Brydie

The craftsmanship and detail that goes into “arts and crafts” such as knitting and crochet has become important to my work. Not denying naturally occurring flaws or signs of the artist’s hand. Calling household tasks “mindless” was demeaning to their beauty and integrity so I made a switch.

My work so far draws parallels between what have been considered specifically “men’s jobs” or specifically “women’s jobs”. I am interested in the details within these mundane objects, especially in the way they interact with light. For example the car door seen in my photo: recently removed from my own car draws on Jeff Thomson’s Lace works using metal and a plasma cutter. I attacked my door with a softer and more feminine pattern, taking away some of its rigidness. By painting it white I have also removed some on the roughness previously seen in the sanded-back metal and burnt red paint. The white finish opens up the possibility of projecting images onto its surface.

My latex doily's look decidedly like pancakes – drawing on the idea of a woman’s work being in the kitchen. In light of this I have presented them on tracing paper which resembles cooking paper where they sit like a saucy pile of pancakes, wet and glossy.

The interest in the way the light interacts with the objects can be seen in my photographs and stemmed from painting onto a metal pot and platter – cancelling out the reflective surface. The tarnishing and dirtiness of these objects is important as it speaks of their past lives in the kitchen rather than coming sparkling new – straight from a factory of mass production.

Link to reading : http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/589595?cookieSet=1&journalCode=wp