NOTATIONS 2015 - 2020
The process of examining old and new side-by-side continues to sustain my understanding of art as always already in relationship to objects from different prehistoric and historic periods. This includes rock formations, such as the marble used in carving, that exceed any human lifespan.
During a visit to Rome I spent time looking at the representation of cloth and hair carved in marble sculpture. The sculptures are roughly 1800 years old. Weaving has existed for at least 7500 years. The marble is millions of years old.
The NOTATIONS pieces consist mainly of photographs of carved hair and garments I find in classical marble sculpture. The photographs are transferred to fabric. I use thread to annotate the images with diagrams that I find in various weaving manuals, particularly in Anni Albers' seminal book On Weaving.
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However worn and faded, the material surfaces of Greco-Roman sculptures overflow with signs of living and dying. The corrosion of fading representations of cloth enhances and revamps how we experience these surfaces. Vanishing textures offer opportunities to ‘make sense’ in at least two ways at once: to discern semantic meaning whenever possible, and to make meaning sensually, through matter.