Keys, Nails, and Doors: Personal Grounds

(My studio and the start of an installation. Click on image to enlarge.)

Earlier in the month I wrote about a "foggy vision" for an installation. I was wrapping rusted nails and contemplating the symbolism of keys. I envisioned an old door with peeling paint, an entryway or physical representation of life's many decisions. Well....I found four of them. This weekend Steve helped me install them in my studio...now a place of tiny little passageways through piles of material and fibers! While many bloggers were tidying there work space as a New Year's resolution, I've evidently gone in the opposite direction.....and I LOVE IT!


(Click on image to enlarge.)

The vision is now a little clearer, but it has a long way to go. Keys in boxes, not quite accessible. Keys with wordless tags. Nails, wrapped and unwrapped, hammered into doors and lovingly in containers. The installation will be my contribution to the annual spring event called Artista Vista. The artists with studio space at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios always participate with an exhibition. The title for our show is going to be Personal Grounds! How perfect!


(Above: View from the door to my studio. Click on image to enlarge.)

To me, personal grounds is a place. It is a place one finds by life's decisions; the doors one opens; the keys one turns, the nails one uses to join life together and the nails of sacrifice. Though just at the beginning of this installation, I've already got a title, "Decisions".


(Above: Key to Happiness. I used embellished and stitched vintage fabric...dyed during my "month of backgrounds". Click on image to enlarge.)

(Above: Key to Prosperity. Another handmade cord and tag with a key on an embellished and stitched fragment. Click on image to enlarge.)

(Above: Key to Knowledge. Embellished scrap of a vintage lace tablecloth.)

(Above: Key to Her Love. Embellished and stitched fragment of vintage brocade. I'm hand distressing and finishing all the frames too.)