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

Enough already!!!

“Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.” Scott Adams

a story ~ Last Friday, Illustration Friday’s topic was 'trail' (I was very excited about the topic, had many ideas but alas never executed them, but that another story). I was reviewing some of the others entries and came across an illustrator who made a trail of dead fish and wrote in her comment ‘enough already!’ ~ I could not agree more (I can’t find the link to the illustration but I will post it asap when I find it). Then the same day I saw one of those heart wrenching images of a bird covered with oil with only his open, sad eye showing through. The next day I read an editorial about how there should be criminal charges brought against BP because this disaster came from cost cutting and neglect, but once again it sounds like the real guilty are protected by the structure of big corporation. Grrrr….

For a few days this all percolated until I decided that I was pissed and wanted to make a dress about the oil spill…. That day my mind was on fire – I was sketching, pondering, playing with different materials. However the next morning I found my critic talking me out of this dress ~ ‘a cliché, what am I going to do with another large sculpture, I should focus on the projects I have going on in my studio, blah, blah’. So I put that dress idea aside, trying to ignore this quiet ache in my heart. Now it was Friday again and Illustration Friday presented a special topic ~ Ripple!! The special part is that all entries can be posted for sale on this new website which was started by a community of artists trying to make a difference and raising money for the relief efforts in the gulf!!! (Click here to get the full story) It is inspiring and wonderful and ignited my oil spill passion again!! So I am back thinking about a possible ‘oil’ dress but this also reconnected me with my installation ‘this comes from within’.

As I figured out what my donation illustration would be, my mind went back to walls of ‘this comes from within’ ~ my installation that I created last summer. This piece has been heavily on my mind!!! It was a year ago that I started working on transforming the gallery at Medicine Wheel. I miss that project!!! ~ the scope of it, the intensity, the focus, how it challenged me in so many ways and I pulled it off!!. In my studio I have started painting shaped pieces of wood in a similar style to the walls of the installation – limited color palette and that intuitive approach to the painting – 'what does my gut say to paint here'. I am excited about this work ~ creating those walls last year was a magical experience for me. So with my ‘ripple’ illustration in mind I reviewed some of my photos from ‘this comes from within’ and was surprised by how they felt timely and appropriate for a cry of outrage for this disaster. So many marine and marsh animals were represented on those walls – sea turtles, crabs, nesting birds, lizards, some much more & I am sure there was even a mermaid or two looking out. Now I am not sure what my 'ripple' illustration will be but I wanted to share some of my creatures with you today and to encourage you to check out the 'ripple' site and purchase some original art and support the cause to help the animal victims of the Deep Water Horizon Gulf Oil Spill.

it has a great sound track too!!!! peace all!!!

http://ripplesketches.blogspot.com/

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

'out beyond ...', my contribution to the Medicine Wheel's Day Without Art

'out beyond ...' acrylic on board, 2x2ft

This fall Michael Dowling put out a call for artist to create one of 1,000 panels to be exhibited during  Medicine Wheel's Day without Art and I jumped at the opportunity.  I have worked with Michael and Medicine Wheel on numerous occasions and each time has been a rewarding and inspiring experience,  as was the case with this time. 

The vigil starts tonight at 11:30pm at the BCA and continues for 24 hours. Here is more information about the event, a link to Medicine Wheel Productions as well as a link to donate to this important community.  And below that information is a bit about this painting as well as a visual documentation of the many stages that the painting went through.  Enjoy! 

Medicine Wheel Vigil 

Day Without Art

World AIDS Day 

Friday December 1, 2017

Boston Center for the Arts 

539 Tremont Street 

Boston, MA 02116 

Vigil begins at 11:30 pm on 

Thursday November 30th 

on the BCA Plaza 

and runs for the full 24 hours of Friday December 1st 

ending at Midnight. 

Gather at 11:30 for a processional walk into the Cyclorama Plaza! 

In 1987 a small group gathered in a San Francisco storefront to document the lives they feared history would forget. This action served as the beginning of the Names Project, also known as the AIDS Memorial Quilt. Today, 30 years later, over 1000 artists, visual and performing, have re-invested in the power of that action to create a space to hold the human heart, a space to reflect, a space to remember, a space to see who we can be for ourselves and one another. 

