Opus 2 in 24 Movements
From exhibition catalog:
Perhaps the ultimate creative experience is that of a parent. Our children are created out of the biophysical matter that is our bodies, and our hopes and dreams. We raise them to be reflections of ideals we want to offer the world as a part of a continuum initiated by our own parents and long ago by our ancestors. As a young girl, I remember becoming duly impressed with my son’s father after he took me to see a Truffaut movie. I think it was "Jules and Jim". Both of us shared an interest in a visual social life and film. Both of us studied film at one point, neither of us pursued it as a profession. Our son did however, and now works as a director, producer and writer. Somewhere amidst all of our discussions and debates deconstructing this film or that, an interest in film was passed on to him through some act of osmosis or our DNA.
So it may not be a surprise that I chose my son Dayo, as my collaborator after being asked by fellow furniture maker Gail Fredell, curator of the exhibition "Makers Without Borders: Furniture Makers, Sculptors and the Artists who have contributed to their Creative Lives," to choose a person important to my creative life to be in the show with me. This is our second collaboration. The first happened organically when I came to New York where he lives to spend four months on a residency. He became very engaged in a project [see the "Baartman Diaries" in this portfolio] I was discussing and I invited him to participate.
As a parent of an adult child, there comes a time when you realize you can drop the protective dance you do with your child and start relating more as the individual you are without the fear that you are not being a proper authority figure. I am fairly private and can be rather stoic and don’t always know how to let people in, even him. I realized collaborating creatively was a great way to open another door in our relationship outside of mother and son.
This work centers on the relationship I have with my hands as agents of knowing, mediators of ideas, and actors of expression. My work often crosses boundaries between art, design and craft. I make sculptural and installation pieces with various media that have no “traditional” function. I make work that can pass for traditional studio furniture, and I make work that could be categorized as design. Although these categories are irrelevant to me in my creative process, as I tell my students, they are important to others and to how one successfully presents and markets their work.
My creative values square solidly with a craft ideology that privileges the hand, patience and a respect for materials. I believe as neurologist Frank R. Wilson has documented, that there is a “knowing” that accumulates and is stored in the cells of the hand very much like in our brains.
The musical metaphor seemed appropriate for the title of this work. The etymology of the word Opus comes from 18th-century Latin and literally means ‘work.’ Since Dayo and I discussed filming my hands over a twenty-four hour period for this project, we thought we could edit it down to twenty-four “movements.”
A version of the above text appears in the exhibition catalog from the show and also includes a short companion essay written by my son.
Makers Without Borders: Furniture Makers, Sculptors and the Artists Who Have Contributed to Their Creative Lives
Penland Gallery
Penland School of Crafts
Penland, NC
May 19 - July 12, 2009
Exhibition curator, Gail Fredell
Gallery manager, Kathryn Gremley
Photography, Robin Dreyer
For more info on the exhibition and other participants go to:
http://www.penland.org/gallery/09exhibitions/makers/makers.html
Perhaps the ultimate creative experience is that of a parent. Our children are created out of the biophysical matter that is our bodies, and our hopes and dreams. We raise them to be reflections of ideals we want to offer the world as a part of a continuum initiated by our own parents and long ago by our ancestors. As a young girl, I remember becoming duly impressed with my son’s father after he took me to see a Truffaut movie. I think it was "Jules and Jim". Both of us shared an interest in a visual social life and film. Both of us studied film at one point, neither of us pursued it as a profession. Our son did however, and now works as a director, producer and writer. Somewhere amidst all of our discussions and debates deconstructing this film or that, an interest in film was passed on to him through some act of osmosis or our DNA.
So it may not be a surprise that I chose my son Dayo, as my collaborator after being asked by fellow furniture maker Gail Fredell, curator of the exhibition "Makers Without Borders: Furniture Makers, Sculptors and the Artists who have contributed to their Creative Lives," to choose a person important to my creative life to be in the show with me. This is our second collaboration. The first happened organically when I came to New York where he lives to spend four months on a residency. He became very engaged in a project [see the "Baartman Diaries" in this portfolio] I was discussing and I invited him to participate.
As a parent of an adult child, there comes a time when you realize you can drop the protective dance you do with your child and start relating more as the individual you are without the fear that you are not being a proper authority figure. I am fairly private and can be rather stoic and don’t always know how to let people in, even him. I realized collaborating creatively was a great way to open another door in our relationship outside of mother and son.
This work centers on the relationship I have with my hands as agents of knowing, mediators of ideas, and actors of expression. My work often crosses boundaries between art, design and craft. I make sculptural and installation pieces with various media that have no “traditional” function. I make work that can pass for traditional studio furniture, and I make work that could be categorized as design. Although these categories are irrelevant to me in my creative process, as I tell my students, they are important to others and to how one successfully presents and markets their work.
My creative values square solidly with a craft ideology that privileges the hand, patience and a respect for materials. I believe as neurologist Frank R. Wilson has documented, that there is a “knowing” that accumulates and is stored in the cells of the hand very much like in our brains.
The musical metaphor seemed appropriate for the title of this work. The etymology of the word Opus comes from 18th-century Latin and literally means ‘work.’ Since Dayo and I discussed filming my hands over a twenty-four hour period for this project, we thought we could edit it down to twenty-four “movements.”
A version of the above text appears in the exhibition catalog from the show and also includes a short companion essay written by my son.
Makers Without Borders: Furniture Makers, Sculptors and the Artists Who Have Contributed to Their Creative Lives
Penland Gallery
Penland School of Crafts
Penland, NC
May 19 - July 12, 2009
Exhibition curator, Gail Fredell
Gallery manager, Kathryn Gremley
Photography, Robin Dreyer
For more info on the exhibition and other participants go to:
http://www.penland.org/gallery/09exhibitions/makers/makers.html
