A new year deserves new work. It's taken me awhile to get back in the swing of things after the installation project at the Botanical Garden this past Fall. When the pieces were dismantled, all the natural materials went to the compost pile but the armatures came home with me. Three full sized bodies in addition to older pieces, the leftovers of the sculpting process and all my other stuff made the studio quite cramped. It was difficult to navigate from one side of the room to the other. Needless to say, a crammed space is not inspiration for creating more work!
January was a month spent sorting, tossing (something I hate doing) and lots of rearranging. In the end I reclaimed my work space and have enjoyed being in there again. What then ensued was a burst of creative plotting. Perhaps seeing the snow mounds finally begin to dwindle gave the extra boost to birth some new work.
I have a few new projects in the works. A few will be stretched out over the course of the year and I will be inviting you to join me in the creation process... more to come on that. More immediately, I am working on a new series about skin. I've got the first piece finished with at least 3 more to come. You can see the process below. Stay tuned for additions to the series, an announcement about a new show coming up, some press in Boro Magazine and (with fingers crossed) the opening of an Etsy store. Whew. I have lots to do in the coming weeks. Let Spring be ushered in!
This piece, Skin: 025 , is formed on a wire torso armature and is made up of vertically woven yarn, jute, sisal and cotton string. In order to get the correct tension of the strings I had to have the piece suspended across the studio during the weaving process.
Here's a view from underneath the piece.
Adjusting the threads after removing the piece from my make-shift loom
Skin: 025, 2011
© Susan Springer Anderson 2011
