and here comes FOLDING.
the stance here is one of withholding and hiding on the one hand and protecting and safeguarding on the other hand.  the former has a quality of a tease to it, the latter a quality of needing to fend off that which is outside.  the act of folding can contain both of these positions; in a sense it integrates them.  i look at her and i see both.  sometimes she even seems to be menacing, like a queen who draws her mantle around her before pronouncing the death sentence.  there is shudder in her at what she is doing and also a concentration of power in her own self.
i am becoming more and more cognizant of the complexity of what is being said and the indeterminacy of words and signs.  what seemed to be clear at some point in time becomes murky later; what was meant becomes negated later.   i cannot determine what she wants, what she means to tell and ultimately who she is.

this is a large triptych from 2013.  it was in a show at indiana university of pennsylvania which was held by the fiberarts guild of pittsburgh.

the name of this piece is THREE FAIRY TALES

the fairy tales this refers to are from left to right:
rapunzel, the girl without hands, the six swans.

i loved  grimm's fairy tales as a girl and my mother telling them to me and my sister is probably the sweetest memory i have of my mother.  later in life i found in bruno bettelheim's work on the psychological significance of fairy tales the idea expressed that for some children a fairy tale can become the beacon a light that allows them to grow up and out or circumstances that are not supportive to them, or out of situations that are neglectful at various levels.  it is a small side comment ( i think) connected to a casually told case study.  but it obviously meant a great deal to me when i read it because i never forgot it.  the reason is simple:  it was a comment that i found in myself and my own history.
rapunzel to me refers to the girl who is able to generate her salvation and rescue out of herself --- her hair.  the girl without hands is the epitomy of parental ( in her case paternal) betrayal and use.  the six swans is the exemplification of patience and sacrifice that i only identified in myself later in life.

this is a 2014 piece that is called WATCHING.
watching is sort of a hybrid stance from an interactive point of view: the person is not part and yet is part; the person participates but does not participate.  i feel that watching is a stance that allows a person to enter a setting or a situation while protecting the integrity of self to a great degree.  we rarely accuse watchers of meddling!!  watching does allow one to learn, to understand, to judge, to absorb.

this is an image from a long time ago.  i cannot really remember.  it is inspired by a santana song called black magic woman.  the picture is called BLACK MAGIC WOMAN.
i sometimes played with this expression: depending on which word is emphasized the meaning of the title changes and the associated meaning in my head.  you can play this game, too.  it is a
BLACK magic woman
black MAGIC woman
black magic WOMAN
i leave it up to you.

from 2014.  this is a large face and hangs in my dining room over a glass built in cabinet.
it is called CRACKING
In 2014 i made a host of pieces of faces and figures all of whom are representing a mental/emotional state or stance.  this is a sort of cracking up that is very fine and contained and consists of fine fissures but the thing still hangs together and from a distance ( or superficially) it looks as if everything is fine and it is holding together.  only the one who is cracking, knows what is going on.  the notion of the outer layer cracking is also represented by the mask or cover like piece of the mouth/nose part.  behind it is a whole other world/reality/experience that is peaking through.  the question is : were those parts also covered by this cracking shell?  what came first? the shell or the thing behind?  is the cracking a good or a bad thing?  -- from a construction point the cover was primary and the things behind were added by cutting the cover off and discarding it.  the construction is one of subtraction and then substitution.

this pieace also from 2014 is called RETRENCHING
the first photo is the entire work and the other two are of course details.  this is a piece that i love very much andit hangs in my dining room.
there is something that recently attracts me to a head position that fuses with the body where the focus seems to be on retracting everything to an inner core.  it is as if she wants to and needs to move away from the outside into her inside which is the only place that belongs to her and that she governs.

this is from 2014.  this gives you an idea of the transformation that these works experience at times.  the middle one is the one that appeared to be done for a while but that i started to have more and more as time went on.  i "destroyed " parts of it and the first and last picture are of the result of the changes.  i really love this image.  the picture is called SHEDDING

here is a detail.

this is another piece from 2014, the second part of the year.   it was in part a reworking of a piece that i just was not happy about.  one of the major changes was the head position which is now bent into the body almost.  i also cut her hair off and added the embroidered piece on her head  ( hair? a hat?).  it is now in my bedroom together with many other of "my girls" and i like it very much.  the texture is very nice and varied.

this is a piece that i made in the summer of 2014 and it is entitled
MY CUP RUNNETH OVER
i actually meant this in a rather bitter and ironic way because this summer brought with it great sorrow and woe.  you might notice that the picture actually looks like a cup.  the three women on is are called from left to right: the had, the queen, the airhead.
i tried to make them overlapping and somewhat ambiguous in the sense that they are all connected and inextricably intertwined.

this gives sort of a sense of the trajectory that these things go through.  the first picture is at the very beginning.  the second is towards the end, but you will notice that one i posted in the previous post  and which is the final version is significantly narrower and different.  the last picture is a detail.

In memoriam else lasker-schuler

this is a piece that i just finished or at least think have temporarily finished.  it is a torso in what is the leftovers of a chair which is inscribed with the first two lines of a poem by else lasker-schuler, a german expressionist poet.  it says basically: behind my eyes stand tears, those i must all cry  ( hinter meinen Augen stehen Tranen, die muss ich alle weinen).  initially this piece was that of a woman sitting in a chair.  then she lost her head ( i cut it off) and the width of the piece because narrower and narrower.  in the end i like the piece, because its narrowness suits it and also matches the precariousness in lasker-schuler's life.