everytime I triumphed the tears flowed. I bloodied my knees, pricked my finger, sliced my thumb and glued it together with superglue, because there simply wasn't time for all that. I purged alongside the work and my oh my did I sweat, especially while sewing inside the teleportation tunnel, it was basically like being covered in cling film, in this humid weather in my already too warm studio and the lugging, I would fid myself repeating in my head, donkey mum, donkey artist and dreampt of a time where i would leave the house with a key in my bra and just float away. 

This isn't a sad piece, it is the acknowledgement of emotion,within the cycle of our existence. The release of this energy, allowing us to move.