First Friday of the New Year

I’ve been feeling a bit low-energy lately, which kind of put a damper on my usual First Friday over-planning, over-prepping and over-working. And oddly, that turned out to be a good thing.

All I did to prep was buy the usual wine and snacks and show up 30 minutes before the event started. I didn't even hang any new work. The only piece that was on the wall was a 3’ x 4’ aerial grid that was pinned to my corkboards. I've been working on this fiber piece, in some form, for years. This thing has been constructed, deconstructed, reconstructed and recombined with other so many other pieces. It's kind of unbelievable the amount of history and labor in this piece, which shows... layers of neckties, dyed and painted fabrics, hand and machine-stitching, over-stitching, etc.

I was surprised to see how many people were blown-away by this piece. They wanted to know how it was done, where it was going, what it was, how I came up with the process...

One woman holding a toddler asked him, "Is this painted or sewn?"

"sewn"

"Did this take a little time or a lot of time?"

"laaadaaaa"

Here I was feeling a bit underachieving for not having any new work up, but exhausted enough not to be too bothered. So… I'm feeling really low-key, and everyone is coming in and getting really excited about this work, and they're leaving and collecting more people and dragging them into my studio because, "You just have to see this."

The conversations ranged from a geographer talking about mapping to a girl from Appalachia who moved to Los Angeles talking about her difficulties adjusting. She said things I'd said myself so many times about not being able to find her grounding through the concrete or solace without more than little glimpses of sky. Like us, she used to get away to Malibu so she could stand in the Santa Monica Mountains and look out over the ocean and experience expanse and the soothing vision of the horizon line.

So often, Frank and I tell ourselves that if we'd had more opportunities to get out of the city, we could have been content in L.A. But as it was, we just felt trapped and surrounded – which is what this particular aerial is about: complete immersion in a place the size of the entire country of Ireland and the density of... well, Los Angeles.