installations
grids
Lace’s relationship with its present (being) and past (its becoming) is key to the development of my three-dimensional string grid installations.
With lace making, specifically bobbin lace in my own practice, you not only see the lace as it is, but you also see its creation. Lace is made up of small repetitive interactions and intersections of strings —all of which carry a past conscious intention. Looking at a single piece of lace you see its current state as well as its creation, but that’s not all; the process of a single lace doesn’t stop with its creator, rather lace is imbued with individual and collective history. Individual history, each lace design has a specific story (for instance, a lace originating from Bedfordshire England, the curves within its composition represent the local river (Ouse) and the small border flourishes represents the flowers that once grew alongside the shore). The collective history includes the lives of lace makers and lace’s development through the centuries from its origin as nets for fishing.
My grid installation can be seen as one (a single being existing in the present) and upon recognizing its form — each intersection/interaction of string has my hand in it — one simultaneously sees the being’s creation, its becoming. With the process of its creation vital to the identity of the work, it illustrates how the act of becoming is intrinsic to the present — present “being”. Such vitality, or dual existence (becoming within being) is the case for everything, it's present in all of us.
We exist in the same vessel as our child self. We’re equally not and are our past selves. Just like with lace, to look at oneself in the present is, in a sense, to see the accumulation of all what we once were. Although such duality, (cohabitation of present and past) is the nature of reality, it is often overlooked; we subconsciously assume the present being is eternal, a constant. With the slow mundanity of our conscious life, it is too easy to forget/not recognize the ever changing and multiplicity of our reality.
With my dimensional grid works I highlight such phenomena, not only by engaging in a lengthy labor of its creation, but the fact that one's view of the artwork is so dependent on their current perspective. What one sees is not only contingent on their inherent position in space (for instance one's height) but with each slight movement in space alters what is seen entirely. Such change draws one's awareness to how they inhabit space – in turn how they inhibit time.
project info
string, eyelets
2022