To honor this anniversary we will be displaying a large section of the AIDS Memorial Quilt during the vigil. 

Please bring an offering of remembrance to leave in one of the Medicine Wheel shrines. 

DONATE

World AIDS Day 

Friday December 1, 2017

Boston Center for the Arts 

539 Tremont Street 

Boston, MA 02116 

Vigil begins at 11:30 pm on 

Thursday November 30th 

on the BCA Plaza 

and runs for the full 24 hours of Friday December 1st 

ending at Midnight.

Now about 'out beyond ...' 

This Fall I saw this call for art,

" As we gear up for the 26th annual Medicine Wheel and the 29th Day Without Art/ World AIDS Day we are looking for 1000 artists to re-invest in the power of Art and Healing to create a space that holds the human condition. Please consider painting a 2 foot by 2 foot panel with the theme of AIR in the colors of the sky to be part a the 1000 voice mural at the Boston Center for the Arts December 1."

and I happily answered YES! 

With the theme of AIR and the colors of the sky I decided I would work in blues and revisit my ' intuitive line paintings' from my installation that I creates in 2009 with Medicine Wheel, 'this comes from within ...'  Painting the walls for that installation is one of my fondest creative moment memories!!

'wall detail' from 'this comes from within ...'

 I love how organic these method of painting is for me.  

This painting method is a true dialogue between me and the work, 

as you will see how this painting went through so many versions 

before the painting and I agreed it was finished.  

When I got the blank white 2x2 board I started out by painting in big letters,

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing"

Recently I am enamored with Rumi's poems and 

especially this line and the meaning of these words.

Once the words were painted, my journey began, shapes and objects appeared

and disappeared.  

in this photo you can still see a few of the lettering ...

at this point the lettering has vanished ...

now is the time with the subtle changes ... this can also be the most frustrating time
as I don't want to overwork the painting, but somethings still don't feel right

painting in my living room, my daughters are so patient with me :)

voila - the finished painting, waiting to head back to Medicine Wheel Productions

update from the SNOWY hinterlands

Ok it is officially Spring here and today it snowed ALL day!! Really snowed ~ big fat beautiful flakes!! & I couldn't believe how happy I was to see it!! One would think that I have had enough of this white stuff this year, but no. But charm of this place seems to work on everything!

So the roller coaster ride continues, although I think I have gotten through the extreme ups and downs, now the ups and downs are not so drastic, thank goodness!!. I have been on a productive high for the past few days!! I started a 8ft x 15 ft painting (why not?? I am only here for about 8 days) and it has been an exhilarating experience but also exhausting ~ physically and emotionally. This 'wall' is similar to the walls I painted for my installation 'this comes from within' ( I LOVED those walls!!) So when I was thinking how was I going to spend this nugget of creative time I realized I wanted to paint another 'wall'. But I didn't want to paint it over

again - that was the hardest part of 'this comes from within', having my walls painted over!! So I was perplexed ~ wanting to do a big mural like painting that i could take home. But since I am surrounded by creative, innovative folks, someone suggested painting on Tyvek!! So I headed out to the hardware store, stapled the tyvek to the wall and primed it!! Voila, a moveable wall. I did end up running the panel through my sewing machine so that the pieces are really connected (that was a experience in itself).So my wall has been my obsession here in Vermont; literally ~ paint, eat, paint, eat, paint, sleep, paint (u get to idea) however, i am not ready to show it, just yet!!

But I have been doing some other creative endeavors ~ first after YEARS of trying

to figure out how I was going to work with my pink foam .... dress or installation or ??? Well, here, with a lovely blank, white wall i realized that some of these pieces are pieces in their own right!! I put them on the wall and I love them! How they sit off the wall, how they curve and the shadows that they cast!! So that is exciting for me!! And I have some much of this foam that there still maybe a foam sponge dress, but not with these pieces!!

Also I have been working in my daily dress journal ~ it has gotten so thick that I can hardly close it!!! And then, before the snow, I took a walk up to see the mountains and finally took the time to make this little dress out of these small white pebbles that have been begging for my attention ever since I got here!! So the journey continues and I am soaking it all in!! (there is definitely a sponge dress in my future!!!)

Also THANK YOU to all of you wonderful folks who commented, email, contacted me about my last post!!! I now totally realized why I posted that post ~ moral support!!! it is PRICELESS!!!! so I thank you and thank you again & peace!!!

