FIN 140 Unit 1

Desiderium

*Desiderium (view with silver entity and reclining figure)*

I pulled out a box of painted and unpainted driftwood, pieces that I had coated with gesso this past summer for a project for which I decided NOT to use the driftwood. These will help, I thought.

I started to arrange the elements that I had gathered together.

I decided to include these two “entities” because they provide the kind of commentary I was looking for in the piece. I made these two this September as I was starting this assignment, and included the sketches I did for them elsewhere in this blog and in my process book. I did not know that they would show up in this project.

So, just as a reminder, this is what I started with:

Of the few objects I started with, I decided to use this book and this hair for my assemblage. Although they were the starting points for the thinking, neither one actually appears in the assemblage. The book of constellations I found among my father’s few remaining possessions when he died. He had been a merchant marine in WW2, and had spent many years before, during, and after the war at sea. He spoke frequently about the sea, about being at sea.

Here is a photograph of the backdrop I’m using, an old display board retrieved from a friend who was going out of business and no longer needed it.

After I got the display board up, I needed to decide how to arrange the book and the hair. I had been planning to use the hair to make Celtic knots to use as bookmarks in the book of constellations and to write a series of letters from a sailor to his lover.

What I ended up with was quite different. The other figure that I worked on this fall was a depiction of what my father looked like in his final hours. I had done a sketch of him in November 2019, about six weeks after he died, and used that sketch as a basis for this piece.

This figure appears in the centre of the assemblage. It is a depiction of a man in his dying hours. The blanket, which I wanted to be translucent so that it did not hide the body position of the man, is made from sausage casing.

I had to freshen some of the gessoed driftwood, and create stands for it.

As I was pulling together the elements for the assemblage, I decided I wanted to include this figure, which I had made in August and which was not part of my “current” thinking processes, but it did not seem to be unrelated to the feel of this assemblage.

The rocks are included for structure, but also to make sure that the side panels do not fold in. This setting demonstrated to me that I needed to raise the entities a bit higher, so I made some stands for the two black figures on the left in this photo. Also, the orange book to the left includes five poems called “Loveletting”, a term I think I made up, based on the idea of bloodletting. The pendulum in the centre gets lost in this photograph. I’m not sure if I’ll have time to adjust this before tonight. I’ll see how the rest of this goes.

The blue paracord includes the Eternity knot, and is attached to the poetry book to be used as a bookmark, or merely an attachment so that the book does not get lost. The cord is attached to the bottom two wires that bind the book together.

I believe that what I am making is a memorial for my father, who died at 98 just before COVID broke out; we had been planning to have a service for him in the spring of 2019, but COVID prevented that from happening.

This piece is a memorial for my father.

It’s called Desiderium, a word which means: an ardent desire or longing; especially: a feeling of loss or grief for something lost. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/heres-that-thing-youre-feeling)

I’ve decided to work on the book and the hair. Here is the plan:

create a “route” for a sailor to have taken across the seas and figure out which constellation is visible when and where.
create a celtic knot for each of four locations (keep the project limited because of time…ideally this could be much bigger…perhaps as big as the number of constellations). Do test knots with twine and then move on to using the hair.
familiarize myself with the mythology associated with each constellation and choose constellation to work with based on the connection between the mythology and the sailor’s life.
For each of these four locations, the sailor will have created a different celtic knot that connects him to his beloved to the mythology of the constellation to his life as a sailor.
Write four short love poems to accompany the knots and held within the pages of the book.

Research:

The Celtic Knot Meaning And The 8 Different Types Explained

At this stage, I expect I will focus on the following five knots, and likely reduce that to four for this project:

Trinity Knot

Using a piece of twine I had sitting around from the beginning of the assemblage project, I attempted to follow the instructions for how to make a celtic trinity knot. I did manage to do it correctly, but the piece of twine I used was starting to fall apart, so I’ll find a better made twine and try again before I move on to trying to use hair.

Sailor’s knot

This was a terrible video. I found another one related to a crochet project, but the explanation was much better:

I’m still using this terrible twine, but it does serve to demonstrate to me that I can follow the knot-making instructions correctly, even if the end result is not pretty to look at. This knot uses two strands of rope that are knotted together.

This is a beautiful video demonstrating how to tie a Celtic Heart Knot, and although the knot I tied (see below) does not look beautiful, it is correctly done and again demonstrates to me that I am able to follow the instructions and can move forward in my project.

