A Vocabulary of Materials
My process is experiential. I make visits beyond my self: to Iceland, to the store where the fishermen buy their supplies, to the library.
The feel of manuscripts, photographs and maps give my hands something to articulate when later, in my studio, they work knotting and looping lengths of fishing line. It loses form over time, and can be reshaped; it is resilient.
The colored paper is cut from my own drawings from nature…imprinted with other narratives and perceptions…through which I punch holes as a way of forging through them to get to the act of new expression. My vocabulary of materials comes alive in conversation with the objects and lived-in spaces around them.
Text is also a material with a memory and a shape. I struggle to arrange words so they can articulate beyond history to character, story, felt experience, and new possibility.
Photos: Sue Tallon