On the one hand, there are our desires and yearnings, on the
other reality. And in between there is a gap—one filled with
odd juxtapositions, quirky beauty and endearing ugliness.
My current work reflects my interest in exploring that terrain.
My desire to embody our fragility and humanity is a romantic notion.
The trajectory leading to my current focus started with a solely formal attention to quilts and considerations of structure and material. Making quilts over many years led to a specific concern with functional, heritage quilts. I became intrigued with the lives of the makers and the stories embedded in their work. It is through that interest in the people behind the objects that I have begun to work with sound, image and communication technologies—addressing the disconnect between our hopes and desires versus the concrete manifestations of those needs.
The quilts I make utilize found fabric, often worn with markings of use—a whole created from bits and pieces. It is an additive, layering process—sampling and piecing imbued with improvisational impulses and feedback. Likewise my sound, image and digital work are gatherings of both seemingly disparate and consciously connected elements. When working with acoustic material I often record the voices of people I talk to, mixing those voices together into "sound quilts”. Weaving these found sounds mirrors my quilt making processes. I also like to play with ideas of the artist as participant rather than omnipotent creator. My voice and involvement regularly mingles with gathered material. Issues of ownership and power relations are evoked by real world interactions.
Gift, 2003
‘Gift’, is an installation of 80 hung heritage quilts with 16 channels of sound. Heard through the speakers hidden behind the quilts are the voices of quilters talking about why they give their quilts as gifts rather than selling through the market economy. The texture and quality of voices not normally heard (typically older women), is a defining facet in this piece. Their thoughts meander and stray—fragmented by interruptions and reminisces. ‘Gift’ is a patchwork quilt in sound.
Excerpt from hour long piece (1:27 minutes long, 235 K)
Giftgiving in the Quiltmaking Community, accompanying artist's essay
Extreme MT100 Deluxe, 2003
‘Extreme MT100 Deluxe’ consists of recreated conversations between customs agents and myself as I commute between Canada and the United States. These recreations yielded a wealth of inferences and attitudes about art, gender and positions of power. They are full of delicious ironies. The listener hears the piece through headphones while walking on a treadmill. The physical act of monotonous walking, not making any progress, reinforces the tedium of negotiating manmade borders and barriers.
Excerpt of 'Extreme MT100 Deluxe' (5:51 minutes long, 943 K)
Yesterdays, 2003
In my work, Yesterdays, I recorded street musicians playing/singing Paul McCartney’s legendary song. After Happy Birthday, McCartney’s Yesterday is the most played song in the world. Why? Despite the fact that it has become a cliché, diminished to Muzak status, a meaningless part of the aural/cultural landscape, McCartney's Yesterday nevertheless still has the power to tease our sublimated emotions and evoke surprising nostalgia.
In addition to recorded street performances of Yesterday, the piece includes chat between the musicians and myself—conversations that reveal and situate the work. I’m a person with choice, money, status and power of representation trying to inveigle my way into this street scene.
Considerations of beauty are fundamental to my artmaking. Both in materials and content, my work deals with the overfamiliar giveaway reality of the street—a sour note often unexpectedly infused with heart wrenching emotion, the lovesong bleated out on a tuba or a single violin competing in vain with an unintelligible, overbearing loudspeaker. On the one hand, there are our individual desires and yearnings, on the other, reality. It is in the gap between them where our dreams and the real bump up against one another, making for odd juxtapositions that breed both quirky beauty and endearing ugliness.
'Yesterdays' (7:46 minutes long, 1.2 mb)
The Floorcloth Series, 2003 - 2004
The floorcloths reflect my ongoing attachment to the visual, particularly decorative domestic structures and imagery. This interest stems from the perpetual dialogue in the art world about alternate aesthetic practice and history, namely issues around feminism and the re-evaluation of what has been traditionally labeled women's work. I am making a series of floorcloths (domestic, functional objects) through a process of layering and melding, with paint and heat transferred imagery.
One of the most vivid references for the floorcloth imagery are the Dutch vanitas paintings of the 17th century. These paintings were an expression of the ephemeral nature of life and pleasure—a morality lesson. Flowers and flies populate my floorcloths as they did vanitas paintings.
As much as the floorcloths refer to a history of painting they also negate that allusion by their functionality, impertinence and horizontal orientation. This is art to walk on. Even the viewing perspective creates a dizzying sense of vertigo and dictates a new way of looking.
Floorcloths have always been primarily about pretension. They were a poor man’s Persian carpet—thin, flat, paint taking the place of rich, warm tufted wool. They have the subversive power of a fake or a facsimile.
'Wishing & Hoping', the second cloth in the series, combines images of economic fetishism (stock market price quotes from the daily newspaper) with religious (milagros - Mexican altar offerings) along with items you just would never step on (fishhooks, spiders, flies).
The third cloth, ‘Mille Fleurs’, deals even more directly with the classic vanitas themes of life and death. Poppies—a familiar citation to unending sleep—face off with flies wearing WWII gas masks. Insurance actuary lists remind us of our odds in life and the dumb luck that determines our fate.
View more of the floorcloth images.
Everybody Deserves Love, Even You, 2004
Part 1: Viagra (6:17 min, 672 KB flash file)
Part 2: Girth + Length (3:36 min, 368 KB flash file)
Currently the most poignant reminder of the gap between the real and the ideal is the internet, specifically spam. Three months ago I took all the filters off my email program. I now receive between 100 to 150 spam emails a day, more than 7000 since I’ve started collecting. Sixty five percent of them address male sexuality--penis enlargement schemes, pornography and Viagra ads. Others entreat the recipient to self medicate with prescription drugs, get rich quick, gamble online or lose weight without any change in diet or habits. This onslaught is a raw testament to what really consumes our culture’s attention. It talks about all our vulnerabilities, sadness, yearnings and desperation upon which internet marketers prey.
Along with the content of the messages is a fascinating development in language. In order to get past the filters all kinds of language/spelling is employed so that people understand the message but computers don’t. Substitute letters, spacing, wordplay has been concocted in endless variation. The language is often funny, always bizarre and occasionally poetic. The unintentional poetry invokes issues of beauty and ugliness as the perpetuators consciously butcher the English language to facilitate making money.
The title of the piece, Everybody Deserves Love, Even You, is the subject line of an email sent to me.
The piece consists of two female computer voices. One is trying to reproduce all the different ways Viagra has been spelt in the spam I’ve received, approximately 250 to date. The other voice is repeating a phrase that was sent to me 26 times with different spelling each time.
