Yesterday, Gabriel found a discarded birds nest on his nature walk. He brought it inside, I glued a felt circle to the bottom so it wouldn't fall apart, then made him an egg.Robins egg blue felt right for the season. Then he demanded another egg and a baby bird hatching. Oh yes, and a mother robin, but I haven't managed that yet. The birdie looks a bit duckish with that bill. Maybe I'll try snipping it smaller. That's a fun thing about felt, you can do that with it.
Why am I doing soft sculpture lately? I don't know. It just feels like what needs to be done. So I do it.
This brings me to the previous mystery.
A felt house. Look through the windows and doors.
There's something inside of that house. Is that a...
tree?
Why yes it is. A tree growing out of the empty shell of a building.
and below it, is a carpet of grass, or maybe it's moss. And the insides of the building are the color of the sky. Hmmmm...What could it all mean?
Perhaps that things grow even when you think it is all wreckage. Perhaps that life will find a way. Perhaps that creation comes out of constraint. I don't know. I felt the need to make it, so I did.
And yes, it does fit in the palm of my little hand.
I'm not sure if it should also have a box/diorama kind of setting, or if it stands on it's own. Or does it need to have something added to it? A miniature something inside? One that you can't see until you get right up close to it and look through the window? I do like that sort of intimacy with art. Maybe I should make a shadowbox frame for it. How would one go about doing that?
Or is it time to stop. That's one of the things about art, you have to figure out how far to go and when to stop.
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4 comments:
What a beautiful idea in its simplicity! I could keep thinking - what could be added? What could be left alone? But ah, you are so right...as the artist, part of the challenge is hearing when the piece says "I'm done for now" instead of listening to the mind chatter away.
This house & tree reminds me of something I saw on a show several months ago about abandoned buildings and how nature finds a way to reclaim the land. Lovely.
There were many buildings like that in the Bronx, back in our day.
L.
Both of you totally got it. I've always been inspired by the way that life will find a way, how weeds will crack the cement and bring down our very attempts to conquer nature... as seen quite frequently in the Bronx of the 1970s and 80s. We used to live next door to these huge, beautiful old buildings that were abandoned and it was always so intriguing to look through a building and seen the sky shining through the empty windows.
I think it needs to be in a desolate cemetery! With old statues.. you can have it up by Halloween.. or maybe I just love Halloween!
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