the calm after the storm

so 'this comes from within' is gone!!! dress taken apart, curtains down, walls painted over, eggshells swept up. It is amazing ~ when the time came I was ready to move on!!! But it has been interesting, this post-installation period. The past 4 months it have been crazy, I NEVER felt like I had enough time, balancing between the demands of creating an installation (something i had never done before) and the needs of a family that was used to having me around more. It was an intense time, and now I have some breathing room. I can go to my daughter's soccer game and not need to race off down to Boston ~ nice. But it is also weird!! I LOVED working on the installation, I LOVED the intensity of the work ~ the envisioning of the space, the problem solving, the physical work and especially painting the walls!!! I loved my walls. I guess what i am 'struggling' with now is trying to figure out the normal pace of things again!!! I have many ideas and projects that i can do, call for work to submit, dresses to finish, in fact my hands are itching to get to work. I really want to dive head first into another big challenge. However i just might need to remember a more balanced and possibly more health approach to work and life! That said ~ I am seeing wonderful materials EVERYWHERE and I am champing on the bit to make dresses ~ many, many dresses. But i usually don't because I am needed some where else. However, finally i couldn't resist the spectacular yellow leaves!! Fall is my favorite season, one reason is the wild explosion of colors around me. Everyday I am stunned by the beauty!!!

this year is so amazing I have started lugging my camera everywhere to take photos of these autumnal treasures. One day while walking the hound I came across some yellow leaves that stopped me in my tracks ~ I liked their shape and weight & they spoke to me in dress speak - i saw a skirt. So much to Scruffy's chagrin I stopped and collected the leaves to bring home. I soon found some others that moved me and before they all dried out I made this dress ~

by the time to took the photo the light from the setting sun was super intense. So with that intensity and with the inspiration for the dress coming from the yellow leaves I call this dress ~ SunBurst! It is always good to be outside creating a dress ~ I am glad I have a little more breathing room to do that!!! peace & happy fall!

Natick Artists' Open Studios!!!!!

Sunday October 18th, 12-5 pm ~ Natick Artists' Open Studios .... many wonderful artists!!! I will be at my new studio ~ Winchell Building, 25 Washington Ave - corner of Washington and Cochituate st . I am on the second floor. I am sharing my space with the wonderful artist Jeanne Williamson!! Come by and say HI!!!! peace

tomorrow 'this comes from within' comes down!!

...and in honor of the dismantling I wish to post a piece that the writer/poet Tariq Zayid wrote about the installation. For me he captures the spirit and essense of 'this comes from within'.

Thank you Tariq!!!

Virginia Fitzgerald: Poetic Dresses, Magical Spaces

Ritual space is place transformed. What is around you is inside you and what is
inside you is around you. Mind and place have become what in Gaelic is beautifully called fighte fuaighte - woven into and through each other. What you make of it is your own, but moments like this don’t happen often and should be experienced when they come along.

In South Boston, at Medicine Wheel Productions, 110 K Street #9, the artist Virginia Fitzgerald has created a rare magical environment called ‘this comes from within’. Entering the room is part of the performance itself. Sheer black cloth falls in front of you, bearing forth a view of the room, shadowed, hazy, morphing to the touch. A subtle physical event that sets a mood of displacement and simultaneous discovery.

You enter. In the center of the room, lit from the inside - the main light available in the room - is an oversized dress with gorgeous folds and shapes,sensuous in its own power as objet d’art. As the eyes adjust to the low light, details emerge. What was a powerful dress now has other connotations. It is made of papier-mâché and eggshells. Hundreds of eggshells flowing downwards, thin cracks visible. Delicate yet maintaining a strong dignity of purpose. The interior light continues to create dimensions from every angle. The metamorphosis is elastic, absorbing.

Emerging as the eyes adjust further - figures, ivy, flowers, machines, contours of image and shadow. The walls, once unseen, are now alive. As if from within the dress the light emanates and creates right in front of you. Mutating forms appear in the naturalizing measure of eye adjustment, as film developed from Polaroid cameras. The dress seems to posses an extraordinary power.It is created and it is creator. Origin Goddess of experience and form casting its spell into the darkness and creating light, image, meaning, mystery, life as experience itself.

Toward the back of the room another mystery awaits. Through long cords of bead and cloth, a shape is cut into the back wall that glows red. Like Duchamp’s Étant donnés, though the viewing plane is wide open, another world is revealed within the wall opening. Lit in red, and draped with red velvet, the opening manifests all sorts of memories and antique incarnations. Rather than contextualize this exquisite redentity, I will leave you to create your own associations, as the space demands.

This is an installment that surrounds you with an open poetic space rather than pummel you with meaning. It is passive in its influence, but grips you with its intensity. It is ritualistic in that it takes you out of ‘ordinary’ space and puts you in touch with the imaginal realm. The possibility of travel is yours, the artist has provided the portal. How far you wish to travel is your point of entry and departure, physically and mentally.

Virginia Fitzgerald has created something special. A space to enter and become. Hers is a transcendent art, one of those phenomena many people have only been able to experience in dreams. This is the artist as sorceress of apparition. 'this comes from within' will be up until October 16th @
Medicine Wheel Productions,
110 K St # 9
Boston, MA 02127-1619
(617) 268-6700
gallery hours: m-f 10-4
Closing party : October 14th, 5:00- 8:00 pm

Natick artist fashions found objects into sculpture - Framingham, MA - The MetroWest Daily News

Natick artist fashions found objects into sculpture - Framingham, MA - The MetroWest Daily News

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for those who can't make it there in person....

upon entering the galley one is struck by the power and emotion of the piece. you enter this dark, magical world through a membrane of tulle and find yourself at the base of a glowing, larger-than-life dress made of eggshells and papier-mache. As your eyes adjust the rest of the fecund environment reveals itself. The wall come to life; full of swirling vines, creeping insects, dancing figures and so much more. In the back of the gallery one finds a glowing opening revealing a lush chamber. 'this comes from within' will be on exhibit through October 16th @ Medicine Wheel Productions . 110 K st. Boston.

HOWEVER ~ it is MUCH BETTER to experience in person!!!!

The gallery is open m-f ~10-4 and you can always call to set up an appt. - 617-596-5179.

I will be there tomorrow afternoon.
The closing reception is Wednesday, October 14th, 5-8pm.

Spread the word and hope to see you there.

peace

BIG RED & SHINY: EXHIBITION & EVENT LISTINGS

BIG RED & SHINY: EXHIBITION & EVENT LISTINGS:

"MEDICINE WHEEL PRODUCTIONS
'this comes from within'
October 4, 2009 - October 16, 2009

This Sunday, Oct 4th, 2:30 - 5:30 meet Virginia Fitzgerald, the artist of 'this comes from within'.

Upon entering the gallery one is stuck by the power and emotion of the piece. You enter this dark world through a membrane of tulle and find yourself at the base of a glowing, larger than life dress of eggshell and papier-mâché. As your eyes adjust, the rest of the fecund environment reveals itself. 'this comes from within' will be up until October 16th @ Medicine Wheel Productions,
110 K St # 9
Boston, MA 02127-1619
(617) 268-6700
gallery hours: m-f 10-4
Closing party : October 14th, 5:00- 8:00 pm