(Un)wearables
An exhibition of garments and objects of adornment created from unusual
materials that make the item, for all practical purposes, unwearable.
Employing the human body as their mold, the selected artists have
transformed marble, metal, glass, paper, and plastic into fabric or
adornment. From the impractical to the perverse, (Un)wearables focuses
on the concept and process rather than the function and form.
Some
of the pieces are whimsical, others address issues of women’s
roles and societal expectations. By taking everyday objects—shoes,
dresses, undergarments—and making them of unexpected materials—metal
gutter guards, stone, hammered steel, paper—viewers are challenged
to consider the place of these objects in their lives.
Exhibition
curator, Maria Kastrinakis
Installation design by Michiko Okaya
click
on small images for enlargements
Kathy Bruce
Naked as Paper:
A Victorian Wedding Gown
“I once had a dream about a white gown with paper “fortune tellers” embedded in its surface. In my dream, hands were opening the fortune tellers to reveal erotic Victorian imagery.”
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Naked as Paper, 2003 Paper, found materials, 70 x 56 x 56 inches. Text from Sylvia Plath, The Applicant |
The choice of paper as a medium plays with the notion of the blankness of the white page, its whiteness, the virginality and fragility of ordinary paper. The symbolic virginal white originates from the wedding dress of Victorian England, which romantically alludes to expectations of connubial bliss, while hidden sexual desire manifests itself beneath the surface. The paper fortune-tellers conceal the bride’s future destiny; sexual struggle and domination beneath the surfaces of the naked white page. The wedding dress appears as a superficially romantic illusion but one that in fact harbors the reality of dark undertones….a traditionally precious object presented here as a throw away item.
The concept for Naked as Paper is based upon the Sylvia Plath poem, The Applicant; in which the woman is over qualified for her domestic position yet, disposable. In it, Plath contemplates the expectations of the matrimonial paper doll and the inevitable wounds inflicted by it.
Kathy Bruce
December 21, 2003 |
| Berendina Buist
Northwestern Wind, Shirt, 2002
Cyanotype on silk
24 x 20 inches |
Kate Cusack
Wig, 2002
Plastic food wrap
29 x 26 x 24 inches |
Patricia Delluva
She Fell for Him Hook, Line, and Sinker, 2003
Lead cove fishing line, lead sinkers, spinners, fish hooks
30 x 13-3/4 x 4 inches |
Waiting to Fly, 2003
Mixed media: mosaic on plywood, fabric, leather, found objects,
56 x 51 x 24 inches
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Donna J. Carney
I began exploring mosaic as a medium and dream images as a source of inspiration following recovery from brain surgery in 1999. It was a challenge to “give wings” to my intuitive creative side (right hemisphere) after being dominated for years by the logical rational left side of my brain. The surgery symbolized this shift in balance as the incision released built-up fluid under great pressure from the left side of my brain.
Wing-images emerged in my first mosaic pieces—a winged house over water, an abstract winged creature in an altarpiece, a winged fish. Wings are a strong dream element symbolizing not only flight but freedom from fears and past attachments.
The right side wing in Waiting to Fly is layered with relics and attachments to the past, weighed by perceptions of physical limitations and memories. This component of the piece has been recycled from part of a larger work entitled Animal Dreams. The back of the wing is new mosaic in dark glass and mirror.
The left wing symbolizes the flight of the imagination, buoyed by unfettered intuition. The gauzy lightness of the three hinged fabric wings suggest movement.
Making the piece (almost) wearable is the worn leather harness, fabricated from old belts and cut to fit the artist’s chest.
Donna J. Carney
January 2004
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Caroline Gibson
Ordinary Secrets
Life is an affair of putting on and taking off clothes. It is an ordinary part of everyday life. Everyone in our society puts on a certain amount of clothes whenever we go out in public. We determine ourselves by the clothes we wear. They are worn in a variety of layers from the secret undergarments to the outerwear designed for protection from the elements. As much as we like to pretend that clothing is inconsequential a person who fails to dress appropriately can provoke irrational social response.
The materials I use to make my sculptures are also part of everyday life, but have been given a new life different from their original intention. Tarpaper, aluminum roof flashing, rawhide, plumbing parts, flyscreen and papers are carefully sewn together. Sewing is an extraordinary method of construction. It was a common task performed by all women at the turn of the last century but today is threatened with extinction. A needle and thread were one of the most powerful tools a woman possessed.
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From the Ordinary Secrets series
Stockings, 2001
fiberglas screening
Shoes, 2001
Gutter guard, beeswax, leather
9 x 5 x 13 inches, each |
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Girdle, 2001
Rawhide (pig, cow, goat)
28 x 26 x 6 inches |
Foundation Garment, 2001
Metal: gutter guard, lawn edging, chrome
24 x 20 x 15 inches |
The clothesline has historically been a very ordinary and useful tool in women’s work. It is unfortunate that today we rarely give clothes the opportunity for a life independent of their owners. The clothesline not only tells a story about the latest fashion and events in which the owner is involved, it also gives the clothes a chance for a life of their own, to dance in the wind or be frozen in the moment.
Caroline Gibson
2001 |
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