Per Kirkeby

Yesterday I drove down to DC to see the Per Kirkeby show at the Phillips Collection.  I met my sister, who lives nearby the museum, for breakfast before we walked over to the show.  They didn't allow photos of the exhibition so these images are screen grabbed from the museum's blog.

After walking through the show we sat and watched two films about Kirkeby.  The first, Per Kirkeby Winter's Tail (1996) by Jesper Jargil, is a great process film.  The second, Per's Method, is a documentary from 2008 featuring Poul Erik Tojner in conversation with Per Kirkeby about his works at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark.  I visited the museum in 2004 and really fell in love with Kirkeby's work.  Seeing the works and listening to the films 8.5 years later I realize what a strong influence Kirkeby has had on my work.

Per Kirkeby Winter's Tale (1996)

More Information: http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_new=53487&int_sec=2#.UOlnmrag4yI[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org

Cameroon

The experiences I had visiting Cameroon in 2003 are still having a big impact in my work.  In speaking to a friend about her year in Thailand I envisioned a diverted river.  Some experiences are so powerful that while your river keeps on flowing it flows in a completely new direction.  My biggest regret in the aftermath of my time in Cameroon is not asking more questions.  At the time I was so overwhelmed by the information I was already receiving that I didn't ask things I would really like to know.  For example, is this type of binding poles together planned?  Is it individual?  Does each person do it a different way or does one artisan like variety??  In any case I was really struck by the beauty and variety of these bound poles. 

Memory & Inspiration

I need to start this post by saying I love the internet. And I especially love people who put things on the internet. It took me the better part of an hour to figure out how to remove a still image from my imovie9 footage-no thanks to imovie's "help". ANYWAY, now I can actually write my post!



Since I made the movie for my Great Wissahickon Project I've gotten my video camera back out. More importantly I've gotten all of my video footage back out. I've always wanted to do something with it, especially the video I shot in Cameroon. (Most of which will make you sick to watch because I can't seem to hold the camera still.) Today I was putting together a clip (see it here) and was struck by the correlation between these feathered costumes and the scale pieces I've been making.



It's been 7 years since I visited Cameroon. I had forgotten about those costumes until today. Or at least I THOUGHT I'd forgotten them, because obviously I had not.

Source of the Spiral, Part 4

My first experiments involved using a stone to form a divot in watercolor paper. This is a detail from a drawing I made while staying on the island of Møn in 2004.



It was interesting but still not quite what I was getting at so I put it on the back burner for a few years. The idea stuck in my head but also metamorphosed. It was altered by other forms that I saw around me, in particular a wild rose bush whose blooms were extremely abundant. So in 2008 I tried again. Also with paper. This time I used cut up water bottles to support wet paper into rounded forms.



This was getting closer but it wasn't until I switched to canvas and began to sew that it really took shape. Blue Cups is one of the earliest spiral pieces. It was made in 2008 not that long after the last paper attempt. It was organized like the bumpy cement patterns I saw on the street in Harrisburg.

Source of the Spiral, Part 3

The rock carvings in Tanum were painted red which created a striking connection, in my mind anyway, between the cup symbols in the rocks and the seemingly random dots that decorate the Elmelunde Church on the island of Møn, Denmark. You can see them in the two close-up shots below. Six dots circling a central 7th dot creating what looks like a little flower. But I immediately felt that those dots must have been drawn from the pre-Christian cup marks that, flattened into two dimensions, are dots. And it seemed to me that a simple, but powerful symbol was transported from one way of thinking to another. Brought forward in time even if it lost it's meaning shortly thereafter. This is total speculation on my part. The great thing about being an artist is that I can make a connection like that and run with it. It's not terribly important that I'm right (although I'd love to see someone follow up on that idea) but just that it gives me something to think about. In this case how critical symbols are maintained through major social changes like new religions and political upheaval.

Source of the Spiral, Part 2

Just before traveling to Denmark we drove though Sweden. While there we visited the rock carvings in Tanum. I can't find the proof to back up my memory but somewhere I read that the many cup indentations were likely fertility symbols. Not necessarily in a human reproduction sense, although not excluding that, but in the broader sense of prosperity for the community.


A particularly beautiful section of petroglyphs shiny with the rain that fell during our whole visit.


Here a figure with a large hand holds many cups. These cup symbols were liberally scattered amongst the carvings.

Source of the Spiral, Part 1

I was asked about the source of my spiral works. The answer to that question is multifaceted. One of the main things I look for in choosing forms is a kind of universality. I want to work with forms that are meaningful but that are meaningful to different people in different ways. So I look for forms that are powerful but open. One of my earliest sources of inspiration for what became the spirals was found in Møn, Denmark. The island is populated with ancient burial mounds. These include large boulders and you can actually go inside some of them. I'm not positive if the rock below is part of a burial mound but it is covered in carved out "cup" divots. These divots are fertility symbols.


Climbing up to the rocks.


A view of the fields.


Close-up of the rock and divots.