The Thin Line Between One Thing and Another (2020)
The Thin Line Between One Thing and Another
January 16 - February 15, 2020
Finlandia University Gallery, Finnish-American Heritage Center
Hancock, Michigan
The thread and cardboard works in The Thin Line Between One Thing and Another embody the adage of “the finger pointing at the moon.” Each textile-like sculpture is a literal record of daily meditation and a metaphor for the process of thinking. While the titles use language to pinpoint particular thoughts, experiences and observations, the objects themselves operate on a phenomenological level. They use a formal visual vocabulary as rhetoric to address the process of thinking, recurring thoughts and insights into the nature of the human mind via my own mind.
Further, the completed works function as icons for contemplating the relationship between repetition and change and the ongoingness of contemplative inquiry. I want viewers to slow down and look. The chaotic, tangled color that appears to rest on the surface is integral to the structure; the hand-knotted threads hold the individual cells—each full of empty space—together. Yet, the perception of movement, growth or collision in the color fields is both real and illusory, as the structure is entirely composed of the same repeating units.
I don’t believe in the false distinction of the Sacred and the Profane or the separation of human beings into parts: psychological, emotional, intellectual and physical. Nor do I believe that color and decoration are superficial. In the history of textiles, style and pattern are often intimately connected to structure. Similarly, our internal lives are deeply embedded in our bodies. I assert, unapologetically, that process is content.