This is going to be my final piece for this assignment, as I feel it is getting to a point where it is segueing into another theme, one I want to explore in the final assignment.

This is still based on the photograph of my mother walking down the street- this is definitely my “Winter Garden” photo (Barthes, Camera Lucida, 1981).  And I think I have come closer to understanding what it is about the image that appeals to me, apart from the space it has left to ponder the nature of photos and portraits, the viewer, the photographer, and the subject.

As I’ve discussed, the photo is a moment both in time and out of it, of a subject both dead and alive, a little time capsule, a museum object, yet in Barthes’ strangely phenomenological terms it is “authentic”, a guarantee of the existence of the subject, and as such it makes the past certain. It is both a product of and a testimony to time. I have been considering these ideas in relation to Zen Buddhist concepts, which often express their opposition to Western dualism in paradoxical phrases which attempt to conjure up flux and singularity, and to deny the importance of space and time. They seem to be very different ways of thinking, but I was rereading TS Eliot’s “Four Quartets” and was struck by the similarity of language, in fact the way that Eliot seems to travel via Eastern religion and philosophy to arrive back at the Judeo-Christian tradition, “and know it for the first time”.

Eliot describes “the moment in the rose garden”, when enlightenment occurs, when past present and future coalesce, when we attain a “little consciousness”: it happens in time, and becomes a memory, although it seems to be a moment out of time. “Only through time time is conquered.” Wordsworth also wrote about “moments in time”, the Romantic experience of the Sublime which transcended time and place, the memory of which sustains and inspires. Eliot’s line is open to multiple interpretations, including the idea that by moving beyond time, time becomes unimportant, a more eastern perspective, or a more pragmatic reading, only by living, i.e. passing through time, and taking what it throws at us, are we undefeated by life.

I chose this quotation to go with the photograph, as it expresses the paradoxical nature of the image. It plays well with the content too- what gives the photo a narrative feel are the converging lines of the paving stones, which create a forward impetus, echoing the motion of the subject. The face is set ahead, clearly going somewhere. There is irony in the verb “conquering”, as my mother holds her brown paper parcel like a shield as if defending herself against the onset of the future.

But the image is of a moment, a brief one when a stranger noticed another stranger in the street- I feel as if the photographer is like the creator of the girl with the red dress in The Matrix, timing the click of the shutter, constructing this moment in the sun of my mother, and making a timeless object.

As befits a moment in the sun, a cyanotype seems a good choice, and so I made a double negative of the image and the text, but left it in the sun for a long time so the the blue would be intense. There may be some reaction to sizing in the paper (Fabriano Rosaspina) which is giving the browned effect.

The text is there for its meaning, but it also attains object-status through being “photographed” in the sun, a captured idea, an insight. Poetry is text as object, but the best goes far beyond that. The shape of the text, its font, are meant to evoke a memorial, a plaque, or inscribed stone, which fits the subject. The repetition of the word “time” has a nice parallelism and a sense of the paradoxical.

It could be said that there is an element of the internet meme in it, the picture plus the pithy text, but I’m not sure of that adds or takes away. I am more inspired by the work of Ian Hamilton Finlay though, the memorialising effect of his writing in stone, and his elliptical texts. His allusions are not obvious, for example making reference to the French Revolution, or to his local council. On the other hand, his images of boats, and use of the registration numbers of fishing vessels resonates with me, as I was brought up in that community, so there is a nice feel of both the familiar and strange, which I am also trying to create here. In this example, “Sea Poppy”, the registration numbers, unemotive, bureaucratic factual things, become juxtaposed with the idea of a flower, a poppy, associated with loss, and memory. The circular layout is reminiscent of the boat’s wheel too, so that it becomes a kind of concrete poetry.   The fonts here are mixed, serif and sans serif, bold and simple, which creates the undulating effect of a flower and its petals.

The font I chose was solid- partly to do with the practical limitations- it had to be clear. Hamilton Finlay often uses “Trajan”, a classically beautiful font which is favoured by stonemasons, and which is appropriate for his stone carvings, but his screenprinted images use a variety of styles.

Anyway I was delighted with this image, I must say.. Maybe because it has a note of triumph which feeds my emotional needs, but I also think the combination of subject and medium are in harmony, and the feeling of memorialisation is appropriate.

I did of course play around with variants, using different washes, bleach etc.

I also tried out another quote from The Four Quartets (a bit spoilt for choice), and used one which contains paradoxes and dualism to suggest a state beyond language, and a place beyond normal experience, “the still point of the turning world”; I started this quote in mid phrase to imply the break in the flow of experience, the moment out of time.

