Refrain

Medusa. Oil pastel and acrylic paint on A3 paper. JC 2017

Emergence. Oil pastel and acrylic paint on A3 paper. Julie Clarke (c) 2017

I caught up with friends Dave, Tony and Herbert this week (on different days of course) and whilst I was in the State Library of Victoria I had a brief conversation with Alison Lemoh, mezzo-soprano who was in the ladies at the same time as myself, deciding whether to place her luxurious locks on top of her head or leave them flowing for her rehearsal in Chapel Street later in the day.

I've now read two chapters of Liz Grosz's book Chaos, Cosmos, Territory, Architecture and must admit that it is so much like a restatement of the ideas of Deleuze and Guttari in A Thousand Plateaus that I briefly looked at their chapter on the refrain. The partial and fragmentory interests me and the potential of its becoming - hearing someone sing in the distance and then break off, the sound of a car driving by, the Magpie call so early in the morning and the hum of my heater, all refrains, all markers for memory recuperation.

I struggled most of the week with symptoms from a vestibular migraine but managed to do two oil pastel drawings and continue to think about how this Old Knitter of Black Wool project might progress. I have a couple more ideas and yesterday over coffee outside Short Black cafe in Bridge Road I met an interesting artist/dancer/community arts woman called Mahoney Kiely who, after hearing about my project said I could have her (found) black petit pointe shoes to do with what I will. They fit in nicely with the theme since the petit pointe shoes make the feet of the dancer conform to its design and are an ideal metaphor for the way women are bound to their duties and can become disfigured over time by certain psychological and physical restraints. I reference this in the images I've made with threads of black wool wrapped around my head and the wool and dried rose stem corset.

Since part of this project involves photographing the hands of women over the age of fifty (hands are the most expressive part of our body/ women do so much physical labor with them/hands tend to show our age), I began by taking photos of Mahoney's hands and that of two librarians in the Richmond Library, who were so willing to be part of a project. One mentioned that Australian writer Helen Garner had written something about the way older women are treated in our society.

Chaos

Chaos. Oil pastel on paper. Julie Clarke (c 2017

After going to the gymnasium yesterday morning I noted that friend and Melbourne artist Tracey Lamb was reading a book by Liz Grosz called Chaos, Cosmos, Terrigtory, Architecture. I rang a few bookstores and searched libraries and discovered it was held at the State Library of Victoria. I went in and photocopied the first chapter, which I read last night. Im going back into the SLV today to read more so that I can have a half-decent conversation with her next week. It's a Deleuzian text so I won't be entirely out of my depth. I finished the above drawing this morning and thought I'd post it here. It certainly belongs with the Old knitter of black wool series. I may see a film prior to going into the library as I have a desperate need to balance my life between theory, art and cinema.

Threads of life.

Threads of life. (Two views) Julie Clarke (c) 2017

Small, sculptural piece composed of 18 (11 x 22cm) black envelopes, cut up photographs of self-portraits from the Old Knitter of Black Wool project, printed text (from my unpublished memoir entitled Seven Years a Child) and black wool.

The envelop in the context of this project is the rectangular shape of the Guillotine where particular women of Paris would sit and knit as the amputated heads of the aristocracy rolled past. It is a casket or the vertical black & mysterious monolith in the science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Turned horizontally the monolith is the wide cinema screen or the blank, black screen of the iphone. It is an inversion of the white space artists confront before they begin to create a drawing or painting. It is a void.

Black envelopes

I began the week planning to walk along the beach, any beach, but the temperature was so cold that being outdoors inhibited any desire I had to be near water. I've been reading two books this week: Memorial Mania - Public Feeling in America by Erika Doss, an amazing book, which charts public outpourings of grief by Americans in the aftermath of tragic events, and The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, a book I'd heard of but never read.

Last Friday I saw the best film I've seen in a while. A Quiet Obsession is compelling and incredibly sad. I think I cried three times throughout the film. And, talking about period dramas I saw My Counsin Rachel, but just didn't associate with either the male or female protagonists. I am however looking forward to seeing Lady Macbeth.

On Tuesday I found a pack of twenty black envelopes in an op shop in Malvern and have begin thinking about what I can do with them in relation to my theme of Old Knitter of Black Wool. Inspired in part by the scene in A Quiet Obsession in which Emily Dickinson is sewing her poems together to form small books, I've decided to print out some of the poetic prose I've written over the years and incorporate them into and onto the envelopes that I will form into a book. The working title for the work is: threads of life. I've always like envelopes, the notion of wrapping, the fact that when sealed they contain a secret, when opened there is a hint that something has yet to be secreted inside or that something has been removed. Envelopes are a vessell and as such they represent the body; itself a container of secrets. I'm hoping that the small book will be completed to show my readers by the weekend.

Partial erasure and Atrophy

Partial erasure. Julie Clarke (c) 2017

Atrophy. Julie Clarke (c) 2017

A3 digital prints of the photograph entitled Winter Solstice in which I have erased part of the face and head by using a silver or black permanent marker.

