first sighting


Florence Wild, The Love I Saw In You Was Just A Mirage (detail), 2011-2012, white embroidery thread on white shower curtain.

I made a large embroidery in white on white. It was installed in a rather dimly lit corridor with a very strong, very bright spotlight upon it, giving it a startling presence. However in turn it was, almost undocumentable.
I am working hard at procuring some images which adequately reflect the whiteness/shimmering/textural differences/handwork or at least where the entire image is visible. At the moment all that is captured is the surface area, some vague outlines, and blinding lights. Like a mirage on the horizon perhaps. Quite apt, that.

Doing things







I finally bought a new bicycle this weekend. It is rather splendid actually, as you can see above, a lovely 'pearl blue' they call it. Goes like a dream, and is long awaited. I have spent two years riding around on a trusty Crescent mini-bike, which I had become quite attached to, but knew it was time for an up-grade and an up-size. Bizarrely, in one of those moments which make you start to believe in conspiracy theories, after having purchased my new set of wheels from the small and quaint corner bicycle store Abrahams Cykel, I returned to my faithful old mini-bike only to discover it's back wheel had completely deflated. Flat as a pancake. It was as if it now knew it was surplus to requirements. Without my new bike I would have had a long defeated walk back home in the rain. Fate? I think so.

While in New Zealand I irreparably tore my favourite shirt - a vintage Liberty print cotton number found at Spitalfields Market in London. I still have the mentality of 'going out clothes' ingrained in me, and I have a reluctance to wear my best threads for anything but a special occasion. For some reason, it is always my best clothes that I rip, pill, stain or burn - usually when I am trying my hardest to look after them. I bought this paisley patterned shirt from Weekday yesterday - attracted by the monotone feel in such a busy pattern. It is probably the loudest shirt I own. I have discovered (decided?) that patterns don't feature prominently in my wardrobe, I motion towards single coloured/plain items, with the idea to 'jazz them up' with silk scarves and interesting jewellery (otherwise known during daylight hours as my work lanyard with my library ID card on it). I am rather 'digging' this psychedelic shirt though - will most likely be placed on the going out clothes list to avoid any clashes with the aforementioned lanyard.

Went to Malmö Konsthall last weekend to check out the exhibition of Swedish artist Gerhard Nordström, and was struck by his remarkable ability to paint leaves. The works were large, made of multiple panels, oil on hardboard perhaps. The leaves appeared sharply in focus from a distance, only blurring into painterly marks as one edge towards the painting. Light and shade were rendered deftly in the dappled foliage, so many different shades of greens, and yellows, never blacks. I can imagine Nordström with an easel painting en plein air, deciding 'Today, I will only paint leaves' as a way to test his skill and hone his craft, a painterly equivalent of scales on the piano. (writing this I am reminded of a part of Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut, along similar lines.)

And when I am not riding my bike, buying clothes or looking at art, I am working on my embroidery. A busy pattern, white on white, the stitches sort of my way of painting leaves, steadily built up into a greater mass.

Detail



































Detail of an ongoing embroidery work, based on a map of the mirage island 'Crocker Land'.
Done while listening to Neil Young, Paul Butterfield, Lee Hazlewood and James Carr.

Small things slowly accumulate to create larger things - stitches, letters. Built up to reveal an image, narrative, something in which all the tiny stitches are used to link together and form a new idea.
There is a sort of tension within the work: pulling one in to recognise the details which make up the work, and being pushed back to see how each stitch is linked together creating the bigger picture.

Studio Visit

April contained a bevvy of exciting experiences, including the start of a new, full time, Swedish speaking job, an amazing Easter sojourn from aforementioned job with visits from three wonderful friends, the commencement of time spent in my new basement studio, and the beginning of a new project mentioned here previously. Hurrah for April, I say, as I still come to terms that today is in fact, the first of May.


























































The white striped shower curtain I am at present embroidering on in my new studio / close ups of the North Pole, which Robert Peary reached on the day of my birth in 1909, and the mystical 'Crocker Land', of which the map claims to have plotted / Ryan documenting the work in progress /studio portrait of the artist with invisible artwork.

Plans for May include afternoons after work sewing white on white, and perhaps fitting a couple of afternoons playing basketball in between.

Wayward Land



































Chart of Segment of the Western Arctic North and Northwest of Grant Land by Edwin Swift Balch, 1912, showing the unexplored 'Crocker Land', sighted by Robert Peary in 1906. This fabled land lead to an ill-fated expedition to explore the nature and possible inhabitants of Crocker Land, however they discovered the land in fact, did not exist, and was actually a type of mirage known as a Fata Morgana.