Dresses on the move!!!

Well besides working frantically to finish and promote 'this comes from within' I am needing to shuffle around some dresses!!! First, some dresses are coming home from the ALL Gallery in Lowell and from the Bromfield Gallery, Boston. It is amazing how fast August went this year!!! It was a pleasure to be included in both of these shows and I am sorry that they are ending. But as some dresses come back others are going out ~ In Memory of.... was juried into War & Peace: Images of Conflict and Resolution in the 21st Century at LynnArts Inc., Lynn MA. The juror was Ken Hruby, West Point Graduate, Visual Artist and Associate Professor of Sculpture, School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. The show will run from September 4-October 9, opening Reception: Saturday, September 12, 2-4pm (galleries open M, T, W, F 10 am- 4pm, and Thursday 10 am- 7pm)

I am very glad to have this dress back out in the world and especially in this themed show. David Lang also got a piece in show, Extraordinary Rendition, which LynnArts has featured on their calendar page.

So things are happening here. The anticipation for 'this comes from within' is building. It is exciting to see it coming together but also nerve-wrecking to see all that still needs to be done. I am having the toughest time finding the right fabrics because everything needs to be fire retardant and nailing the right stuff down has been a major struggle!!

Also last week I had one of those 'creativity lessons' when i realized that the two pieces of the installation (the front room and the back room) don't exactly work together as I have planned. I had been creating them each individually and hadn't really step back to see if they work together and they don't. So it is back to the drawing board for the backroom. The lesson here is to not get too attached to one idea and to keep looking to the piece for direction. My only problem is right now I am feeling a little frantic about the time so it is hard to sit back and be quiet and listen to the piece ~ one of my life lessons :) So I am off to do some yoga before bed and practice my breathing!! Peace, good night & namaste!

late-night ramblings after a long day

Today I was possessed, as I have been for the past 4 days, by my driving desire to enter a 'new' work to the Fountain Street Fine Art's PAPER exhibit.  So even though it has been a long day, my heart and head are still spinning, and I felt that I might 'talk out' my thoughts here on my blog.  Today has brought up some fundamental questions that I feel many artists face now and then. 

the piece that I left @ FSFA

Fountain Street Fine Art is celebrating its first anniversary with a Paper Show (paper being the traditional first anniversary gift).  Besides wanting to be part of any show that this wonderful gallery puts on, James Welu, Director Emeritus of the Worcester Art Museum, is the juror.  

I have known about this call for weeks and I had SOOOOO many ideas.  But, as is usually the way my creative life unfolds, other life needs kept me away from focusing on this call, until this weekend, which was a little late.  

I mean - what a wonderful call - PAPER, anything to do with paper - my head was exploding with ideas -  

"Media may include, but is not limited to paper, oil, pastel, acrylic, watercolor, collage, photography, video, ceramics, metal, fiber, glass, wood, and stone. '

~i wanted to create an interactive piece with my little dresstag dresses, pinning these dresses on a wall (each with a fortune) to create a dress and encourage the gallery visitors to take a dress/fortune.  

Ever since I started the Dress Project I wanted to set up a situation where participants would disassemble a dress.  I always wondered how would the dress 'decompose', would there be areas of the dress that people would not remove?!??  But alas, couldn't fold enough dresses construct a dress.

~I also started a small paper mache dress - on which I was going to 'collage' letters and images of internal organs.  

This dress was going to reflect how I have been feeling during my divorce process - exposed and raw.  The initial dress form turned out very successfully, a nicely defined figure, but I didn't have enough 'quiet' or reflective time to be able to take the next step.

~I fantasized about expanding on my Daily Dress collages.  I wanted to push the possibilities of working with paper - collage, sewing, burning, transfers, . . . 

~I also have been working on a series of works on subscriptions cards ~ yes those pesky cards that are always falling out when you are trying to curl up to read Oprah.  And last time I checked subscription cards are paper.

But as the due date approached and the days/hours/minutes ticked away I was drawn to a piece that I started in March at the Vermont Studio Center.  It is a painting on paper, inspired by the wall paintings in my 2009 installation, 'this comes from within'.  

although I exhibited this dress
I didn't think it was finished

I started with a simple drawing which I then reworked and repainted, adding and embellishing with creatures and hands and insects and bodies.  I have started MANY projects using this painting technique - a mostly monochromatic line painting/drawing.  But with all these starts I have hardly finished one of them.  Even with the walls of 'this comes from within' I only stopped painting the walls because I needed to build an 8ft dress out of eggshells. 

