plaster, thread, graphite powder and sometimes wax on masonite
8" x12"
8" x12"
One of my old jobs required hours of sewing. At the end of the day piles of little threads littered my workspace, linear tangles. At the time I was newly grieving my mother and felt words couldn't express exactly what I was feeling but all the same I repeated the story of loss over and over to anyone who would listen. *edit* I was telling myself the story trying so very hard to untangle it and there on my desk was the perfect expression. The thread tells a story; the story, both important and unimportant, unique and universal, spins and winds tangled.
5 comments:
Your story was not futile when you shared it with me. Love your "threads". Simple, lonely and lovely.
I love you,
aunt suzanne
Your little pod-boat-movie made me break into a broad grin and I understood why it made you happy.
Really like the thread-drawings too, esp. the first one with real string and string imprint combined. It’s almost impossible to formulate one’s grief about the loss of a loved one, nothing one can say ever gets near enough to what we feel, but repeating it, telling the facts again and again should not be discounted, it's like a small valve to release the pressure the tiniest bit, to make it all incrementally more bearable and I guess to come to believe it happened.
After some thought I edited the entry because it muddled my meaning.
suzanne- I meant that the attempt to express exactly what I felt was futile not that it fell on empty ears or that I should have stayed silent. love you too.
marjojo- glad the seedpod boat made you happy, it makes me giggle ever single time I watch it. I so enjoy your blog and your work. I don't think I've gotten the courage to comment much but I recently went back to follow the wonderful dialogue that occurs in the comments esp. between you and mien. Your comment here is no less insightful. What you say about relieving the pressure is true.
Repeating the facts and history was and is important (didn't mean to discount that at all). Every time I told it the burden felt a tiny bit lighter even though there was some frustration that I was losing something in translation. So "babble" in the sense of inarticulate and imperfect communication. I needed to speak even if I didn't always make perfect sense to others- in order to not feel so lost, find my bearings, to understand how it could have happened, and yes to even believe it happened. I felt as if I were living two places at once and it was a way to try to cast a line between those two places and find my way through. A mantra meaning I am here but not here, this is why and somehow at the same time it doesn't matter what I am saying only that I am saying it .
In regard to the work, I am also thinking about: thread as a spun tale, aridne's ball of thread, the Fates' thread of life, rachel's red string of protection, knots, presence of a line to follow as a meditation or a path or record of wandering.
note- in case future readers are really curious I took out "It was futile babble really and could have been spoken to the empty air.
hi Erin! do you know i am a big fan of Louise Gluck's writing? thank you for pointing out that quote to me. i will have to check out Averno and get back to reading more of her work. and...i really love what you wrote..."Sorrow is a kind of muteness, I can keep speaking, saying the same things over and over and still it is not enough, it is only white noise, a static cry."
you put into words what i've been feeling and trying to express. it also made me think of this post here and i now understand it better what you meant. that muteness, that hollowness that often becomes just a dark void, lost to the spaces in between...
i've been feeling this more extending to my work and seeing much of what i have made are essentially just full of emptiness. been giving myself a little break to recharge. but just not sure how long a break is enough. it is scary how easy it is not to do anything except lay in bed and read (or watch tv/movies) all day long. heh.
but i think i am waking up right now as i am writing this to you...thanks to your presence...
have a good visit with your aunts next week. i'm glad you have them to be there for you, and you for them.
This is wisdom in action, i think:
You wrote--I didn't always make perfect sense to others- in order to not feel so lost, find my bearings, to understand how it could have happened, and yes to even believe it happened. I felt as if I were living two places at once and it was a way to try to cast a line between those two places and find my way through. A mantra meaning I am here but not here, this is why and somehow at the same time it doesn't matter what I am saying only that I am saying it .
Erin, its so wonderful to read this... thank you.
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