The day was exceptionally clear, not a cloud or trace of mist; if land could be seen, now was our time . Yes, there it was! It could even be seen without a glass, extending from southwest true to northeast. Our powerful glasses, however.. brought out more clearly the dark background in contrast with the white) the whole resembling hills, valleys and snow-capped peaks to such a degree that, had we not been out on the frozen sea for 150 miles, we would have staked our lives upon its reality. Our judgment then as now, is that this was a mirage or loom of the sea ice.

 This imaginary land mass, created by a trick of the light, and the subsequent effort of the Crocker Land Expedition, is the basis for a new work I have begun in my new studio space. A hand embroidered rendering of this map on a white shower curtain, stitched in white thread and fishing line, blurring outlines with surroundings, incorporating materials which will shimmer in the light, reflecting upon ideas of mirages and mistaken realities, and the feeling of being small and inconsequential in a vast, cold landscape.

This is the first work of a series I am working on involving ideas about loneliness, solitude, islands, ships and the sea.

"...the Crocker Land mirage could symbolise the loneliness of the sea in another way. It is almost like a delusion instead of an illusion, something Donald Crowhurst may have imagined seeing, to convince himself of his sanity (or lack thereof). The sense of false hope a mirage can cause, just like how a weary traveller in the desert believes the mirage he is seeing is an oasis, it is uncanny how it appears to take the form of the thing one most desires, and the opposite of what is actually there - in the desert one believes he is seeing water, whereas at sea, one thinks he has sighted land."
- notes from my art journal about Crocker Land and mirages.

A spanner in the works





The door to my mind / forlorn fishing nets / dual 'Persona' /Naval Star gazing

It feels like lately I have been swamped by a deluge of swedish vocabulary, verb tenses and other such thrilling components which make up the untamable beast known as svenska. It is not as bad as it sounds, in fact, I thoroughly enjoy learning languages; nothing is so satisfying as drunkenly rambling in another language and people being able to understand you, as my friends and I discovered on saturday night. While my previous party trick may have been exclaiming 'How did I get so drunk?' in swedish, I am now able to give a detailed description of this inevitable demise.
Last night I prepared for my final swedish test by watching Ingmar Bergman's Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries) without subtitles. Judging by todays effort in my listening comprehension, it was perhaps not the most suitable method of practice, but in any respects the most engrossing. I am satisfied by the fact that I understood enough to figure out the plot lines.


The above film still is not from Smultronstället but another Bergman film, Persona, featuring the same actresses, Bibi Andersson and Ingrid Thulin. I have always liked the director who has a stable of trusted actors whose names become synonymous with the directors own.

I am also now completely intrigued by star charts, islands and fishing nets, to add to the ever growing list of 'things that inspire me that I really should do something about'. These include birds, faux bois, whittling, and such like. A collection of "things" laid out like in the positions of stars / faux bois embroidered stockings / balancing bird Alexander Calder-esque mobiles / whittled bath feet / tunnels of fishing net / on an island?

It all makes me feel rather intrepid. I definitely have more exploring to do in the coming warmer climes.
Spend my winter thinking, and my summer doing.

The mind boggles.

Behind the Silver Screen


aerial views of a quintessential fictitious american town, and a plywood and papier mache Tara in disrepair.

"40 Acres", the back lot of RKO Studios from 1927-1976. It was Atlanta and 'Tara' in Gone with the Wind, the town of Mayberry in The Andy Griffiths Show, a jungle for Tarzan, the backdrop for episodes of The Adventures of Superman and Star Trek.

"Nothing in Hollywood is permanent. Once photographed, life here is ended. It is almost symbolic of Hollywood. Tara had no rooms inside. It was just a façade. So much of Hollywood is a façade." - David O. Selznick.

Thinking about an embroidered and fabricated 40 Acres facade, to accompany Sherlock Holmes' abode, The Village, and the Overlook Hotel Maze. Also, about an overhead projector in the second hand shop around the corner.

WATERY MORALES

CLARA CHON & FLORENCE WILD
WATERFRONT MORALS/FATHERLY FUNCTIONS
window 22.12.2009 - 19.02.2010










Another Green World (Shining), 2009, Florence Wild, embroidery on jute.





The Cotton Suit, 2009, Clara Chon, safety pins on t-shirt.







...Singing in Paris, 2009, Florence Wild, invisible ink on newsprint.



So here are some images from the show Clara and I put on at Window over the summer break.
Here is also a link to the review by John Hurrell. And to whoever pilfered Clara's painting which was also part of this show, FOR SHAME, YOU SCOUNDREL.