Gifted Response Work
“Portraiture” Work and Work with Gifted Responses
Below is work from 1992 through around 2005 that works with information, objects or labor gifted to me by others.
Both a gathering of responses and an investigation of dreaming, “Oneiric Oology” is a wall installation of dreams across time and the space of 25 people. The inscribed eggs held by vintage calipers comes from a dream of my own… and the varied voices converse, detached from the time and place of their dreaming. Read more about this work here:
“Portraiture Project” gathered 10 “significant dates” to represent important moments in the lives of 18 respondents. Each respondent wase assigned a number and their information was presented as their handwritten lists, as drawings, rubber stamps and an artist book, “18 Self-Portraits, 15 Portraits, 9 Portraits in 2 Different Forms”. A link to the artist book is here:
Printed Matter Catalog-18 Self-Portraits
“Remorses” asked something more personal of collaborators, so I limited the request to friends and colleagues. 11 People gifted me with an object (that would fit in the glass receptacle) that represented something they regretted… I promised to seal it in glass, wire and wax so they could use the project as an opportunity to release their remorse.
In “Mark Name” I asked to photograph peoples’ navels and printed them. Each person also signed their first name adding their handwriting to their portrait. 66 people responded and were included in the “group portrait”. Participants were given a print of their navel, signed by me. Above is a portion exhibited at While Columns.
“Banned Books” was another “big request” made to 9 women, mostly dear friends or family. It brings together the generally forgotten suppression of knowledge through book-banning and the cloistering of women’s voice and creativity into craft and domestic work. Each of the nine books has suffered banning for significant periods, but is now embraced as part of our intellectual or artistic canon. The books are all from Penguin Editions and each one is imprisoned under a cover by a different woman, using a medium dismissed as decor or craft. Especially dear to me is the needlepoint cover made by my mother — her last needlepoint before stopping because her “fingers and eyes didn’t want to do it anymore.” Since this project is meant to resist anonymity, it’s exhibited with brass plaques bearing the book titles, the names of the women who covered them and the medium each used:
“Four Dialogues” Socrates/Plato. JoLynn Maher – Needlepoint
“The Origin of the Species” Darwin. Stephanie Corne – Batik
“Analects” Confucius. Miranda Maher – Macrame
“Critique of Pure Reason” Kant. Dona Armand-Monroe – Crochet
“Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences” Galileo. Jennifer Bevill- Dyed Fabric & Silk Thread
“Ulysses” Joyce. Caitlin Rothermel – Potholder Weaving
“Discourse on Method” Decartes. Sarah Stengle – Cross Stitch Embroidery
“Justine” de Sade. Karen Crenshaw – Quilting
“The Prince” Machiavelli. Laura Graff – Knitting