RECENT WORKS ON WALL

Five digital prints of recent work by Julie Clarke (c) 2017

It's always a little exciting to print out images I've been working on. If you are a regular follower of this blog you will know that these photographs are self-portraits with black wool, fresh and/or dried rose stems, black material and skin & form part of my project entitled 'Old Knitter of Black Wool'. These five A3 images are currently on my wall, but if anyone knows of a small gallery space in or around Melbourne that doesn't require an application one year ahead, negotiations with curators, staffing the space, except for maybe one or two days, please contact me as I would love to have a pop-up exhibition in the flesh, rather than just on line. Thanks again to my Google+ followers who like and share, enabling my work to have a wider audience.

WINTER SOLSTICE

Winter Solstice. Julie Clarke (c) 2017

Corset

Corset. Julie Clarke (c) 2017

Brior Rose

Brior Rose. Graphite on 35.5 X 27 cm paper. Julie Clarke (c) 2017

I woke at 4.30 am this morning and when I looked at that knitting/rose stem sculpture I'd made I recalled the animated Disney film Sleeping Beauty (1959), which I saw when I was a child. The most dramatic image for me was the bramble and thorns that surrounded the castle where Brior Rose slept for one hundred years. There's something that still captures me about that imagery. The idea of waking up after being so long asleep and contained is fascinating, perhaps akin to the modern day procedure of cryonics - the science of using freezing or very low temperatures to preserve the bodies of dead individuals with the intent that sometime in the future they may be resurrected and restored to good health by using nanotechnolgies or other unimagined biotechnological advancement. No mention of course of the psychological impact of waking and knowing that everyone you have known or loved are dead and the world a different place than you had previously known. So, I did a small drawing based on the sculpture. I understand this drawing to be part of the overall project: Old knitter of black wool, since it deals in part with the knotting of the bramble and the deterrent qualities of the rose thorns.

Pro{teckne}

Pro{teckne} or, Imaginary Fortress. 10 dried rose stems sewn onto 250cm long

black knitted fabric. Julie Clarke (c) 2017.

Air knitting/Old knitter of black wool/Alice/Not I performance/Julie Clarke

More about an old knitter of black wool

I had an enjoyable conversation yesterday with Peter Murphy and Leonie Osowski in the Member's lounge of the NGV at Federation Square. Peter pointed out the death references in my recent project, especially the predominant use of black. I maintain that death is always there in an artist's work, however, my intent was to draw attention to the aging female body and the fragility of advancing years by using the knitted length against my body in an aesthetic way. I didn't cover my face in order to hide my identity, I already declared that the photographs were self-portraits. In fact, I suggested instead the absence of identity for aging women and the invisibility that appears to walk side by side with a woman no longer considered young or attractive. I ask you: When was the last time you saw a mature female presenter on television?

I was happy to see that The Drum (ABC TV) was addressing the difficulties that women over 50 years were likely to encounter, especially if they had no husband or partner, was divorced, or had recently lost a long time partner due to illness. They discussed the poverty that many would encounter, homelessness, loneliness, the loss of friends (not only those who die but those who do not want to associate with women who are alone and are possibly disabled). They also spoke of the ailing body and the women who would become more and more dependent on others. But the single most interesting point made was that women, who have cared for children and perhaps even ailing parents, who have gone without in favor of doing for another, are, at a certain age, no longer cared for because they can't perform the roles they had during their lives. It's a sad situation. We could certainly learn from other cultures in regards to the way they treat older folk.

This morning I made a short video ~ A close up of my hands air knitting against a spoken word performance I was involved in, in 1980, which included reading an excerpt from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and another from Samuel Beckett's play Not I. David Powell overlaid the spoken words over one another along with a percussion piece he composed.

My intention in the video was to present the younger me alongside the older me. The repetitive actions of my hands (mainly fingers) mirror the repetition we experience in day to day activities. The work also engages with the stereotype of considering older women as knitters, as if no other age group knits, which is a fallacy.

Unfortunately this blog would not allow me to post the video. I tried several times and can only add, that tomorrow or Friday I may be able to upload it to YouTube and then provide a link on the blog. Wish me luck.
OK. Click on here for the link

Self-portrait with black wool and fabric

Old knitter of  black wool.  Photo: Julie Clarke (c) 2017

Photograph taken with Panasonic Lumix camera in my kitchen on a ten second delay, in which I had to wrap my body with the knitted wool and length of black fabric before the flash occurred. I am reminded of Salvador Dali's The Burning Giraffe (1937) in which he depicted a woman with opened drawers in her body. In my photograph the drawers are closed, the handles forming steps behind the woman. Domestic Bliss?

Old knitter of black wool #4

Self-portrait with black fabric and knitted black wool. Julie Clarke (c) 2017

A couple of days ago the yarn ran out and I finished knitting up those two balls of found black wool. This morning I took a self portrait with a length of black fabric and the knitted black wool wrapped around my body. I was sitting on a Bentwood chair with cane mesh seat (see reference mentioned in a previous post from Heart of Darkness). I took the photograph on a 10 second delay with my Panasonic Lumix camera. The photograph I've posted is cropped from a larger image. Unsure at this stage where I will go from here. Anything is possible.

Old knitter of black wool #3

The first image above is of the knitted wool at 179 cm long on 22 May, followed by 24 May 208 cm long. I imagine that the wool (half is wool, half is acrylic) will run out before the end of the week and I'll do the final photograph of it on white paper background. Then I will consider photographing it on my body or in other locations. I imagine photographing it in the National Gallery of Victoria. I wonder if the security guards will evict me if I attempt to do such a thing.