#wip wednesday: a woman possessed . . .

Tonight is the opening reception for "Possessions, prized or otherwise"
this year's national juries show at the Attleboro Arts Museum.

I am very happy to announce that my piece, 'pencil cup triptych' is one of the accepted works!!!

the triptych consists of the above three interruptions of my pencil mug.

some of you may remember this series from a few years back . . .  

an acrylic painting of this mug was as 

my contribution to the Fountain Street Fine Art's 8x8 in 2013.

(click here to see the process and the other renditions)

Below is the starting picture of my beloved pencil mug, taken on a cold winter's day, while waiting in my car, for a daughter so I could take her to school.  I remember thinking that the light was really nice and captured the whimsy of the pencils and showed the shape of the mug, so thanks to the always ready iPhone . . . click.  and from there I have interpreted this image in many different media -  graphite, collage, pastel, paints . . .  

Here is the statement that I submitted with my triptych, explaining why I chose to submit this object for the possession show, the call for art asked for art that represented 'concepts that explore the things we hold dear – and the things we just plain hold. Consider representations of storage units, moving day, family heirlooms, trophies, travel souvenirs, yard sales, bric-a-brac on the fireplace mantel …'

artist's statement:

I received my ‘pencil mug’ sophomore year in college, so over 30 years ago. My roommate,Kate Kenyon, had found it at a ‘dollar store’ over a school vacation and upon returning to campus presented it to me with much fanfare.  She exclaimed that when she saw it she knew I needed to have it because it was a mug covered with colored pencils.  And she was right,  I did LOVE it and I have cherished it.

For the rest of my college career my ‘pencil mug' came with me everywhere!! I tied it to one of the straps of my knapsack where it would dangle as I would traverse the campus, from academic buildings, down the middle path to my home away from home, my studio.  In my studio I had my trusty, rusty hot pot where I would make either tea or coffee or a cup of oatmeal, all of which were consumed from my beloved ‘pencil mug’.  
Surprisingly and SO fortunately my ‘pencil mug’ survived the years of swaying from my backpack and the occasional collision with random desks, chairs and fellow students, and was carefully packed to join me in my post college life, which included many moves.  As it is my favorite mug, it always came with me.  I remember feeling that I was officially ‘home’ once I unpack my ‘pencil mug’ and placed it in its honored place on a kitchen shelf.  So my ‘pencil mug’ helped me make home in Los Angeles, CA, Iowa City, IA, Chicago, IL , New York City & Brooklyn, NY, Newton, MA and eventually Natick, MA where it has been moved a few times.  
My ‘pencil mug’ has held many a hot beverages (coffee being my favorite) and numerous meals, cereal being one of my favorite go-to meals that can easily be eaten out of a mug.  It is the mug I seek out when I am having a hard day or need some reassurance.  It still travels with me in ways a ceramic mug might not survive, but it does.  In fact the photo that I have used for the ‘pencil mug’ triptych is from a typical cold and rushed morning of multi-carpooling and my faithful mug was there keeping me warm and happy.
The images in the ‘pencil mug’ triptych are three out of a series in which I altered and manipulated one particular photo of my mug.  I had placed the mug on the dashboard of my minivan waiting for the second round of carpooling.  It was a cold winter morning and the light was quite enchanting.  Besides the light, the composition of the photo appealed to me so I made numerous photo transfers of the image and then treated each one with a different medium and/or technique.  The triptych includes a graphite rendering, a collage interpretation and a multimedia version where I placed a grid over the photo transfer and worked each section in different manners.  
With much of my work I use different techniques, materials and media to interpret the same image.  I am interested in how the different materials and approach can alter the overall experience of a piece or imbue it with an alternative meaning.
 
This mug is definitely one of my prized, cherished and loved possessions.

namaste & peace, va