Walking and Remembering

I just uploaded some work from 2004 to the gallery. Here’s the first in the series:


Memory Walk #1, 2004
10” x 12” drawing stitched with hand-dyed cotton yarn on raw canvas

Every evening for years my partner, Frank, and I would take the same walk around the Los Feliz neighborhood in Los Angeles. The walk took about an hour or hour and a half, depending on whether we added an extra loop. We would begin at the edge of the neighborhood where Silverlake and Los Feliz meet at the Rowena reservoir and head straight up the steep end of St. George to the nunnery at the top of the hill, arc back down to Rowena and into Los Feliz where we would wind around until we made our way back to the point where we started.

Most walks included wildlife spotting, usually skunks, but also coyotes and raccoons and the occasional owl. The ritual was playful and heady, a time for us to process our day and figure out problems we might be having with our respective projects.

I miss the walks. I miss the neighborhood. I miss the ritual and the meaning and structuring it gave both of us. But for everything there is an exchange; and now we have bike rides in the morning (as we live right off a shady greenway). And the bike rides have their own delight and meaningfulness and wildlife: blue herons, geese with their goslings and turtles. Still, I miss the walks.

So in thinking on these things, I pulled out these stitched drawings and have been sewing them together to form one large piece.

Here’s the last piece in the initial series and part of the statement posted in the gallery:

Memory Walk #9, 2004

Xs mark the beginning and ending point, which never quite match up because I’m re-walking the route in my mind as I stitch. Each memory is different with stretches of road being a bit longer or shorter and with every twist and turn being at a slightly different angle.

Sometimes the actual walks included an extra loop depending on the evening and my and my walking partner’s energy level. So some memories have the loop and some don’t.

In doing this mapping project, I was drawing a connection between sequential activities (walking, stitching, remembering, narrating) and was bringing a time-based element and the body back into the 2-D map, which is usually static. I was also marking evidence of how repetition or re-telling of a story, even in stitches, engrains a pattern and molds the map to a more ideal (or nostalgic) likeness to the "original" territory.

June First Friday and meandering with neckties

This weekend was the First Friday art walk and the group show for the Arts and Culture Alliance. I finally finished the large fiber aerial and included it in the show. Here’s a photo:


Los Angeles Aerial #3: Psychogeography of the Crazy Quilt
mixed fibers and fabric on canvas, 3' x 4'

The photo isn’t the best quality because I haven’t had the final piece professionally photographed yet, but you can still see how it has changed from earlier. I’ve sharpened the edges and drawn lines with machine-couched dark yarns… and I’m very pleased with the results.

This piece is made up mostly of men's neckties that I wove into a thick fabric, hand-stitched together with other hand-dyed fabrics, cut into squares, reconstructed into a grid, stitched to canvas and drew over with machine stitching. I invested months of meandering, free-associative stitching into this painting / crazy quilt. Both the long process and the final form reflect my personal response to the flows and restrictions of everyday life (which involves so much driving) in Los Angeles.

In another associate gesture, I pulled out the Necktie Ballgown (because it’s made of men’s ties as well) to do some repairs and exhibit it on the dressform in my studio. I’ve been replacing the few silk ties (which have begun to fray and rot as silk does) with more sturdy, thick polyester ties from the 1970s. I love these ties for all their patterns and brilliant colors, which give them a particularly peacock-y quality... and since I've taken this masculine trope and given it this feminized form, I find the 70s era ties even more appropriate to the project.

First Friday visitors loved seeing this fun piece, and one brave person even wanted to try it on and feel its weight as she strolled through the galleries both upstairs and down. Here’s a picture that Frank took on his cellphone of the beautiful Victoria Lenne wearing the Necktie Ballgown. Several people said that the piece came to life with her wearing it... apparently Freida the dressform just doesn’t do the dress justice. Thank you, Victoria, for your boldness and your delight in wearing the Necktie Ballgown.

Victoria Lenne is a painter. Here’s a website (she says is a bit out of date) where you can see some of her work.