Love is a Battlefield

I was so excited last week; we were finally going to work on boxes in collage class! But all week long I couldn’t think of what to do! I was so demoralized–this was the reason why I wanted to take the class! In the end, I loaded up my bags full of whatever I could find, grabbed the smallest of the cigar boxes I had lying around and headed to class only with the vaguest notion that I wanted to do something with gold wedding bands and making them look like chain mail.

Well, the result was somewhat surprising. The inside is a warm, inviting tableau with roses and a deep, rich purple color. The outside is wedding band-chain mail and .38 special shell casings.  I’d like to be able to say that this represents a tough attitude outside, protecting a soft interior, but I think it is actually more reflective of the idea that love is a battlefield. Sigh.

Since last week when I shot this, I have cleaned up the purple edges with some paint so it doesn’t look so sloppy.

Remembrance

I liked the idea of using a nicho as a sort of larger version of a locket; a special place to keep close by with remembrances of a loved one. I used my own hair and an old silver ring of mine to embellish this devotional piece to a fictional lost love.

2008

Gifts From the Sea

St. Michael graces the top of the nicho and is, among other things, the patron saint of sailors, affording protection against peril at sea. The flowers were collected at the Santa Monica beach–offerings left for the sea perhaps, or remnants of a love tryst. But I prefer to think of them, and the seashell, as gifts from the sea. The seashell was collected at Mont St. Michel–St. Michael’s Mount–in France. Mont St. Michel is a truly unique environment with tides that sometimes leave it an island and other times not. Both Mont St. Michel and the beach at Santa Monica are very dear to my heart, one being my home and the other one of my favorite places on the planet.

Nichos are a Latino tradition of creating decorated little spaces to hold and display important keepsakes. They are often devotional in content, incorporating religious iconography and relics.

The title of this piece is also a tribute to the inspirational book by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea.

…the mind wakes, comes to life again. Not in a city sense–no–but beach-wise. It begins to drift, to play, to turn over in gentle careless rolls like those lazy waves on the beach. One never knows what chance treasures these easy unconscious rollers may toss up, on the smooth white sand of the conscious mind; what perfectly rounded stone, what rare shell from the ocean floor. Perhaps a channeled whelk, a moonshell, or even an argonaut.

But it must not be sought for…To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach–waiting for a gift from the sea.

pp 16-17

2008

Weapons of Small Scale Destruction

The individual components of this piece came to me over the course of several years and have vastly different provenance and provenience, however, once all were in my possession, they just screamed to be exhibited together like an old-time museum display on weapons from “small-scale” societies. Only the obsidian shard is real from the Desert Palms region of California. The dart is actually a prop from the second “The Mummy” movie and the point is an example of a new material for making replica stone pieces for museums. But put them all together in a shadow box with some weathered looking labels and they seem to work, right? 2007

Another Birthday

I initially conceived this piece a full year before it was completed. I was looking at another birthday and was confronted with a rackful of magazines trying to tell me about my birthday horoscope when I was also struggling with the concept of all the things that supposedly define me that most emphatically are not actually me. The piece is a mixed media assemblage comprised of three individual pieces. I start with a devotional candle around which is wrapped a “Prayer for Happiness” consisting of if then statements as follows:

if i lost 25 lbs, then i would be happy. if i got out of debt, then i would be happy. if i had a bigger home, then i would be happy. if i had better job security, then i would be happy. if i just didn’t have to worry about $$, then i would be happy. if i could fix my skin, then i would be happy. if i knew what i was doing with my life, then i would be happy. if i could buy a house, then i would be happy. if i could just get organized, then i would be happy. if i could break all my bad habits, then i would be happy. if i got in shape, then i would be happy. if i could make $$ doing what i really love, then i would be happy. if i knew what i really loved to do, then i would be happy. i have already climbed the great wall. anything should be possible to me. but i am not happy. now i am trying to make 1,000 paper cranes. if i can make them all, then i will be happy . . .

Next I turn to the mirror where I have a conversation that consists of me telling my reflection all the bad things I see and my reflection reminding me that according to the Bible, God made man and woman in His image and He made us well.

Finally, I triumphantly reject all that I am not in a mixed media collage with magazine clippings, cosmetics and all sorts of stuff.

I am not my job, my dress size, my height, my gender, my genetic make-up, my age, my zodiac sign, my IQ, my bra size, my hair color, my skin color, my sexuality, my failures or my successes, my decisions or choices, my car, my zip code, my interests, my history, my hopes and fears, what I eat, “damaged goods,” a stereotype, my hormonal system, my marital status, body type, my moods.

2006-2007