- work inspired during the Maker Space Residency.
Shortly after I arrived in the Maker Space another artist referred to it as ‘The Cage'. That reminded me of Maya Angelou and her discussion of ‘Why the Caged Bird Sings’ and her first day at school.
One of the themes running through my work is the masking/ hiding/ creating of a curtained reality where we can exist ‘safely’ behind the cages we create in our own minds, lives, societies, only occasionally disturbed by the curtain twitching into other world realities and the life or horror that can hide there. The Maker Space ‘Cage’ has inspired more poetry and art work on this theme!
Opening Pandora’s Box - My work usually starts with a poem, or the poetry comes during or after as I work. I was not sure what to expect when I came into the Maker Space but being inspired by the square/rectangular blockiness of Ty Pawb was not high on the cards! In this piece, masking tape creates the block pattern (and then gets recycled in more work!) The strips within the blocks are the blank spaces within your mind, of the words that cannot be found when you are looking for them. I used ordinary crayon and also fabric crayon to write what was in my head over several days on arrival in the space, within the context of compartmentalism of the mind and what happens when the walls start to dis integrate. I also trialled gutter and silk paint (this is an old bed sheet I am working on) Then acrylic with packaging leaving a window peeping through. Finally the circles with the different ways of how we as a species view nature - the current venn diagram taken literally means that humans can exist without nature and an alternative representation where humans exist totally within nature which permeates through the whole piece.
Masked Views - These are made from the recycled strips of masking tape that form a print resist creating blocks on cloth. They’ve taken on an exciting essence of their own forming a variation on the caged view theme, peeping through to a world beyond.
I love the serendipity of playing with ‘found'materials that are a byproduct or a waste product from another process.
These artworks are in various levels of unfinishedness! Some are quilted, some are still to be, Some will be finished in their own right and others will go on to be used as part of other projects.
