nina katchadourian's maps

{geographic pathologies (1996)}


{hand held subway (1996); coastal merger (1993)}

nature-based systems

{cornelia parker}


{vivian schwab; ruth asawa}


{andy goldsworthy}

new work: reconstructed destination

some new work:

commercial pattern abstract forms with wire seams

'bulb forms' (not a title, just what i've been calling them)
pantihose, straw, batting, tinsel, plaster, rubber cement, elmers, tulle, doilie

still figuring out the next step for these 'bulbs'. they differ from my other more systematic work because they are more concerned with layered processes and the act of making than creating rule systems. i still feel unclear about these pieces; i found myself saving pantihose, probably for a year now, because i knew they were interesting to me. i wanted to cut them so they were flat and stretch them over things, but i started stuffing them and knitting them up with very big knitting needles, and it all started happening very organically. i had an idea to embed them into the wall ala henrique oliveira-- they are textile-based things, coated in construction materials; its then that what they are made of becomes abstracted and closer to both body/skin bubble-ups, and also could be some sort of weird growth in a plaster wall. sort of goes with what i was thinking about with projecting knitting stop-motion movement onto walls to make the wall appear to crawl or have its own weird agenda. i was also thinking they could be embedded into garments and become more literal body explosions, but they do suggest the body already without garment present.
as for the wire pieces-- the wire travels along the seam lines of the forms. i want to try making some out of maps, using the highways as a system for where the wire 'seams' should go.
in my last post i was reading the eva hesse book from my post 1945 art history class in college, and i really liked how she talked about art being a way for people to make use or reel in the chaos around them. that art is where people (both artists and viewers) funnel their desire FOR chaos, and its the artist's job to figure out how they want to sculpt or hide or order that chaos. its the chaos that helps the artist (and the viewer) feel alive when they are participating in the work. this really touched me: i use maps and patterns and knitting as systems, almost mathematical or rule-based as source material, yet i work in mostly a whim-like way. i use the system driven materials to give some semblance of order, yet my making process can be very chaotic. so the map sculptures: i was thinking about maps as objects. they are made to point you to something-- a house, a treasure, a post office, a city, a country, a field. often the thing they point to is unknown, foreign, undiscovered to the person looking. what lost place to i want to point to in using maps? i like the idea of suggesting something to point to, even if it is just a hunch.

This blog post is me ellaborating on the previous post-- my current inspirations. I am trying to understand WHY i am into the things i'm into, and i have a feeling it goes beyond prettiness.

the polka dots-- compulsive, obsessive, just like my interest in obsessive hoarding and also obsessive organizing.

I was talking to eyla last night about why making a drawing of a material seam drawing would be useful, because i keep thinking about it. She said that the act of drawing something better informs the drawer of the object being drawn, especially if the drawer made the object to begin with. Also there is the possibility of inventing things that arent there, both materially and also in terms of the drawers' personal attachment to the thing. it reminded me of my desire to invent stories that didn't actually happen to an object, like in the case of the bargain barn. all the imagined histories, and possibilities of unknown experience. Today i was thinking about how the seam drawings can take so many iterations, depending on how i decide to hang them-- it sort of reminds me of james welling and his photos of aluminum foil. he sees the foil as a 'machine to manufacture randomness' -- an analogy for language in the way that it uses the same words over and over but is constantly reconfigured. I feel like my interest in the hoarders and simultaneous obsession with organized closets mirrors my ideas about my own artistic practice-- when am i artistically free and when am i following a system of rules? my thesis was the collision of followed and missfollowed, making and unmaking. my actual practice of making art is similar-- whim and system.

{photo: james welling, photo of aluminum foil}

so last night i stayed up in the wee hours watching marie antoinette and putting together my printed sari piece. it is 4 parts, these double ended swimsuits that will all link together like a chain. while i was at the fabric workshop in philly i printed these flat patterns onto repeat yardage, and towards the end was experimenting with printing on random stuff i found at army surplus and thrift stores. there was a salvation army near the trader joes i went to with some friends, and i remember this specific thrifting trip i was looking for blankets or bedding to print on, sort of inspired by the comme des garcons use of blankets in this collection. didn't find any blankets, but i did find about 9 yards of beautiful indian silk for $10. there was a woman in the store (white, in her 60s, sort of 'new agey') who sort of cornered me trying to get me to give her the fabric-- i love it when this happens in thrift stores, its then that you really know you scored. but anyway, her sob story: she told me (long windedly) that this was was a very special sari and that she knew all about them because she had traveled a lot in india and even had worn something very similar at her wedding 40 years previous. she told me she still remembered the specific way to tie and drape the thing and began to dress me in it, wrapping the fine silk over all my winter clothes so that i looked like a very wide silk burrito. she was taking a very long time, struggling to remember the exact way to pleat and wrap and knot the thing around me, and i could tell she couldn't remember and was very adamant in proving that she deserved to own the thing. and then, and this is the best part, an indian woman intercepts the new-ager's wrapping struggle and is like, 'um, i'm actually indian and i tie these all the time, let me just do it, it will take a second.' and the indian woman re-wraps me and i look puffy and awesome. the whole time she's wrapping me the new-ager is making weird references to her time in india as if it were more legitimate than the actual indian lady's experiences. it was silly and funny to be the prop in such a hissy fit. but anyway, because i'm not very nice, i never gave the sari to the new age lady. as i printed on it at the workshop with permanent black ink, and then as i cut the thing to pieces, i thought sorry, in my head to this lady. sorry, sari.

so i'm making this chain gang of sewn bathing suits out of it, and i hope it will (though not heavy handedly) reference where a lot of globalized labor happens, india. and also i found it interesting that traditionally, indian garments have very little sewing in them and are mostly wrapped and pleated and knotted around the body in various styles. so its interesting to me that i am cutting something that is traditionally whole and wrapped; cutting this yardage up and stitching it together in a way that is more traditionally western. another interesting thing is that most saris are 9 meters long, and i like that there is a system to how many meters i was allowed to print on, dictated by the sari itself. i've become obsessed with inventing rules or there being pre-invented guidelines to abide by. tomorrow i plan to coat the pieces in epoxy and then link them together. i'm not sure if i want this to be a hanging piece or a floor piece, i guess i'll see.

{photos: my own sorry, sari (in process), and photo from wikipedia search 'sari' Illustration of different styles of Sari & clothing worn by women in South Asia.}