Surfaces

 

Since I’ve (mostly) wrapped up with the forms I’ll be showing in September, now is the critical period: how will they be shown? What colors with they be? Will they have other materials like fake hair, foam, or borax attached to them? Will they be paired with other objects? This is the hardest and more exciting part of making my work, and it takes the longest. Strangely, making the actual forms doesn’t take that long, or at least it doesn’t feel like it does. It’s these presentation and color decisions that really solidify the character or quality of the pieces.

Lately I have been noticing a lot of prickly, puckering surfaces on my sculptures. I’m not sure why they’re there, but without color or context, they look like they could be soft like hair or hard like quills or teeth. I like that ambiguity: between danger and arousal or comfort. A lot of times I’m trying to figure out why I’m so repulsed and attracted to the same things. Carpet is one of them. When I look at carpet, I can feel my shoulders tense up and my teeth clench a little bit. I don’t know why. Carpet just makes me cringe a little bit. But I am attracted to it. I’ve had these huge rolls of household carpet in my studio for months, with no idea what I’m going to do with them haha. But just today I noticed that the puckered texture of my sculptures and of the walls in my studio are analogous to the texture of carpet. Maybe I can lay out some carpet on the gallery floor for an installation with these sculptures? That might accentuate the tightrope walk between something threatening and something inviting and comforting. I’m not sure yet but it’s a good lead so far.