This is the latest piece I've been working on. It was made for A.I.R. Gallery's Wish You Were Here show, which opened on June 23. A show of postcards- this one was made thinking about getting lost in maps of housing developments, cul de sacs, mazes. The loneliness that can come with outstretched communities of solid residential zoning- suburbia. These places can isolate just on the nature of their expansive separateness. That's not to say that cities cannot isolate. Living in the largest city in the country has its loneliness. I am surrounded by people, but there is not much connection. We are isolated pockets of communities, existing one on top of the other. The lives of those people just living on my block are all so very different the one from the other. It's really amazing to think of all of these separate lives existing in the same square feet. And when we speak to each other, it can be inspiration and invigorating. It's just finding that opening. Making the human connection. Finding the people who can grow into valued, trusted and dependable friends. The ones that last a lifetime.
The process of making this piece was delicious. I used annealed steel wire and methodically created the shapes. It was like meditation- like knitting, like weaving: the repeating structures over and over, building up the whole. I then used bits of the wire to "staple" the piece onto the paper. The created shadows are making me very happy. It was nice to work with such a restrained size- especially after my over-ambitiously sized P2P piece. A lesson in scale for sure. Things to remember, to store in my mind for later.
