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The Lacemakers Guild, 2009. Chantal Powell. Assembled box with glass, vintage lace, hand tinted photograph, & antique locket. 13cm x10cm x2cm.
A thought provoking essay by D.H. Lawrence proposes that it is in a woman’s nature to look for a “pattern” by which they can shape themselves. That they try to adapt themselves to men’s theories/desires of what women should be. Over time men have given us “types” or ideals that include “the chaste and untouched”, “the capable woman”, “the noble woman (pure spouse, devoted mother)” , and “the prostitute”. The tragedy is that once a woman has really lived up to a man’s pattern he despises her for it and pursues another “type”. Likewise a woman may spend years following a man’s “type” and then rage against it if it has become emotionally unsatisfactory, changing dramatically from one type to another.
Detail - Edwardian locket holding a photograph of a woman obscured with lace fragment sprayed with black paint.
I used fragments of vintage lace from different garments to represent the different extremes of roles that men have constructed for women. “The Virgin” and “The Prostitute” or “The Angel” and “The Devil”. Lace is symbolic of purity and chastity (it has origins with the clergy and connections with royalty and value) however it is also a symbol of sexuality. The lace can be seen as providing a veiling, an obscuring of true self in favour of these fabricated “types”.
The Lacemakers Guild, 2009. Chantal Powell
I’m a big fan of old picture frames. They are a thing of beauty in themselves, a bit of flaking paint or damaged gesso only adding to the interest of their life lived. Whenever I come across one that’s not too expensive it gets squirreled away and my little stash is slowly growing.
I thought I’d use one of them to frame the painting I did the other day (I decided its worthy to justify going on the wall for a while). It was such a satisfying feeling to frame the picture and then put it on the wall – its enough to make me want to be a painter! But then it is also great fun to play with wedding dresses, old typewriters and dusty boxes – even if you don’t get to put them in a pretty frame and hang them in your lounge after.
Really clever concept aimed at bloggers and blog readers. Chreu Jackson, a coder, has created the website called AlphaInventions, which displays a new blog every few seconds. The blogs displayed in the ”reading cycle” are blogs that have been submitted by individuals and stay in the cycle until “bumped” off by a new submission. A blog is also displayed whenever it is updated giving viewers on the AlphaInventions site opportunity to comment on posts in real-time.
Its a little like StumbleUpon only geared entirely around blogs. Its great for bloggers to get their blogs seen by more people (you can submit for free) and great for blog readers wanting to explore new blogs. As far as I can tell everyone is a winner! I think Chreu Jackson and his invention could become pretty big!
A fun project I’m playing with at the moment. Taking snapshots of scenes with an equivocal nature and imposing suggested narratives over the top with marker pen.
The Swan Prince, Part I
untitled
The Rendevous
untitled
I thought I’d put some pictures of this work in progress partly because I’m a little unsure of where its going and I thought taking some pics and writing something may help make some decisions. Any thoughts greatly appreciated as well.
Since buying the vintage wedding dress that I plan to eventually work into a sculptural piece, I’ve been thinking about the romantic ideals of “The Wedding Day”. Particularly the importance of these ideals to women, their origination in childhood fantasies, stories and the media, and how unrelated to the actual concept and experience of marriage itself these ideals actually are.
I wanted to contrast the solemnity, and permanence of the wedding vows with the ephemeral nature of elevated wedding day dreams. I started with the plan of handwriting the vows repeatedly over a large area and then having confetti thrown over the top. I’ve always found something incredibly compelling and seductive about something handwritten over and over and wanted to convey something of that intensity and force. Unfortunately the handwritten version on paper didn’t visually do what I wanted it to do so I have moved on to a type written version. (I do still like the idea of handwriting completely covering a wall – so may try that at some point). I also came across an old typewriter a couple of days ago and quite like the idea of incorporating this some way, perhaps as part of an installation.
Anyway here are a couple of pics of where I am so far . . .
in progress
in progress
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