This is another piece of the Electric Water House series... 16 Candles is a combination of pieces I have saved and Held onto over the past 20 years... Primarily, my mothers ironing board, which will hang upside down from the water house frame, and 16 Glass Aunt Jamima bottles. (The #16 has meaning to me because that is how old my son is now, also known as a very important age that bridges us from childhood to early adulthood.) The larger ones will be made into leyden jars (which when pluged in to the transformer will be covered with electricity...) suspended on the ironing board. The smaller bottles will be filled with small lightbulbs under water, in a sand box below. Kind of a mother daughter thing, however, since I have also become a mother since my mom died, and raised a son... I have a ceramic little boy figurine I am adding into the sand box... so actually... it is more about mothers watching over thier children. How the hopes and dreams they have for themselves and thier children are at the mercy of the quality of our personal environment... on a multitude of levels... to see them collapse and crumble or come true.
I bought my own Miter saw and Ryobi drill last weekend from a pawn shop for $50.!! That means I am very close to being able to start constructing the Water House... I have also picked up a tablet of newsprint paper, for illustrating my future creative vision. I was feeling stifled by drawing paper and pencils and forced illustrations (like the one posted here...useful, however I feel like someone has my arms tied up with rope while I am trying to get the idea out of my head onto the page... so hopefully you will get the idea of what I am thinking...), I figured a larger format low budget paper and ball point pen were in order...and lo and behold... the first page has already become a masterpiece!! I have a couple of more to do, and actually these ones are for a future project that I haven't made public info just yet. They will be included in my fellowship proposal under the future creative vision category... and online here....maybe next year...
1 comment:
I have to say I'm fascinated by this. (Love your drawings, by the way. I'm reminded some of certain Minor Arcana Tarot cards.) Am looking forward to your further chronicling. Since reading earlier this afternoon how this seems to have the inception in your brother dousing a bulb with cold water when you were young, and seeing how the idea has stuck and evolved and the metaphors employed, it's been (kind of) all I can do to keep from turning on a lamp in some safe place, letting it heat, and spraying water on it from very very afar.
But as one who has nearly been struck by lightning a couple times too many in my life, I think I'll leave it at that.
I'll leave artfully playing with electricity and water to you and look forward to what you produce.
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