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The Muse's Storage Box

The Muse's Storage Box
Copyright Diane Lou.

Alchemical Dreams and Disparate Realities

Rust and bones, broken toys and old text, game boards, gears and nests. Even as a child such odd, unwanted items evoked a pit-of-the-stomach response that bordered on exhilaration.
While I make no attempt to conjure up specific feelings in the viewer, the ambiguous juxtapositioning of familiar materials creates art that evokes half-forgotten, dream-like visions that beg to be interpreted by the viewer. There is a sense of deja vu (the already seen) tempered by a sense of jamais vu ( the never seen, or the illusion that the familiar does not seem familiar), and this contradiction asks the viewer to dig deeply, to look inside her own repository of wisdom, intuition and experience to find her own meaning in the familiar objects she sees.
The once-private discards of people's material lives that I collect for my art seem to carry universal memories with them, memories that can engage and mystify the viewer. Their beauty lies within the rust, the erosion, the wear, and the mere fact that they were once possessions.
I play with abandon and with no forethought. Each piece of detritus seems to suggest to me a relationship with some other piece, and I begin to put them together and wait for the mental "buzz" that lets me know I am proceeding as I should. Even at this point, I continue to remain in the play state and will not allow myself to direct the outcome of the piece, a process that requires complete trust. The outcome often mystifies me as much as it might any viewer.
Remember when, as a child, whatever was in reach became the instrument of your creative exploration? That is my life. A rusty, flattened piece of metal on the street, a gnawed bone by the roadside, a unique twisted branch from a tree, a fallen nest, a broken egg, a snake's skin, a dead butterfly...all will be added to my collection and eventually have their beauty honored in one of my pieces. The resulting art creates a new story with its own imagined history, one that invites the viewers to lay some claim on it by allowing themselves to be enveloped by the sight, the history, and the ambiguity of the realities before them.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Beginnings and baby?

This week I've been showing some of my "starting anew" process, which involves preparing materials (painting, rusting, disassembling, breaking) for inclusion in a work of art.  Most of the time, I try to alter each thing I use in some way prior to  putting it in a piece, and this process creates a whole new inventory of materials to choose from.

After that, I start setting things together (without any idea of where the assemblage is going).  Right now I have 9 pieces in that state.

Here are a couple pictures of how this might start.  This photo shows a wooden cigar box painted black and from the bins, a couple Lego pieces which I thought were just smashing.
Here are how the two might be "tried on" to see if I think this is a direction I want to go.
I love the enclosure these two pieces create for the box.  It already has a sense of mystery about it.  At this point there are not attached because it will be much easier to work inside if they aren't, but they will be nearby to set on the piece as I work to check how they will look.  Their attachment will probably be one of the last things I do.

Granddaughter Geneva is apparently reticent to come out.  Attempts to induce failed, so mom and dad (Kolya and Larry) are back home waiting...waiting...waiting.  Send some "Come on, Geneva!" energy their way.

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