Here is my Celtic Love Knot…the material used by the TIAT youtube channel is paracord, and I have ordered some, because I’d like my knots to look nice enough to use for other purposes.

Solomon’s knot

Okay, this is a cute video, but I couldn’t follow because I didn’t have a long enough rope. But I started. Will resume when I get the paracord on Friday.

Here is another, better, video:

SOLOMON BAR

ETERNITY KNOT

http://www.free-macrame-patterns.com/eternity-knot.html

I’ve chosen these five because each has some sort of connection to love, connecting, spirituality. The love poems will in some way make a connection between love and the love of eternity, the eternal nature of their love.

MAPS AND CONSTELLATIONS Research

This morning I looked for a map, and found amongst my random possessions a map of Greece. Given that I’ve been to Greece five times and spent more time there than anywhere else in the world other than Canada, I decided to settle on a map of Greece to help me limit the constellations that I choose for this project.

Here is a map of Greece, which the dog decided to sit on to lick the rain from his paws while I work.

A better placement of the map for writing purposes. I’ve started on the poems, but don’t really want to include them here yet…I’ll think about it.

So, I “googled” constellations seen from Greece, and found the following resources:

The first one is the most helpful to my current project as it provides geographic details of the latitudes within which the constellations can be seen.

https://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-map/zodiac-constellations/

As a result of my initial review of these sites, I have narrowed my constellations down to four related to the zodiac:

Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo.

I will also include the Pleiades in my writing. Interesting fact: the word “zodiac” means “circle of animals”. I have a superficial understanding of the zodiac and astrology and am more interested in the astronomical features of the zodiac. At least for now.

https://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-names/greek-constellations/

https://www.theoi.com/greek-mythology/star-myths.html

https://www.loc.gov/collections/finding-our-place-in-the-cosmos-with-carl-sagan/articles-and-essays/modeling-the-cosmos/ancient-greek-astronomy-and-cosmology

https://www.underluckystars.com/blog/the-origin-of-the-greek-constellations/

https://physics.weber.edu/schroeder/ua/starmotion.html

Bloodletting reminder information:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/bloodletting-why-doctors-used-to-bleed-their-patients-for-health

Greece map possible locations/Odysseus research

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/maps/travels-odysseus/

NEXT STEPS:

Do the same knots over again with paracord when it arrives on Friday. In the meantime, do the research on Victorian Hair Jewelry and figure out how to prepare hair in order to use it for knotting it.

Also, create the sailing route and connect that route to constellations and their related mythology. Start to think about poems, and probably start to write them while doing the reading/research on the constellations and mythology.

Useful links:

https://www.rookiemag.com/2013/12/diy-victorian-hair-jewelry/

http://www.victoriana.com/Jewelry/victorian-hair-jewelry.html

Getting organized for the Process Book (the real one)

I’ve become so accustomed to using WordPress for organizing my ideas and recording the process of my work, that I’m a bit perplexed about how to start with an actual, real process book. Also, I think I’ve forgotten how to use a pen for writing actual words.

So, I decided to start here, online, and once I get everything organized here, I’ll “copy” it, or print it out, or whatever it takes, and migrate it over to the tangible book.

I’ll give this a try.

October 4 update:

Nothing but frustration, really, with this project. Not really to do with the project itself, but cleaning my printer heads did not make the printer work, and I had a sewer backup into my apartment on Friday which has caused ongoing disruption to my work and living space. I fear I will not be able to “complete” my process book, and I’ve been recording my progess on this blog, but can’t even print it out to put into the process book as per my original intention…

I’ve reduced the elements of the project to the following sketch:

Next steps:

paint the background black gesso

rewrite the poems into a little “book”

“bind” the book

put one knot into the book as book mark

weave the mat for the base

find (or create if I cannot find) the pendulum

hang pendulum across the top of the frame

get blue figure for placement in the scene

decide on a name

make label

pack it all up for transport on Wednesday evening

review checklist to make sure I’ve done everything for the assignment

I used a very small gauged wire to hold the booklet together. I like the shapes that aluminum wire can make, and that when bent into those shapes, that it will stay that way.

I handprinted the poems onto small sheets of tracing paper. I used tracing paper because I wanted the transparency of the paper, so that the words of the next page could be seen coming through. I like the sense of “promise” or “continuity” that that creates.

