Months ago Steve and I attended a great church bazaar. We found lots of "multiples" for Found Object Mandalas ... including three, brand new sets of wine charms. These were the type that were meant for tiny photos of friends, a way to know whose wine glass belonged to which friend. Honestly, I thought this was ridiculous. Who has tiny photos of their friends and time to cut and insert them in charms? Sure ... I could manage the Photoshop skills to capture images from Facebook, resize them correctly, and get them onto wine glasses ... but still ... who, when visiting a friend, can't keep track of his or her own wine glass if it isn't pictorially identified? Crazy, right? Well ... it might be crazy but I knew instantly how I wanted to use them for ART!
I have literally hundreds ... if not well over a thousand ... old, neglected photos in my stash. It wasn't long until the twelve ridiculous wine glass charms were ready for a mandala. Yet, I didn't have a working plan for anything else until I found another ambrotype in my stash. This one, however, looked badly damaged but I thought, "It'll do!" Then I realized that the glass wasn't damaged at all.
An ambrotype is an image on glass. They were popular in the 1850s. Afterwards, tintypes became more common. To produce an ambrotype, the glass was coated with light sensitive chemicals. While still wet, the glass was exposed to light through the camera's lens and then developed and "fixed". The resulting "negative" image only becomes a "positive" when placed on a black background. Often, a black varnish coated the reverse side. The one I had was so old that half of the varnish became brittle and was chipped away. I chipped away as much of the brittle varnish as I could. Once I had a piece of black mat board under the glass, it looked perfect again!
Soon, ideas were churning. When I put down the twelve, brass drawer knob plates and small glass prisms, I knew I had a good start. I had this stitched down before determining the rest of the piece. Yet, things just seemed to fall into place.
When I retrieved the four, folding travel scissors from my studio (because I got them at Foust Textiles and they were still in the bag with my other purchases), I noticed a box of jewelry charms that a cyber friend sent. Among them were little "cameo" like pieces ... the sort that looked like a photo was supposed to be added. What a great idea!
I'm especially pleased to have these extra "anonymous portraits" on this piece. After all, the quilt used for a foundation was a signature quilt. I have no idea who any of these people are but I feel as if this work pays homage to all of them.
Much of my artwork is created in the vain of paying homage to anonymous "makers" who came before me and also to those whose photos I've used in my solo exhibit Anonymous Ancestors. This past week, Anonymous Ancestors saw its last days at the Black Creek Arts Council in Hartsville. Steve and I packed it up on Sunday. I don't have another show for this installation scheduled in the future but I hope to secure one.
Before going to Hartsville, Steve and I spent two day on Hilton Head Island. We attended a great, Ohio State Alumni Association arranged tour of historic Mitchelville. This is the first self-governing community of former enslaved people in the USA. It was established in 1862 and had upwards of 2000-3000 residents before an August 1893 hurricane destroyed most of the entire island's buildings. The executive director led the tour and spoke in depth about grants and funding needs for a proper interpretive center. This is a history that shouldn't be forgotten. The Toni Morrison Society knows this too. In 2013, the society installed one of their "A Bench by the Road" memorials. It was lovely to know that my inclinations to "remember the nearly forgotten past" is a shared desire. There are artists and musicians and playwrights and poets who try to communicate many of the same thoughts as I attempt in stitches.
4 comments:
I love this one! The photos are such a great touch. But I'm really struck by the different feeling of balance it has compared to so many of the other mandalas! I feel like usually the central medallion shape is very dominant (either because it's large or has elements with more visual weight). On this one the outlet covers are very well balanced visually with the central ambrotype and the central mandala is less weighty. As a result I feel interesting secondary patterns emerging (including with the signatures) and a lot of movement! So cool and different feeling!
I'm loving all these mandalas, but I can't quite work out the sizes, except when you have a photo of yourself with one. Would it be possible to include the size of each with your description? When some items are well known to me I do get a reasonable impression of the dimensions, but I'd really like to have a better idea.
Thanks for the feedback! I love hearing the impressions and getting a sense of how the work is seen by others. As for the size of the pieces, I believe I've been rather consistent in posting the dimensions. Of course, I've listed them in inches, not centimeters. When viewing artwork from Australia, the UK, and most of the rest of the world, centimeters are the norm. I simply plug the numbers into an on-line conversion calculator ... like this one: https://www.rapidtables.com/convert/length/inch-to-cm.html
Basically, this piece is 32" square ... which is 81.28 centimeters square. Hope this helps!
Susan
Another very creative piece. The bits and pieces work so well on the quilt background. I appreciate your words and the information in the last paragraph, thank you.
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