Architectural Garments, Part 3

Architectural Garment, Lace...hmm, I have the dimensions around here somewhere...it's about 2ft high

This one was done immediately after Architectural Garment, Crochet.  It's just as far from Schiele as the other, although I am pleased with the stair imagery here. The zig-zag of the steps gives it a nice bit of movement.

Here's a photo of this one on the work wall. The finished Architectural Garment, Crochet) is visible on the far right side.

A couple of steps in the evolution. The center doily was replaced with a larger one,  the composition is a little tighter.

I gathered many images of lace-makers:

But only used this one:

A mother and daughter, making lace in a tenement apartment. That harsh reality contrasted  with the elegance of Vermeer's lace maker:

The mother/daughter lacemakers were revised 6 ways to Sunday, and sewn over the doily behind them. That doily is partly under, and partly over the actual dress fabric.

There's a reddish-brown bit of laciness behind Vermeer's lacemaker:

Yes, the title says Lace, but there's spinners too. I found lots of spinners:

Including Arachne. Look at the great little loom image, center. 

As I was researching lace/spinning/weaving/etc, I came across images of Eve, spinning. When they were evicted from Eden, Adam & Eve were told they would have to work now, and Eve's work was portrayed as spinning:

I printed Eve on cloth, and embedded her into the piece:

I took away their distaffs, and gave each of them a lace bobbin to hold. There's more actual bobbins poking out on top left. A printed clothing label reads "to Toil and Spin". A small tag on the bottom of the piece reads "cast from the garden."

These two pieces are close, but no cigar. Several years back, I came up with my 3 Rules of Good Art.

1. There must be CONTENT - the art must have something to say.

2. In some way, the materials used must be related to the content.  

 3. It must have visual power, it must call out to the viewer.    

These are rules for my art, but I use them to judge other art and artists. Cai Guo-Qiang  hits all three with his gunpowder paintings. With these two architectural garments I certainly have content and related materials, but fall short on visual power.  

 Next week, you'll see what developed at my Peters Valley residency, which led to my Domestic Archaeology series. 

My apologies for not posting last Friday.