Dreaming

Post for January 28th:

I have this space inside my head. I see it everything while I am laying in bed. I can't seem to get away from it. It is an older house, and I am walking through it. The furniture is minimal and everything is shaded gray and gloomy. There is no one home, but there is the feeling of recent inhabitants. As I continuously walk throughout the house I realize that inhabitant is me. Although this is a home I have never lived in, the remnants of my past and current life surface throughout the house in the form of nests. There are some in the cupboard, in the fridge, some are on the mantel, on the windows, the closet, the shower drain, or tucked in a corner underneath my bed. Some nests are repeated out of the same material, but in different forms, providing an overwhelming realness to my experiences. Others are singular in their make-up, but just as powerful when I encounter them. Some are large, that I can fit into, while others range to be as small as the palm of my hand. This home, this giant nest made for man, is using my history to provide a home for another species.

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This week I spent messing around with quite a few different materials. I have continued to collect nutrition labels and have been cutting them up into small strips, following the dividing lines on the label for each piece of information (i.e. total calories, fat grams, carbohydrates, etc.) (3 hours cutting). This is proving to be kind of a long collection process, but this is good because it is really allowing me time to think about placement or combining the labels with other materials. I want to show an element of constraint, so I've narrowed the nest construction down to either a messy-crochet wire mesh that I've been working on (3 hours so far) that I would use to weave the label strips into, or just simply using the labels alone but placing them someplace hidden (like a kitchen cabinet)... but in this case I would want an overwhelming amount to create larger nest trying to pour out of the cabinet.

I also made two other nests while breaking from the cutting, out of the stuffing from small pillow that held a bracelet my mother gave to me for Christmas (6 hours for both). This piece of jewelry was something that I wanted very badly because it symbolizes an important concern in my family; my mother has one, my sister now does too, along with other women in my family. However, as much as I initially wanted the bracelet, I have a hard time bringing myself to wear it due to the current state of my relationship with my mother. So I decided to take the pillow that held it gently in place and rip it apart. I took the inside stuffing and molded nest forms and then used pins to hold the form in place. The pins cover mostly the outside only, leaving the appearance of the soft material as the inside. However, most of the pins are placed inwards, making the nest dangerous for an animal to actually sit in.

I also... for no rhyme or reason really, just pure intuition, played around with making nests inspired by the construction methods of the Chimney Swift (4 hours). The swift attaches their nest to a vertical surface using small twigs and their glue-like spit to hold the twigs together. These birds also tend to make their nests in common areas together (multiples in one chimney) although they are said to be not that social. These nests are really unique and amazing that they can hold onto the surface under the weight of the bird. I tried to mimic these nests by pining branches onto my wall, using some metal wire as extra support, and then pouring plaster over them to harden them into place. I really like these nests in their minimal make up and fragility. I plan to make about six of these (one for each person in my family) and then smash one on the ground to see how the material and branches break after hardening. I don't have pictures of these yet, but they in my studio if you want to sneak a peak :)


This weekend I will continue to collect nutrition labels, tea bags, and other things, but also want to test out materials like wax and food peels, skins, and cores to test how to preserve perishable items.