Appetizers

Number 14 of my "Earth" series.

"Appetizers"
Mixed media: clippings from vintage cookbooks and storybooks, yellowed edges of old book pages, ink, on the hardcover back of a 1960's LIFE World Library book, 8" x 11"


I finished this one a while ago and meant to blog about it but I have been procrastinating. Life here in this country is weird and difficult and depressing these days, but in between are good moments, and I am trying to find them and to hold on to them as long as I can.

Good moments I find with my children and my husband, and with my true friends when we talk on the phone or see each other from far. I am missing my family in Germany, I haven't seen them since last fall, and it's painful to know that I will not be able to hug them for a long time.

Because of the climate in this country, I have virtually connected with a few people in various online groups who I haven't met physically yet but who seem to be sharing the same spirit and the same desires and hopes. At the same time I am letting go of those people in my life who have been holding on to questionable realities and who have been trying to convince me of their absurd belief systems.

Regarding my art life, some very good things have been happening in that department, too. For example, the regional arts council, NCLAC, invited me to make an artist video. And so my husband Markus and I spent a few weeks making a film about my studio and my work during which I created the "Appetizers" piece. We make a good team; my strength is creating storylines, while Markus is amazing with his artistic and technical movie-making skills.

Besides the fact that it is nice to have this video, it has helped me reflecting about my work and to articulate what drives me to do what I do.

Hands of Time

#13 of my "Earth" series.

A piece about time.

Time feels so different these days. Quarantine. More than ever before I'm spending significant time in the backyard, especially because the weather has been quite nice and inviting, and also because there always is something to cut or weed or rake anyways. For example, every day I pick up those hundreds of sweetgum balls that keep falling onto the lawn. They look a lot like coronaviruses, by the way. Looking up the trees, I can expect many more weeks of daily collecting those sweetgum balls, and that's just fine with me. I like doing repetitive things like these. It's calming and has a cleansing quality to it.

Yes, the days seem to have extra hours. Strangely, I'm feeling that these extra hours are not my own time but that I am spending other people's lifetime. In a way, that's actually true. Our family is privileged, we are in a safe place still, we have a home, income, health. We are functioning still. I am grateful for that, and I am heartbroken for those who are not as fortunate. How can we save their time?

This piece is a combination of some lucky finds: The plague doctor comes from a 1940s "Building America" magazine, a special issue about the nation's health situation, and the rainbowish window is cut from a 70s elementary schoolbook. For the numbers I used old Bingo cards, and the aluminum hands I took from an owl-shaped clock that I had bought at a garage sale a few years ago because I loved its charm but then it wasn't working and ended up in my special box labeled "wooden things."

I started out with a completely different concept where I wanted the plague doctor to hold a fly swatter to fight an Earth that was looking like a huge coronavirus. I still like the concept a lot but it didn't work out compositionwise, at least not for this particular series. I like the final result much better than my original idea, and also find its message to be more on point: The doctor is putting the clock together - or maybe he is taking it apart. In both ways I find the clock hands to be quite perfect, as they look like swords. But still, the doctor is not really fighting with these unfit tools that he's got, not visibly. He seems to be figuring out how things work, a bit puzzled, the feet barely on the ground. Altogether I wanted to present the life-or-death scenario like a game show with some magical unicornish rainbow vibe. I think, it works.

"Hands of Time"
Mixed media: clippings from various vintage book sources and bingo cards, fly leaves, ink, aluminum clock hands, on the hardcover back of a 1960's LIFE World Library book, 8" x 11"

Mother

#12 of my "Earth" series.

The barefooted woman has been living in my studio for quite some time. I love her, the way how she's smiling with such content, and then the head scarf which indicates various possible origins.

I cut her out a few years ago when I had intended to place her into a huge gardening scenery along with other people where I thought they would water rows and rows of root vegetables. But that very piece actually became something completely different at the end: an ocean with lots of fish competing with each other to get those tiny drops of water coming from a little red watering can tied to the sky ("Whatever It Takes," 2018).

Anyways, this woman had to stay in my drawer for a while. Now she's come out, she's here, taking care of business as "Mother."

