This month I have the amazing opportunity to participate in a gallery show at the Latinos Organizing for Understanding and Development (LOUD) Gallery in Omega School. This show is called The Joy Of Learning and it is curated by GG of Green Goodies. GG is an incredible artist and human being. Thank you to LOUD founder and gallery organizer Oscar Mireles for hosting our little group of artists for the month.
I am showing two fiber art pieces in a series titled Creatures Like Me Collection. The first piece above is called Flick, Yona, Reede, Beadle + Me. It is 24 in x 15 in. The frame is made with cotton yarn using the tufting technique. For both of these rugs, I used my rug tufting gun instead of my hand punch needle. The paper piece in the frame was made with pen, water color paints, and embroidery floss. The story behind these skulls is kind of cool. As I was researching photos of animal skulls, I came across a Flickr page by Katie Collins. She has a beautiful series in her Bone Collection of various animal skulls. Katie's photos are meant to be used as reference for artists! What really struck me as cool was that each skull was given a name. Whether they were called these names when the animals were still using their skulls, I do not know. But regardless, it is lovely to honor the creature as individuals. This is where I got the title of the piece. Flick is a domestic cat, Yona is a Canadian black bear, Reede is a Muntjac deer, Beadle is a domestic dog and the final skull is a human skull. Skeletons are fascinating to me because we will never see our own skeleton, at least not fully. (Remember to floss your outside bones!) Nonetheless we all have a flesh vessel filled with assorted bones and organs. I mostly guessed on the scale for these skulls, but laying the different creatures out next to each other is meant to help us see that we are all just Earthlings roaming this giant floating rock. Life is temporary and fleeting, especially for some wild animals. It is an honor to memorialize these creatures in my art.
The second piece in the collection is titled F*cked Up Bugs. It is 33 in x 42.5 in. This piece is fully tufted using cotton yarn. This is my biggest rug creation so far. Within the piece is a lady bug, bumble bee, beetle, worm, ant, and butterfly. One day I thought, "what if bugs had arms and legs like us?" and this was the result. The idea for these bugs was originally a series of illustrations on photographs titled, Wouldn't It Be Fucked Up If Bugs Were Like That? The concept for this piece is similar to the first, but in a more whimsical way. Anthropomorphizing bugs brings a little humanity to the creatures, emphasizing that we aren't all that different from our smaller counterparts. With my bug art, I want to inspire people to be kinder to the creepy crawlies that "infest" their space. (Except mosquitos, fuck those guys. If you want my blood just take it. Why do you have to make me itchy? You ungrateful bastards!!!!) Learning about how bees and other colony creatures live and all work together is beautiful. Just like humans, each individual bug is but a speck compared to the greater whole of the colony. Being but a speck does not reduce the value of each little guy because together, they all create a functioning society. I hope this idea helps us humans feel a little less alone in this great big world.
J.K.