Two Shelves




Working in a library, I am surrounded by shelves. Uniform, bland, easy to maneuver and reassemble. In that pale composite wood which feels like plastic (and probably is). Unmarkable, resilient against dust and made to withstand the daily grind of careless university students.
In the grand scheme of things, library shelves are nothing to write home about. 
In libraries, shelves and collections are measure by metres.
"Well, the 300's are taking up 80 meters at present, but are growing rapidly," someone might say.
I have never actually bothered to find out if a standard library shelf is in fact, one metre long. The thought only struck me now, typing this, and I feel I am only one day away from a crucial discovery into the inner workings of the library world.

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Shelves are like bridesmaids - there as a support, but not intended to distract from the object on display. I consider myself a sort of shelf personality: there to lend a helping hand, bolster my friends, a shoulder to lean on. I would love to be a bridesmaid one day.

As far as I know, there is no such furniture personality test. 

More often than not these shelf supports - brackets, frames and what not - are nondescript or non-existant. Great effort is made to make shelves appear as self supporting as possible, stand-alone objects, as if a plank of wood suddenly emerged from a wall,or is sitting balanced there by sheer force of will.

"Look Mum! No hands!"

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I have started building shelves as sculptural objects. Above are my first two efforts, utelizing discarded bookends sourced from the library. Objects not only functioning as weight-bearing horizontal surfaces adjacent to walls, but as explorations of differing ways by which to affix these boards to said walls. Supports supporting other supports - a network of brackets, braces, and wires tensing and compressing. Juxtaposing different materials, colours, forms in a balanced and harmonious manner.

A shelf should be just as pleasing to look at empty.







Frames





Metal grids found in Paris in botanical creeper supports and an excellent modernist chair frame.

From the photo collection 'In Paris'.

Att plugga

             




                                   







A portrait taken by Jane where I am slightly obscured by the ongoing, never-ending, cascading knitted fishing line project which has now taken on so many possible exhibiting forms I can't remember them all. It is like a security blanket in some ways, something to work on as a way to just to keep working. It is filled up with scores of ideas both related to the work itself and of other works, as I sit and think and knit, plugging away at it. 

In swedish 'att plugga' means to study. I like that. 

All these ideas have accumulated within this knitted mass, and have lost their original form - instead morphing into the texture of the knit, becoming transparent, a tangled mess of lines of thought and streams of consciousness. Sort of how I am writing about it now. 
Sometimes the futility of the whole thing gets me down. I don't even what it is meant to be anymore! I jokingly (not so jokingly) cry to anyone within earshot. First it was to be stretched between the floor and ceiling, then laid out like a wobbly rug on the ground, anchored by some small island like objects. Then it was a wave, a waterfall, a galaxy - a hammock, a camp bed, a curtain. Just now I think of it as a sort of wrap - like the suitcases you see at the baggage claim swaddled in Gladwrap. 

As a thing in itself it is aesthetically pleasing, and tempting to touch. And it's malleability is it's strongest asset. The longer I work at it, more manifestations will emerge. This is as much about the process as the end result. 
I fret too much about the end result. 

"To be installed in a manner which expresses the amount of ideas that were thought of during the making of this large knitted beast."
        A working title.
Or

"All of my ideas from the past 2 years are tangled up in here somewhere."

A prop. I feel an artists book in the works. The various forms of the knitted fishing line project in a long accordion book. Apropos Ed Ruscha or some such. Black and white. 

I should just let it grow as long as it needs to. The practice is being maintained, and it provides me with time to wonder about what is going on, what I want to be doing. It is relaxing. Right now it feels like I am finally admitting all I want to do is knit a seemingly endless train of fishing line, without really knowing why. 
I am constantly reminded of the Mainland Cheese ads from New Zealand - (not the one where they replace musicians with cheese, "Chubby Chedder! The Brie Gees!" but the "Good things take time" one. As in cheese.) 

I wonder why I always try to be so serious in my art practice, when in general I am really quite silly. (re: cheese ad. I spend a lot of time knitting and thinking of more cheese musicians.) A recurring thought as I knit, and one I believe more firmly in with each stitch, is that Art is too serious. 

It will be finished at some point - and the best thing will be deciding it is finished due to some occurrence in my life: an outside influence will decide its conclusion. And then, holding all my ideas, I will decide how it will be. At least in it's first incarnation. 

It is my 27th birthday on Sunday.






Patterns of Paris




      


 




Patterns seen in Paris: the stained glass windows at the Château de Vincennes Chapel / Particle board & the ornate doors of Notre Dame / the grid within a grid covering a well / marble facade outside of a special wine bar / large dappled folios holding posters everywhere / a slab of marble as a table top at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs

From the photo collection 'In Paris'.

Paris through the blinds with furniture - a series




Paris on film - inside Musée des Arts Décoratifs, photographing the Tuileries through the sheer blinds, creating the effect of an interior projection of outside. Ash peers through the blinds to capture an unobstructed shot. Art Nouveau furniture quietly fills the foreground. 
The framing, narrative and diffused light have such a cinematic quality. 
Images to be converted into slide film and projected somewhere which isn't Paris. Because even though this is Paris, it doesn't really feel like it. 

Dilapidated Denmark



Arne Jacobsen designed Bellevista apartments - 1932-36, at Klampenborg are a sorry sight with paint peeling, crumbling balconies, cracks in the concrete and rotting wooden windowsills.
Copenhagen's Little Mermaid poses upon her pedestal of rocks avoiding the swathes of seaweed and tourist rubbish surrounding her.
Bleak vistas.

Denmark not taking care of their cultural heritage.