"Mother"
Mixed media: clippings from a storybook and a Space collector's album, yellowed edges from book pages, ink, on the hardcover back of a 1960's LIFE World Library book, 8" x 11"

Six Feet Apart

#11 of my "Earth" series.

For this one, I have used  an old copy of Goodnight Moon. I love this book, I didn't know it as a child because I grew up in Germany. But my children did, and it was one of their favorite bedtime stories. The words and storyline are simple and yet they deliver the message of peace in the most perfect way.

You may remember the framed picture of the three little bears that was hanging in the bunny's bedroom. Here I placed them six feet apart for obvious reasons. The mouse seems confused.

"Six Feet Apart"
Storybook clippings, scraps from fly leaves and softcovers, ink, on the hardcover back of a 1960's LIFE World Library book, 8" x 11"

With Balloon

#10 of the 30-in-30 challenge that I wasn't able to complete in the month of February but which am continuing now that I am having so much time on my hands, for obvious sad reasons.

So this is "With Balloon."

I finished it yesterday. In a way, it is inspired by Banksy's Girl With Balloon. Only that this one is a grown woman, and she is holding on to her balloon, even though she seems quite apathetic about it.

The woman is cut from a sewing book, from a chapter about taking a woman's measurements.

I used balloons from many different children's books. Usually you find them in contexts with circus clowns or birthday parties or a day in the park. A symbol of fun and for childhood. There is something magical about balloons that makes children want to have one. Please Mom, can I have one? They would pick the one they love best, a difficult choice, and then they would hold the string, looking up at the balloon with joy and pride, smiling and probably dreaming about soaring up there, too. This fragile thing will suddenly end up as a wrinkly little thing, if you let it pop, and it will fly away if you don't hold it tightly. It's something to care for and something you have control over.

Later, when you realize that you are not in control over anything, balloons may appear in your dreams, telling you about your own ambitions and about opportunities that you have taken or lost. You can do anything, people like to say in this country. Well yes, that would be very nice. Banksy's Girl With Balloon, which actually is a girl without balloon, is probably as close to the balloon as she will ever be after the wind caught it.

"With Balloon"
Clippings from various children's books and a sewing manual, sewing thread, ink, on the hardcover back of a 1960's LIFE World Library book, 8" x 11"

Blue Note

#9 of the 30-in-30 challenge.

I think it is a wonderful coincidence that the world maps on the backs of the LIFE books that I am using for this series have exactly five latitude lines - just like a musical staff. I like the idea of the earth hanging out in there, being a song consisting of only one note, a colossal note, a ponderous note.

At the same time, this note is not massive at all. Because it's a blue note.

As a child I wanted to learn to play the violin, or piano maybe, some instrument that wasn't a recorder or glockenspiel. I didn't get real music lessons back then, and I never took the time to learn it later on.

But I have become a music lover anyways. I appreciate many different music genres. I have developed a love for jazz and blues in particular, and, I believe, some decent understanding of it. 

So this is my love letter to the blue notes and to the artists who know how to play them.

"Blue Note"
Clippings from a storybook, vintage sheet music, and an adult coloringbook, sewing thread, on the hadcover back of a 1960's LIFE World Library book.

After the Ball

#8 of the 30-in-30  challenge

Whats the elf doing there, said my daughter this morning. No, it's a prince, said my son. He doesn't look like a prince, said my daughter. He doesn't have to, said my son. Oh now I get it, said my daughter. I get it too, said my son. It's it's it's -

Yes, that's right. It's political.

After the ball, the prince finds a glass thing that was left behind on the staircase. Who does it belong to? Good question. The prince looks puzzled and not in touch with the situation.

I used images from a book about mansions in "Early America" (top) and about president's homes (bottom). The elegant room is the East Room in the White House which has been used for balls and other festive events, so I've learned. The room looks lifeless, of course, with no dancers dancing, and the still piano makes the quiet even quieter.

By the way, most colors of the hardcovers that I am using for this series are quite bold; many shades of red and darker blue. Sometimes the world map is printed in black instead of white, and sometimes the lines are very thin, which makes it more challenging to incorporate the graphic into the image. This one was perfect for the glass globe.


"After the Ball"
Book clippings, ink, on the hardcover back of a 1960's LIFE World Library book.