Also, I decided to try adding a second “moment in the sun” by overprinting a photopolymer positive, to enhance the cyanotype (based on a negative). This was difficult to register, despite my adding registration marks to the cyanotypes, but I thought it was a good development, adding depth and solidity to the image. The one below was the only absolutely perfectly registered one I managed- to do this correctly I would need to make sure my original image on the plate had a naturally occurring border, or an image that goes to the edge of the plate. My solution, making registration marks, is ok, but needs the cyanotype area to be big enough to make the registration marks visible, which they then are…

Finally, this one worked best. Because it combines positive and negative images in two printing techniques, it brings out a 3-D effect. The image, from having been flattened, and objectified, now gets a new life. I like the sense of circularity it creates for me, too. I have made my more more “present” in this image. Technically it is an improvement on the simpler version, and the note of triumph in the text is an appropriate emotional conclusion.

 

This was an experiment in using stitching as a drawing tool- in fact it was my sewing machine in Hong Kong giving up the ghost and getting into a snarl, that made me see the link between this and the project around my mother. I used thread in the images for “Book of sleep and dreaming” too, for the same reason. Loose thread is good for making almost gestural lines, but they’re more fatalistic, as the thread falls as it wants.

The thread suggests continuation, narrative- with the red stitching suggesting harm, danger, wounding, scarring- a negative event, and also a point in time and space- a point that disrupts the narrative flow.  On one side of the event, there are multiple threads with connections and loops, whereas on the other, there is a single thread, meandering, taking big leaps at times. One way of decoding it would say that the left side is “before” and the right, “after” but that need not be the case. I like the contrasts here- the soft shapes n the cloth, the marks of the thread, both harsh, bold and soft, curving, the way the stitching can evoke scribbling- violent, and frustrated, denying.  (Also referencing myself in this scribble… this time much more appropriately emotive- last time it was quite decorative.) Stitching can suggest both damage and healing, or patching. The contrast between loose and pulled thread is also emotive.

Tracy Emin’s stitched work gains emotive depth due to the use of materials of cloth and thread. There is something very considered about stitching- because it penetrates through the material, rather than being on top of the canvas or substrate, it evokes the physical sensation of making, and somehow stresses commitment to the act, which works well with her “confessional” type pieces.

Tracey Emin Everyone I Have Ever Slept With, 1963–95 1995 Appliqued tent,

tate.org.uk

 

I plan to move onto copper plate etching for the final assignment, and could use thread to make marks in soft ground.

Here is the set of sketches that showed the thinking- I was thinking about the way vascular dementia can be caused by mini-strokes, or burst blood vessels in the brain, small but seismic events that change the world, analogous to how volcanoes or earthquakes alter the landscape of planets. I am also struck by how cyanotypes are reminiscent of x-ray images- in fact they do not look through objects, unless the objects are transparent, but there is a similarity with the appearance of x-ray film, giving a sense of looking beneath the surface.

Sketchbook

 

Still continuing with the cyanotypes, and still using cloth.

This project is a set of images based on my mother’s condition. I started with some sketches based on looking at images of brains with dementia. Not a good thing to do. But what it brought into focus for me was a coalescence of neuroscience and spirituality, specifically Zen ideas of spaces beyond.

The images were made on transparencies, using a mixture of media- photographic negatives, masks, paintings on perspex

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and cellophane, carborundum and salt, feathers, an empty pill packet and thread, and development included the use of tea, red wine, vinegar and washing soda bleach.

The starting point was an accidental set of images, a photograph of the phases of the moon printed onto a piece of cloth from the edge of the fabric, where the cyanotype chemical had sprayed.

It created an interesting effect and set of colours, and it conjured up ideas of passing time and deterioration, as well as evoking my earlier images likening the moon and the degenerating brain. As a metaphor, the set of images also evokes a sense of the moon as a wanderer in the sky, something on a voyage, which links too with this project and its consideration on the phases and stages of life. On the other hand, the fact that we “see” the phases of the moon as a set of changes is an illusion, and a reminder of our limited perspectives, and the difficulty we have of perceiving what is beyond the evidence of our senses.

