Ephemera

Solo Exhibition, BayArts, Bay Village, Ohio October 2020

In these tenuous times, making art has become an altogether strange activity. I’m making small silk sculptures around rocks and sticks, as well as mixed media paintings/drawings, all largely influenced by the shores of Lake Erie: its geological formations, its flora and fauna, its water and light. These natural elements seem to share with our contemporary moment the quality of almost suspended animation, as much of the (especially national) political world refuses to respond to the suffering of the natural world, and to so many of its inhabitants, including other humans. Examining this vexed and beautiful ecosystem often feels like gasping for a last breath of air. How will we ever stop the ravages of catastrophic change that humans have wrought on this gorgeous planet?

The working title of the show is Ephemera, denoting both the idea of impermanence and the literal meaning of ephemera, which is the accumulation of inconsequential stuff that we work in, around, and with, even, or especially, as artists. The COVID-19 epidemic sent me inward in many ways, including excavating bits and scraps of old work to refashion into something new: enacting a kind of reflective, vaguely anti-consumption art practice, while making new work about impermanence.

Photographs by John Seyfried and the artist.

The Weight of Resistance (2020) is comprised of felted rocks I collected on the shores of Lake Erie. After felting lambs’ wool around the rocks, I placed them in dyebaths, in colors Lake Erie turns as she reflects the ever-changing skies. The rocks are attached to thin lines of linen that reach out and up and meet at a shared point, suggesting movement, or rays of light. The weight of the rocks, while in the dyebath, resists coloration, which is why they each have a lighter color in the center.

I thought about the way wool holds, softens, and articulates the curves of these, often large, rocks, that are smoothed over millennia by tumbling against the resistance of great tides. The metaphor for how we resist violence, ignorance, meanness, smallness, and hate, is implied here, too. The linen lines threaded through the rocks are also resisted by the weight of the rocks, and create a kind of reaching, or yearning gesture. I need to believe there still in us a laudable, and deeply humane, yearning for a better life for all living things.

Syllables seeds (2020) is the final line of a favorite poem by Octavio Paz. I think artists are confounded and challenged by how to respond to the world right now; we face cataclysm in every direction. What I adore about this poem is that it’s about poetry, about the stuff of words and the rich possibilities they hold for an artistic perspective. I imagine extending Paz’s deep consideration of the “everything” in words to the “everything” in composing art, generally. His opening claim is “At times poetry is...” The very flexibility of that premise, its embrace of the ever-shifting contexts artists countenance, and its promise to make available to artists their relevance - even in the worst of times - strengthens my faith in the transformative potential of creative work.

Plague Masks (2020) are created from cyan photo-emulsion-infused, light sensitive fabric. My son and I created a huge sheet using plant matter from around our house by the Lake Erie, so the cloth holds the visual memory of plants we live with. The cotton twill trim and ties were exposed to the sun using the same emulsion. The inevitability of climate change makes me wonder what plants will even be here in 30 years’ time.

The needles are dual emblems for protection and piercing; but needles are also one of my primary tools for making. In these masks, I’m also reminded of images of saints from folk and “high” cultural histories, where rays of light or spirit surround their heads. This series was preceded by a prototype in an exhibit Liz Maugans curated at Worthington Yards in Cleveland in April, to show area artists’ responses to the Covid crisis, see last image below.