April 2021 Newsletter

My house is piling up with boxes at the moment.  We’re renovating.  And it struck me as I carefully made my way through the cardboard maze in our foyer, how a single stroke from a utility blade, a house key or a kitchen steak knife has a tragic Shakespearean effect; a plain brown box, created with the intention of being a vital caretaker, a protector of the coveted goods inside, almost maternal, suddenly and quite violently has its identity completely transformed from absolutely essential to totally useless.  Such small high dramas that play out before our very eyes.  Countless transformations from paramount to worthless.  Nothing happens to these boxes to warrant such a dreadful change.  Their molecular composition remains intact.  They are still brown.  They have simply fulfilled their initial purpose.  This makes me think about identity in general and the notion of perceived value.  When is something or someone valued?  When is something or someone devalued?  Is the process of devaluing essential?  Or can we, with objects and people, as creative and feeling human beings, somehow overcome this inherent act of devaluing as our needs change, and assign a different but healthy and useful new identity to a person, group or thing that elevates it and inspires?

Many, many artists have successfully done just this.  Causeartist.com did a great piece in 2020 focusing on some of these creators, totally worth the read and a delve into their personal sites (https://causeartist.com/incredible-artivists-using-recycled-materials-in-their-creations/). 

The boxes and Styrofoam fillings piling up inside my house with not be thrown away but will instead become canvases for new rose pieces in ‘Renovation Project’, a project utilizing my own renovation-related waste to make new rose art. All items used in the making of pieces in Renovation Project will be catalogued, so if a piece is purchased that was made with the cardboard box that housed Pfister cross-handles, a photo of those cross-handles installed in the newly renovated bath will follow as well.

Pieces will be created for Renovation Project as I continue to create new pieces for my other series:

Shape Play – full-canvases of roses, painted and raw, exploring shapes within a shape, an anthropomorphic series in which works are given names and personalities and stories between the named works develop over time

Garden Bonanzas – full-canvases of roses 

Mixed Beds – canvases of roses clustered in a certain area or areas of the canvas

Sky + Line – full-canvases of roses arranged linearly to depict horizons

Color Bouquets – Smaller square explorations of roses in a single-color group, on painted canvases

Cloudscapes – roses on amorphous shaped wood cut-outs

Wishing you all a Happy Spring.

Warmly,

Lauren