The images are meant to evoke neural networks, paths and maps- due to the colouring, they can look like water, and also the night sky, patterns and constellations. They should also evoke the physical body – veins, lungs, the brain. Masks are used to contain the images and suggest new meanings, parallel worlds ( the “two moons” reappear here)  pairs of eyes, lungs… Groups of three form a hierarchy- the third eye, the trinity of the mind, body and soul.  One image involves real objects- a feather, an empty pill packet and tangled thread- this is a composition that could be found on a seashore, washed up debris, so it metaphorically connotes remains, and endings, while its literal meanings denote surrender, confusion, medication. I had in mind my mother’s small table, on which she always keeps a comb, but of late she has less interest in it, and seems to have given up considering her appearance. I decided to use a feather instead of an actual comb, as it still has the comb-like structure, with the thread tangled around it, but has a more pleasing aesthetic and richer meanings.

This set of pieces of cloth I plan to make into a “book” but a padded one, like a pillow.  There is a sense that this is both an object and a gift for my mother, a wish that she should sleep and go beyond the present- that her loss of the here and now should become a path to a space beyond. I can’t complete the padding now, as I don’t have the materials, but this is a video of it nearly complete.

 

 

 

As was reading around this topic, I came across Roland Barthes’ “Camera Lucida” (1981, NY), in which he makes the claim in the quote above.The fact that Barthes’ reflection is based on a picture of his mother gave this extra resonance.

 

This is similar to the other patchwork piece, but it is different in mood and tone. This one starts (if we assume a top to bottom “reading”) pale and barely defined, and becomes steadily darker, going through various forms of distortion, including both positive and negative forms. Unlike the photograph that the first patchwork piece is based on, this one shows my mother self-assured, striking a pose reminiscent of a glamour shot. The photographer here is most likely my father, the car his too, and there is perhaps a sense of pride of ownership.

Barthes described a photo as the moment when the subject becomes an object. The repetitions here help to underline the process of becoming.

Suspended between subjectivity and objectivity, the image in the photo is also suspended between the past and the present, between life and death. Barthes describes how the image of his mother created insights and recognition for him that would not be available to anyone else, and likewise, this image must necessarily have such an effect on me, one that will elude anyone else. On a personal level, I am using these images for therapy, both for myself and for my mother, trying to stir recognition in her, to jolt her into memories of who she was, in order to help her remember who she is. In this connection, Barthes’ description of the photo as a “tableau vivant”, and the image within it a “Sleeping Beauty” is particularly poignant.

A photo of a person is “the return of the dead”, according to Barthes: not that the person in the image is necessarily dead, but that the version of that person is gone, and the objects, and the photographer also gone, so that the photo is not just making the subjects objects, but even making them “museum objects”. This idea is echoed in my piece, as the image is clearly recognised as one from the past, and the use of the patchwork may evoke memories of old pastimes, and preserved objects of the kind that could be found in a folk museum. There is also a reference to the idea of an image being burned into cloth such as in the Turin shroud, explained as the chemical release of energy upon death. Here, the energy comes from the chemical reaction of light- not once but twice, firstly the photograph, and then again in the cyanotype process.

I am still struggling to decide what kind of “object” to make this piece into- is it “just” a picture? Like the first one, I was not overly concerned with the actual needlework. The fact of its being a patchwork cloth suggests a function, and I wonder if I should continue the process of finishing it, to turn it into an object, a child-sized quilt. How would that alter it? If it was left as a picture, it is demanding only to be looked at, rather than handled. There is a sense that this is appropriate, as the photo itself says “look at me” with its direct gaze, and “look at my possessions” from the photographer.

Making it a quilt would stress the materiality of the cloth, its softness and texture, as well as its function- would evoke the sense of family and folk history. It might also “feminise” it, in the sense that sewing has traditionally been associated with females and domesticity.

An alternative would be to make it into something unexpected, avoid the cliche of cloth squares necessarily being translated into a quilt, to make it “strange” or surreal. I’m thinking of a cup and saucer covered in fur, and whether this type of transformation could be meaningful, given that at times, with her dementia, my mother has slipped “down the rabbit hole” into a surreal landscape.

The grid pattern of the patchwork is a reminder to me of my mother’s calendar, the grid that measures her time, and by which she attempts to locate herself in this world. It’s a sad sad document, mostly recording “got up, dressed” in shaky handwriting, some days blank, days that got away.

Our measures of space and time are merely conventions- geometry a theory that fits conveniently, units of time a handy way of synchronising our movements- a grid overlaying the flux of experience. The original unity of the image has been multiplied, fragmented, cut up, stitched together, to make a “best fit”. Perhaps if I leave this unfinished, clearly a piece of handiwork with ragged edges, it expresses this concept better. It reflects my mother’s effort to “be here.”