And of course the writing can be seen from behind the tracing paper, and I like this aspect of using tracing paper for pieces of writing, because the writing almost becomes just abstract symbols, and can be experienced as abstract symbols if you don’t try to read them. This creates, for me, a sense of mystery, or writing in secret code.

The eternity knot is attached to the outside of the booklet. The long end of the cord can be used as a “bookmark”, although this booklet is small enough that it doesn’t really need one.

Next steps (October 4)

I’ve painted the stand with gesso, but I realize that the stand I have is too large, so I’ll have to find another way to support the pendulum. Update: no, I’m going to use the “stand” that I have.

I have to use rocks to hold open the “stand”; here you can sort of see the pendulum but can’t see the piece of string that crosses the top of the stand.

so, make the pendulum; okay I’ve made the pendulum out of a shell, some jeweler’s wire, and a silver chain.

I had been planning to paint the background pure black, but I liked the look of the dark splotches, so kept it like that.

Here is the entity that is going to pull all the elements together. Also, a piece of wood painted black (gesso) which is going to add some organic lines of interest to the piece.

I’ve tossed the Loveletting booklet into the mix, just to see how it will inspire me tomorrow evening when I am able to return to this project. I think I have a few other pieces of similarly painted driftwood, so may pull some out. This is the part that I really like…when I’m pulling together the elements and coming up with something that starts to speak back to me, when I feel like I’ve managed to scratch at the emotion that I’m trying to depict, because I think that ultimately that’s what I am always trying to do, to depict an emotion, or a complex of emotions that are perhaps not nameable.

https://www.learnreligions.com/pendulum-divination-2561760

weave the mat

decide on a name

As I start to discuss just below the previous photograph, somehow I’m trying to get at emotions that don’t have names. I’ve come up with Desiderium, which means “an ardent desire or longing; especially: a feeling of loss or grief for something lost” https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/heres-that-thing-youre-feeling/desiderium, and that could work here, but I’m just not sure yet. I’ll keep looking.

make label

fill out self-assessment

find guidelines to make sure I’ve done everything required for the assignment.

Selecting Non-Precious Items for Lab #2

I found this piece in a ditch while riding my bike. I picked it up because I thought it might some day be useful. I was right.

I bought this doll at a thrift store a few years ago because I was doing some projects with dolls. She has an especially wonderful face.

Also, she has this written on her back, just to make sure there is no mistaking her for an original. Once I starting photographing her, I couldn’t stop. So, before I move on to the other items, here is my photographic digression.

I love hands, even doll hands. Look at those dimples.

Here she is looking in the mirror (and the mirror became one of the items I look to class for the lab). I didn’t photograph it separately, because, well, that really would have been a photograph of me taking a photograph. So, in this shot and the next few, I’ve included the mirror.

What I love about her eyelashes is that they look hand-drawn. I love to see the signs of the maker on a made item; it makes me feel closer to the item for some reason. I also like the shadows on her face.

I accidentally included my finger in this shot. But I liked it, so…

.. .I deliberately included my fingers in this shot…

I was enjoying the interplay of my fingers, the shadows on her face, and the look on her face. She’s also got great hair.

After that photo-shoot, I placed her next to the bottle (another one of the objects I chose to take to class for the lab) for one final photo…but…

One thing leads to another in the studio.

That’s the end of the digression. This is why my homework takes me so long, I guess.

And here are the other items, none of which inspired a photoshoot.

I found this water switch thing on the floor in my apartment building.

I found this little bottle on the beach at Gartley Point.

I think I bought this at some point, but for the life of me, I don’t know why except I just like it.

I found this reflector lying in a ditch not far from where I buy blueberries. It’s amazing what I can find in ditches when I am riding my bicycle.

Here’s the reverse side of the reflector.

yeah, so, I find stuff in ditches, and I bring it all home because it might be useful some day. i have too much stuff like this. glad to get rid of it, although I think I’m going to miss the doll (um, I DID manage to retrieve her head, as it did not become part of anyone’s project).

The Lab itself

I kept the bottle and added the mandril. Meh. I like both the bottle and the mandril, but this does nothing for me, really, although I love the way he is looking up.

The head of a shovel and a Christmas bulb. I love the shape of the head of the shovel, and I love the colour of the bulb. I think they are paired well in this photograph.

