FIFTY WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER
Lexington Art League’s CSA(rt): Community Supported Art Program Lexington Art League, Lexington, KY

JULY 2013

When I was invited to participate in the LAL’s CSA(rt) program, I said “yes” right away because I recognized it was a unique approach to supporting the local arts community. Not only is it a great value for collectors, it is also a terrific opportunity for area artists to show off their individual talents, gain exposure, and be guaranteed a certain amount of return on their efforts.

I knew that creating fifty pieces would be a particular challenge for me. I tend to produce distinct works and resist making multiples or reproductions. Little did I know what would evolve while working on this project. From the initial idea to the last daub of paint, this body of work offered me new experiences I would have never anticipated and influences that will undoubtedly reveal themselves in future works to come.

From the get go, I knew I wanted all fifty works to relate to one another in some fashion. I immediately began thinking of the number fifty and its correlation to things like the Unites States, the Atomic Number of Tin on the periodic table of elements, etc. Then, one day, a friend said, “You should do fifty ways to leave your lover”– and it evolved from there.

A fan of Paul Simon myself, and considering the events taking place in my personal life at the time, it was a real “eureka” moment. For me, making artwork and living life have always been interdependent. As I touted the project to friends and co-workers, my list of “ways” began to grow exponentially and in a very short span of time. Everybody had ideas and I was glad to have their input. Fifty, sixty, seventy “ways to leave your lover” later (and a few hundred dollars missing from my bank account), I had more than enough material to work with (both literally and figuratively).

Some pieces were well planned from the initial sketch to the finished work, and I executed them by acquiring and manipulating the necessary materials. Others were responses to objects already in my possession or ones I bought because they somehow resonated with me. Still others could be considered loosely controlled flukes. 

I admit, the making of each piece was, for me, rather therapeutic. The freedom to experiment was exciting. The chance to let loose a little personal angst while preserving a sense of humor was revitalizing. And, though I spent untold hours producing the Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover (and a couple of sleepless nights), the final reward of completing the pieces (actually 52 in all) in a fairly short amount of time is the sense of accomplishment I feel having made a series of works on which I am happy to sign my name. I hope the individual works, or perhaps the entire group, reverberates with others as well.

I would like to send out a heartfelt thank you to a few people who helped me along the way:

The LAL staff for the invitation and their continued support of my work; Amelia Stamps (also a CS(A)rt artist) for firing “Hitchhike” for me and donating her own porcelain plates for “Take a Dinner Train” and “Toss a Pie in the Face”; Jerrill Johnson for printing the head in “Justice” and Chris Rawlinson for the use of the 3D image of his head; Joanne Meckstroth for her fabric and input; Jill Richeson for the initial idea and understanding; my mother and daughter for their patience; Kathy, Glenda, Siobhan, and the many others who offered me inspiration and support for this project (even the kids down the street). Thank you, very sincerely. My share of the crop was truly a communal effort.

Some titles from the series: Have a Black Tie Affair; Hangman; A Single Shot; Be CANdid; Up, Up, and Away; Just Take Your 4 Iron; Join the Circus; Make You Some Softboiled Ammunition; Pretend You’re Rene Magritte; Tell Him to Take a Hike and Get a Job; Write a Dear John Letter; Hitchhike; Hitch Him Up to the Horse He Rode in on; Row, Row, Row, Your Boat… and more!

DOWRY
ANN TOWER GALLERY, Lexington, KY

FEBRUARY – APRIL 2007

As artist Suzanne Lacy once claimed, “Art is a potential link across differences. It can be constructed as a bridge among people, communities, even countries.” I believe my work to be capable of expanding social experience. As an artist, I feel it is my role, however humbly, to broach humanity—and use sculpture as a sort of social engineering. The works I created for the Dowry series, like earlier works, are an aesthetic marriage of materials, techniques, ideas, and associations that ultimately act as instruments for provoking thought. A singular work can be a forum for critical awareness. It can be the impetus for more complicated ways of thinking about ourselves and the world in which we live. 

The Dowry series was produced in fulfillment of the Artist Enrichment Grant I received from the Kentucky Foundation for Women in 2005. What began as an innocent exploration of materials in the studio, evolved into a much deeper, somewhat darker, investigation. The initial idea for the work came about as I was throwing slabs and hand-building clay “sacs” or “pouches.” My preoccupation with language surfaced and the word “dowry” came to mind. Eventual inquiry into the definition and the practice of dowry gave way to work that began to examine particular and rather complex issues of culture, gender, and basic human rights. Some of the first pieces have been left out of the exhibition because as my understanding of dowry changed, so did the work. Empty hand-built clay bags have been exchanged for mixed media sculptures that better represent my meditation on dowry in countries such as India, China, Iran, and Afghanistan and the dire consequences, namely death, faced by many women affected by its practice. 

This work is not intended to be political, though the nature of the subject matter might suggest otherwise. Nor did I set out to create work that is culturally egocentric claiming that Western traditions are right and others are wrong. The works in the Dowry series rather suggest moments of realization for me, an artist, a woman, an American, and go further to pose questions. The goal is to provoke thoughts about culture, identity, and the value of human life—things that are not always easily grasped. This series will hopefully convey to those viewing it a complex opinion of the world around them while simultaneously presenting works that are aesthetically pleasing and economic in form.

The Dowry works act as a physical communion between me, the subject matter, the material and the process, and serve as reminders of the unbreakable link between culture and identity. My aim is to confront the practice of dowry through ceramic and mixed media sculpture, where each piece assumes a unique personality and tells a different story according to its materials, shape, and projected demeanor. My interest is not in creating exact images of women affected by dowry, but to create forms whose textures, materials, scale, and suggestion of functionality engender individual identities—as if I were composing lives out of the materials at hand.          

These works have a human scale, a symmetrical and sometimes metaphoric reference to anatomy, and are more representing abstract issues of identity and individual freedom rather than being absolute. They are symbols, perhaps artifacts, that merely suggest the fear, vulnerability, and devastation faced by women who may face being murdereded by their husbands and in-laws, covered in wax and burned in “accidental kitchen fires,” or commit suicide due to dowry.