WRAPPED WORK

Wrapping automatically imparts mystery. Content (what’s inside) cannot really be known even if one is told. Mystery and death are very connected. The wrapped works evolved as a healing process that helped me to deal with deaths in my immediate family. I needed both the tactility of the soft media and the repetitive meditative action of wrapping. The cores are wooden. The wrapping makes hard things softer. The white wrapped works look as if they have been bandaged. Bandaging implies both a wound and an effort made to heal the wound.

Semicircle, 1992, cotton and polyester, plywood, 60" x 30" x 2.25"

Square, 1992, cotton and polyester, plywood, 40" x 40" x 1.8"

X, 1992, cotton and polyester, plywood, 50" x 50" x 2.25"

X, (detail), 1992, cotton and polyester, plywood, 50" x 50" x 2.25"

Healing Series; House Grid 1994, wood, cotton, cotton and polyester, 88" x 93" x 2.5"

Healing Series; House Grid, (detail) 1994, wood, cotton, cotton and polyester, 88" x 93" x 2.5"

Healing Series: The Sisters 1996, media: wood, cotton/polyester 155" x 70" x 8"

Healing Series: The Sisters (detail) 1996, media: wood, cotton/polyester 155" x 70" x 8"

49 Wrapped Squares 1996, plywood, tissue, fabric, 2 miles thread 62" x 62"

49 Wrapped Squares 1996 (detail), plywood, tissue, fabric, 2 miles thread 62" x 62"

Blanket Grid, 1998, 11' x 11' x 7"

Bandage Grid, 1998, acrylic, plywood, 38 1/4 yds bandages 9" x 9" x 1.25"

5x5 (version 6) 2004, 25" x 25" x 4", pine, fabric, thread.

5x5 (version 7) 2004, 25" x 25" x 4", pine, fabric, thread

5x5 (version 7), (detail) 2004, pine, fabric, thread 25" x 25" x 4"

House Grid

House Grid, made in 1994, is one of a group of white wrapped works titled the Healing Series. This is certainly the saddest and most painful work I have ever made. It came from the darkest period of my grieving. Everything looks completely bandaged. Bandaging implies wounds. It also implies efforts made to heal those wounds. I wasn’t thinking of bandages as I made the work. I was thinking that white would look more pure and spiritual than colour. I saw the look of bandaging after the fact. I made all the little house shapes to acknowledge the fact that many of my friends were going through the same thing as I was. The generation ahead of them in their families was dying too.

5 x 5

5 X 5 (version 6) and 5 X 5 (version 7), both completed 2004, were the last wrapped works I made. These works are less psychological, less painful and more formal than House Grid. This is more ‘art about art’ than ‘art about life’. My concern here was to make light gray spheres and dark gray spheres by mixing threads in complementary colours with white threads or black threads.