But…

I had to attach the two together in some way. I really liked the look of the two “unattached”, as in the previous photograph, so I chose to disrupt what I saw as a pleasant juxtaposition by using large amounts of duct tape and trying to cover the bulb so that I would make a completely new shape.

I would have completely covered the bulb and the shovel head with duct tape so that I created a whole new shape with no sign remaining of the items that were making that shape, but I was aware that I was using someone else’s tape, and it felt wasteful to continue down this path.

Here is the table with all the creations from the first two rounds. We were to choose one creation not our own from the table.

And I worked with Oskar, who had brought the skateboard and added the wood to the top.

Then we had to write things. Here are my things:

I was able to retrieve the doll’s head from the table. She now has a new and rewarding life back at my place:

On to Assignment 1 – assemblage

These first entries are not actually directly related to the project, but these are two projects I’m working on, on my own, and so part of what is likely influencing my thinking as I transition from that work into the assignment work.

I used this little project as a way to warm myself up, to get myself accustomed to using the sketchbook as a place to record my thought processes, instead of the blog.

So, I’ll see how this works. I do a bit of writing in the process book, then migrate it over here. For now, my printer is not functioning properly, so printing is frustrating…the black ink feed isn’t working.

These two are the result of the two wire armatures just above. I think of them as entities.

Here are the gourds I bought at the market on Saturday. I’ll need to dry these for up to six months (after washing them in Dawn and treating them with rubbing alcohol, and finding a good place to hang them).

Here are the instructions for making a Greek-style lyre:

crab.rutgers.edu/~pbutler/greeklyre.html

Here are the instructions for preparing the gourds so that they don’t rot:

spruce.com/how-to-dry-or-cure-gourds-1403445

Here is where I really start the first project, the assemblage. I’m a bit nervous about my printer not working, as this means I have to keep track of what I want to print and where it needs to go in the book, “at a later date”, once I get the printer up. So, I’m using this blog to make sure everything is recorded in the proper order.

I used purple annotations as notes to self so that I will see where and what I need to add.

an illustration of black hawthorn leaf, berry and thorn, in case I decide to make a sculpture of the figure above.

Five objects for the first assignment…assemblage.

Three ideas for assemblage assignment

variation on caduceus (the staff of Hermes)

Lauryn Youden Research

From https://laurynyouden.net

“Lauryn Youden is a feminist Canadian performance and installation artist, writer and independent curator” who works out of Berlin, Germany. Born in 1989 (https://universityoftheunderground.org/lauryn-youden), Youden’s identity as a queer crip as well as the western treatments she has pursued in their lifetime, informs and drives their work. https://www.berlinartlink.com/2018/10/02/invisible-diseases-an-interview-with-lauryn-youden/

Youden studied at the Universitat Der Kunste Berlin (2011), in Berlin, and has a degree from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver (2012). Also according to the Galerie Jerome Pauchant (Paris) website about Lauryn Youden, Youden’s “explorations span video, digital media, print, photography and installation, with a particular use of meditation and alternative healing practices, inspired by nature. Her works evoke futuristic soothing atmospheres, images of happiness designed as antidotes to anxiety of the artificial states caused by the daily use and resulting dependencies on digital technologies”. http://jeromepauchant.com/en/artistes/cv/5170/lauryn-youden

Youden has been exhibiting since at least 2011; her recent works as depicted on her personal website (https://laurynyouden.net) focus on health, comfort, healing and include works such as Dark Water (2020), described on her site as a

35 MIN PERFORMATIVE LECTURE, RITUAL AND AUTO-THEORETICAL TEXT THAT EXAMINES THE HISTORY OF MOURNING, LAMENTATION AND DEATH AS CENTRAL TO THE DAILY LIVES OF EUROPEAN SOCIETY DURING THE RISE OF CAPITALIST PATRIARCHY AND THE PLAGUE; AS WELL AS THE DIVINATION AND RITUALISTIC PRACTICES USED BY MANY TO ENDURE THIS PERIOD OF TIME. INTERWOVEN BETWEEN PASSAGES ARE YOUDEN’S PERSONAL EXPERIENCES WITH RITUALISTIC LAMENTATION AND INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA EXPRESSED THROUGH POETRY AND HEALING FOUND IN CRIP MAGIC PRACTICES,

and Visionary of Knives (2020), described as follows:

