Caught in a Web (June 2007)

Vintage silk thread on silk velvet, paper.

hollow heart (June 2007)

the scan doesn't read well - but it's the negative space cut out and elevated above leather backing...

it's pretty
it looks like the thing it's supposed to look like
but it's a shadow of the thing itself
hollow
empty
not-really-there
heart

Untitled heart (June 2007)

i kinda love it in black and white



suggestions for a title are welcome...
when i was making it, i was thinking about things being released after a hibernation
or things emerging from a safe place out into the world

at first, i thought "emerging heart," but its not the heart that emerging, it's the heart that's kept things protected untl there was no choice but to burst out

or something like that...

Apologies...

I have been a lazy lazy horrible terribly distracted awful blogger.

I just took a new job, and in my infinite wisdom/over-estimation of abilities, I am also continuing to work for my previous employer until the end of their fiscal year, which happens on June 30.

And I was putting together a benefit for the latter and coordinating a federal grant application (due June 11) for the former - so yes, excuses excuses... lazy lazy horrible terribly distracted awful blogger.

I haven't so much as cut out another heart... but I have been thinking over some concepts to realize.

So about the hearts...

I recently was directed to a blogger at Frantic Writings. Here's an example of what he's all about...

"Tuesday my case goes to the Cleveland Clinic to see if I qualify for a heart transplant. All in all I’d have to say that’s pretty fucked up. I still can’t believe that I need a new heart."

Here is my reaction...

I cried a little... well, I cried alot - it was that kind of hacking simpering coughing donkey-bray of a cry that comes when a totally foreign reality clicks instantaneously with your own unrelated thought processes.

I've been doing alot of that since the end of '02...the littlest triggers set things in motion - mostly stories about loss of control or a complete change of plan or unmet expectations.

Anyway, he writes about this juxtaposition between experiencing a great joy and facing a great challenge and seems to plunge from one level of Maslow's Hierarchy to a much lower one in an instant.

It just hit the right nerve... and tears... and hiccupping... it was all quite sloppy.

I've really grown to hate how much loss of control there is in aging... or in simply being a human for so long that if you had a good run at one time, its really easy for the magnet to flip from positive to negative. And the realization that our bodies and minds are machines that wear down and have parts that should be re-called - it's all quite discouraging.

So after reading his posts, I considered him, someone I don't know and someone I am unlikely to meet, as I cut out hearts for the first round of my series...

And I cut out about 30 of them... big, small...hearts to be hung out to dry... hearts to be mounted like trophies and insect specimens... hearts in nests hatching beautiful things...

And I kept thinking about the theoretical heart and the physical heart and how we talk about broken hearts all the time without the reality of having experienced a literal Broken Heart with its wheezing and arrhythmia and unbalanced-ness.

Anyway... I as I thought about this man with a Broken Heart, I was imagining a store where he could go and there would be stacks and stacks of hearts... real working, replacement hearts like Wonka's factory or a Target... or even just a field... with a good crop of strong, healthy hearts and an abundance so great that you could choose to be picky.

Maybe even stock up with a couple extra - you know... "just in case."

How great would it be to have an inventory of spare hearts in the basement?

You could...
*pass them out to friends
*keep them on hand for emergencies
*give them to panhandlers
*have one for different needs: athletic heart, sacrificial heart, snow-blower heart
*you could mail it around the world and it would come back smarter and stronger
*you could keep one in its original packing and sell it on eBay as "mint condition" - no scars, no baggage, no clots, blockages or stints.

The possibilities are endless. So much is caught up in love and symbolism of hearts... it leaves me speechless.

I'm just very glad I was introduced to his blog, it's good for inspiration - and I like to think that as I work on each piece, he's got a bit of good juju (and hopefully a working heart) coming to him in each one.

Why not some art, too?

It needs something in the background... not sure what - too bleak.

The Originals Part II (c. 2001-2003)

A Beatific Heart... A Surrealistic Heart...An Amusing Heart (HeArt Deco...?)

Hatching Hearts (May 2007)

The scan is much darker than I anticipated, and doesn't do the imagery justice (I'm quite fond of this one).

I'll see if I can get a better scan or picture...

Ok... guess not.



sorry.

Archived Hearts (May 2007)

Please excuse the weird scanner shawdows...

The Originals (c. 2001-2003)

A Suffocated Heart... A Free-Flying Heart... A Well-Traveled Heart...



A Heart Trapped by Tradition

I was just gifted a digital camera (thanks again!) and haven't quite figured out if the focus is anything I have any control over. I took a number of shots... wide angle, far away with zoom... always fuzzy... so I apologize for it and will see if there is anything I can do to to remedy it for future posts.

Come Fly with Me (May 2007)

Hearts Hung Out to Dry (May 2007)

A number of years back, I was exploring an interest in early books on anatomy. I found them lovely (I still do) and quaint in their descriptions. But what I loved most were the illustrations. As an artist in a past life (read: career not Hindu rebirth), I'm always amazed at the way personal perceptions are realized into tangible drawings. Google "anatomical heart" sometime and look at the illustrations - they can be surprising different. But I digress.

Sometime around 2001, I wanted to celebrate Valentine's Day and share a particular favorite lithograph of a heart from an old medical textbook. I'll have to recreate the orginal valentine to share, but it was the heart you see below, with a pixie stick run through at a jaunty angle, a feather glued to one end, and an arrowhead made of silver cardstock on the other. I believe I signed it... "Happy V.D."

They were a hit and I found myself looking for additional uses for the stack of hearts I had meticulously cut out.

At the same time I was creating personalized catholic candles - mostly in a desperate attempt to nudge my life into a direction I deemed more appropriate - and started using the hearts on those. A heart bound up by a snake... a well-traveled heart (covered in old travel stickers)... a heart restricted by Georgian columns...

And then I started my masters program... gone were to hours spent pouring over magazines and books for the perfect statement environment. Gone were the evenings spent with exactos and scissors and sticky glue fingers. Gone was the rush of one good final product among the other three that just didn't work. Admittedly, some were the direct result of boy angst, and with the masters came a decided lack of that motivating factor.

Fast forward to spring 2007 and I am missing the handwork of jobs gone by. And a bit of inspiration flew past my window recently, and I got to thinking about the series once more - but beyond the boy angst-centric models of the past. And the more I think about it, the more I want to do. I have a list of ideas and a number of distinct directions. So I plan on using this medium as a platform to try them out.

Trophy Heart (May 2007)

I started a new series... this is my favorite so far... more about the series later.