So for the FSFA's Paper show I 'finished' my line painting on paper, which has churned up many doubts/questions in my creative soul.  

First, for the longest time many people felt like the painting was finished when I brought it back from Vermont.  But I didn't, I liked parts of it but I felt it needed more.  So off and on I have been adding and subtracting to the painting.  Then, in the past week I tacked it back on the wall and went at it.  Again I had some colleagues suggesting that it was done, but alas I kept seeing areas that I felt was weak, lines that I wanted to strengthen, so I kept on working.

the piece that I left @ FSFA

the 'start' of painting (VSC)

And I LOVED it - I LOVE this technique!!! It is very intuitive, I just start working on an area and I start to see new images emerging or morphing into something else.  I am drawn to creatures and internal organs; these painting seem to just unfold.  I think i could paint like this for hours and days (which I did @ VSC)

So why the questioning - I don't think there is any artist out there who hasn't struggled with the concept of 'over working'??!?!  Also as the 'last call' for entries was approaching I still kept seeing one more area to tweak, one more line to clean up.  And then when I delivered the piece and hung it with the other work I REALLY started to question the work?? I wanted to take it down and rip it up.

So I am struggling with questions ~ who knows when a piece is done?? How does one know?? If the work feels so authentic does that make it your real art, no matter what the end result is or the reception??

I am in the process of re-reading Art & fear: observations on the perils (and rewards) of art making by David Bayles & Ted Orland.  It is a good book about the obstacles that we artists deal with and even create for ourselves.  It addresses the numerous ways that fear can affect, alter and at times sabotage our art.  

Entering this painting to the jurying process has stirred up some emotions for me, one prominent emotion is insecurity?!? I surprised my daughters as I questioned if I should really leave the painting in the gallery.  It is hung by T-pins, so one of my daughters thought it might need a frame but then pointed out that a frame would obscure the surface texture!! 

I am thinking that these emotions are stemming from exhibiting something that is truly personal and new for me.  Besides the installation walls, this is a unfamiliar 'work' for me.  I wondered if I would have felt like a 'fish out of water' if I had submitted a dress?!? A few years ago it was a little out there to submit a sculptural dress but now I think of it as normal.

So why the whirling brain - the endless questioning of myself and my choices.  Was this the right piece to put into this show?? Now with my divorce I need to analyze which projects I spend time on - i need to consider the financial benefits and this makes my head spin.  

So thank you for indulging me in my ramblings and if you have any thoughts or suggestions I would be to hear them.  And even though I have more to say on this subjest, the clock is appoaching 2am and I am driving the carpool at 7:20 am.  (wish I wasn't such a night owl :)

So ~ नमस्ते, Buenas noches, Buonanotte, Bonne nuit, Slap Lekker, Gute Nacht & 

Happy Winter Solstice & peace

the bustier is leaving the building ... the story behind the first eggshell dress

'eggshell dress ...' (2008)

me, removing my 'eggshell bustier...' from Renew Arts & Industry ...

the beginning .....

Just a few of the headlines from April 2007:

• College Student Guns Down Dozens in Virginia (April 16): Male student kills two in a Virginia Tech dorm. Two hours later, he kills 30 more in a classroom building before committing suicide. The shooting rampage is the most deadly in U.S. history. Fifteen others are wounded.

• Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Abortion Procedure (April 18): The ruling, 5–4, which upholds the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, a federal law passed in 2003, is the first to ban a specific type of abortion procedure. Writing in the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy said, "The act expresses respect for the dignity of human life."Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who dissents, called the decision "alarming" and said it is "so at odds with our jurisprudence" that it "should not have staying power."

• Earthquake and Tsunami Strike the Solomon Islands (April 3): Magnitude 8.0 earthquake and tsunami that follows kill at least 20 people and destroy villages.

• U.S. Squadron Hit by Suicide Bombers in Iraq (April 24): Nine U.S. soldiers are killed and at least 20 are wounded by two bombers attacking an American post in Diyala.