AT THE CENTER OF LAURYN YOUDEN’S EXHIBITION ARE TWO WALL-MOUNTED ALTARS, EACH MEASURING JUST UNDER FOUR METERS LONG. FILLED WITH FLOWERS, MEDICINE, HERBS, BOOKS, CANDLES, AND RITUAL-BASED OBJECTS, THE CONTENT OF THESE ALTARS DOCUMENTS THE SURVIVAL STRATEGIES SHE DEVELOPED TO NAVIGATE AN ABLEIST WORLD. ‘VISIONARY OF KNIVES’ IS A SPACE OF RETREAT AND REST BUT ALSO EDUCATION AND PROTEST. ORIGINALLY CONCEIVED AS A MEETING PLACE FOR A QUEER CRIP COMMUNITY, IT HAS BECOME A PLACE OF ABSENCE DUE TO COVID-19, MIRRORING THE PHYSICAL ISOLATION OFTEN EXPERIENCED BY PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES. DRAWING TOGETHER YOUDEN’S CARE PRACTICES, AND HER PERSONAL COLLECTION OF LITERATURE AND ZINES MADE BY OTHER CRIP QUEER ARTISTS, HEALERS, WRITERS AND THINKERS, THE EXHIBITION IS AN INVITATION TO ENCOUNTER A SPACE DEDICATED TO YOUDEN’S CARE AND THE DISCOURSES OF HER COMMUNITY.

The works referenced here are large installations and appear to use everyday objects that Youden has collected as part of her practice of healing and self-healing, including beds, bedding, personalized altars, plants, photographed, all arranged to depict the extent to which someone with an invisible illness (Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Seasonal Affective Disorder) goes in order to relieve and treat symptoms in attempts at healing. Her life itself is art, and she presents that art in ways that can highlight to mainstream audiences the way that a non-healthy life may have to be lived; to those who identify as “crip”, her art provides expressions of lives lived invisibly and perhaps serves to support those who are also living such invisible lives.

Only looking at photographs of illustrations, the ways in which the installation and sounds and light occupies the space is lost; however, I can imagine walking through the area and looking closely at the details of the altars and imagining the “function” of each element of the altar; I can also, as I look at the photographs of the work, start to imagine (as someone with my own invisible challenges and who has developed personal practices to reduce environmental stressors) what my own version of such an installation might look like, what sounds I might include, which type of lighting, and where I might turn to in my research for the elements that I might include in my healing environment.

Her piece “My Love”, viewable on her website, is beautiful piece of art depicting a number of people resting, bundled in blankets and coats, under a geodesic dome while listening to music originally written by Mozart while his wife was ill and in danger of dying, GREAT MASS IN C MINOR, K. 427. She lived to sing the mass.

This piece, “My Love”, is also available to see here: https://www.kunststrom.com/lauryn-youden-en.html and this website, an advertisement for the installation’s inception on May 29 2021, includes the following description of Youden’s work:

Her practice derives from her research and navigation of modern Western medicine, the medical-industrial complex, ‘alternative’ healing practices and traditional medicine for the treatment of her chronic Illnesses and invisible disabilities. By publicly presenting her personal experiences and re-evaluations of the history of medicine through a feminist, Crip queer lens, her work illuminates and advocates for repressed, marginalized and forgotten practices of care and knowledge.

Youden’s work, then, evokes this natural curiosity in me about how her spaces would make me feel and it catalyzes in me a desire to create such environments for others, based on the multi-sensual environments I create for myself.

So far, I have not been able to find much about what Youden says about her own work, other than the interview she did in 2018 with Benjamin Marvin of Berlin Art Link (https://www.berlinartlink.com/2018/10/02/invisible-diseases-an-interview-with-lauryn-youden/)

In this interview, Youden reveals that she suffers from Generalized Anxiety Disorder, “among other invisible diseases” and that she makes most of her work during panic attacks. She states that “I write to produce a record of the experience and life with the disorder”. Her goal, she goes on to say, is to “legitimize” the illnesses and to connect with others with similar experiences.

Youden’s work helps me to further contextualize and perhaps understand a little better my own suspicions about the wellness industry and it’s relationship to privileged Neo-liberal whiteness (see, for example, the recent TV miniseries, The White Lotus, the Mike White written and produced about the appalling behaviours of the wealthy at an all-inclusive hotel in Hawaii, and the subplot in particular of the wealthy white woman being treated by the native Hawaiian Belinda, and the white woman’s ability to summon Belinda at will).

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