• Bombs Kill Nearly 200 in Baghdad (April 18): Five bombs targeting Shiite neighborhoods ravage the Iraqi capital in the worst violence in weeks. One bomb alone kills about 140 in Sadr City area.

• Bombs Kill Dozens in Algeria (April 11): Some 35 people are killed and hundreds are wounded when suicide bombers attack a government building in the capital, Algiers, and a police station on the outskirts of the capital. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claims responsibility for the attack.

It was April 2007 .... the Iraq war was a never ending quagmire, Mother Nature was making herself heard with Tsunamis, snow storms and tornados, taking lives and property, a male student went on a shooting spree on a collage campus and a good friend's marriage abruptly ended.               In April of 2007 I was feeling the fragility and pain of life quite clearly.  

As a way to deal with the overwhelming sense of loss and helplessness I headed to my studio.  

I had been collecting eggshells from my house and my neighbors, knowing  that they would be a beautiful and poignant material in which to create a dress, therefore I had a good collection of eggshells at my disposal. So as a way to center myself amongst all the craziness going in the world, I grabbed my eggshells and my hot glue gun and began building. I still remember thinking that the hot glue was so messy compared to the delicateness and fragility of the eggshells, but that dichotomy was appropriate for how I was feeling.

That first day of building was cathartic, I just grab whatever shell that was closest, I didn't think.   I didn't care if it was brown or white eggshell, I just needed to build something.  However the next day when I returned to my studio I was put off by the randomness of the colors of the shells; I didn't like it.  Yet I didn't want to start again,  I wanted to honor how the dress began. So to 'compromise' I started covering both the brown and white shells with smaller pieces of the opposite color shell, as a way of blending the two colors.  

And as happens so many times with my 'dressproject', my solution to camouflage the different color shells not only succeeded, but it also visually suggested lace.  I loved this suggestion but I had NOT planned it. This is the beautiful serendipity found in my 'dressproject'.

I continued to build the dress, embracing the messiness of the hot glue, using the ever-present wisps of hot glue to suggest dripping whites of the eggs.  While making this sculpture I needed to learn patience and mindfulness.  I learned the hard way not to just yank the hot glue gun's cord out of the wall, as it could and did go flying into the eggshell dress (clean up aisle 3).

Once the dress was finished I had the opportunity to exhibit it at the Natick Collection and the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown, MA, 

the 'dressproject' at the Natick Collection, Natick, MA (2008)

where it got much attention ... 'look, those are eggshells?!?!?'

at the Arsenal Center for the Arts, Watertown, MA (2008)

Unfortunately, even with a well thought-out and throughly cushioned mode of transport, the traveling was too much for the sculpture and once she returned from Watertown, she succumbed to gravity.

It was odd because the dress didn't break in transit.  It was a day or so after returning from Watertown. 

I was in my studio when I heard a very soft crinkling sound, almost undetectable.  I stopped what I was doing to investigate.  At this time my studio had a leaky ceiling and possible rodent residences, so I wanted to see what was making this sound.

As I walked around my studio, ears straining, I realized that the sound was coming from my eggshell dress?!?! As I got closer to the sculpture I understood that it was crumbling and there was nothing I could do about it.  I tried to save it but only was able to salvage the top ...

 

But there was much I loved about this sculpture ~ the patterning created by the mosaic of eggshell, the beauty of the eggshells themselves and most of all, I wanted to honor the 'place' from where the piece started, it was a physical expression of how crazy fragile life was. 

So instead of scrapping the entire piece, I created the 'eggshell bustier ...' which I exhibited at my solo shows at the Dana Hall School, 2008 and the Holliston High School, 2009, before in took up residency in the offices of One80Visuals/ Renew Arts and Industry, Natick, MA.

There, the 'eggshell bustier ...'  stayed, quietly crumbling, until last Friday when I gingerly removed it. I was pleasantly surprised how the piece still had some integrity and I was able to transfer it into a bin in one piece.  And today, as my daughter Harriet spied it in the backseat of my car, she insisted that I salvage the eggshell dress/bustier yet again because, "it has been so many places."

'this comes from with ...' (2009)
Medicine Wheel Productions, Boston, MA

So we will see where the bustier will go from here, but it did inspire my room installation/environment, 'this comes from within ...' which is a very good thing....

peace