tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3620814217607175932023-07-17T22:03:11.562-07:001001 Funny Things you can do with a SkirtThis is the embroidered story entitled Knowing (one story of our "1001 Funny Things" collaboration)
The whole story in images (all 26 pages) is being posted here on our our blog. Its most recent showing was at Crafts Council of BC Gallery, Granville Island, Vancouver. We have included installation views of the show along with the review by Bettina Matzkhun.
Embroideries are by Eleanor Hannan, the text is by Elizabeth Dancoes.1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-51149358094342822512013-06-17T10:22:00.000-07:002013-06-17T10:22:01.756-07:00Art statement for 1001 Funny Things......The work for 1001 Funny Things began as research on the history and mythology of the skirt. <br />
<br />
Writer Elizabeth Dancoes has done brief, original stories based on our research but in contemporary idiom. <br />
<br />
In total we have worked together on approximately 10 stories, three of these are forming the basis for this exhibit. They are Lunch, She Who Walks and Knowing. <br />
<br />
The images and stories are based on the ancient, mysterious gesture known as “Ana Suromai”, literally “to raise the skirt”. The origins of this intriguing gesture come to light in the Demeter, Persephone story from Ancient Greece. The gesture haunts so much of subsequent mythology and story that it can hardly be ignored. <br />
<br />
Ana Suromai (“to raise the skirt”) was an incitement to transformation. And while its spiritual implications were deep, it encouraged laughter as a conduit to renewal. It resonates in fables in the guise of mysterious things concealed beneath a woman’s skirt and continues into modern times with the ever-present and compelling image of Marilyn Monroe’s skirts billowing over a subway grate. As anyone who as ever work a skirt will tell you it is a spontaneous gesture. <br />
<br />
My work for the series includes drawings, paintings and embroideries as well as digital images that are made to resemble embroidery and traditional stitchery.<br />
For me this work reflects my intense emotional, expressive involvement in cloth, in sewing and stitching cloth, in interpreting cloth in paint and in pure, unadulterated, long hand stitching, the stitch as a teller of tales taking in and speaking with each breath, with each passing of thread through cloth. <br />
<br />
Though the images reflect the humour and magic of Elizabeth’s stories, it was the sharing of our respective experiencing of the gesture of “Ana Suromai” that inevitably inspired the revelations that inform the visual notions that run through both text and image. We initially worked simultaneously on the evolution of one set of image and story then she wrote for my drawings, as we evolved Elizabeth wrote and I interpreted. Part of our desire for this exhibit it to share the methods and means of this ongoing, productive collaboration.1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-91065366550487363362011-12-11T12:28:00.000-08:002011-12-11T12:28:20.712-08:00Eleanor Hannan - KNOWING<br />
<br />
The Craft Council of BC’s gallery is a very small space, but Eleanor Hannan’s exhibition “Knowing” fills it to overflowing with image, metaphor and myth. This is not to say the work clutters the space, on the contrary, the embroidered works –no larger than a sheet of paper– travel around the walls in a shimmering line. Hannan has more than illustrated Elizabeth Dancoe’s short and witty story, she has built on it; the images are evocative and often cryptic. To describe the story even more briefly: a woman lives in a state of discontent; she is restless, searching. During a quiet moment, she perceives a fork in the road, so to speak. She follows it and the adventure transforms her.<br />
<br />
Hannan works with a restricted palette of white, black, soft green, salty red threads and faint washes of paint. She literally draws with the sewing machine, outlining a fingernail or the pattern in the foam on a cappuccino. Her stitches swarm together to describe the density of shadows. The result is expressive, active, confident. The small images convey space, weight and ambiguous emotions that crowd together in as many layers as the stitches. At the outset, the central character seems utterly fatigued –she almost disappears in the gloom of the “unpopular cafe”; but then she dances gleefully at the foot of a strange, electric tornado or spreads her arms like a flying superhero. Not easy things to conjure with a single filament. <br />
<br />
Central to the project is the performative act of raising the skirt –Ana Suromai in ancient Greek. The story nods to the myth of Demeter. While searching for her daughter she is given shelter in a home. Baubo, a female servant, is touched by Demeter’s sorrow and flips up her skirt to make the great goddess laugh. This gesture is also said to “cow bulls.” At first I imagined a rather hard-line feminist ending to the little tale, yet as the character progresses and develops, I am surprised. Indeed, she raises her skirt to a bull. The poor creature is bowled over, hooves in the air and, when he finally rights himself, she climbs on his back, her skirt skimming her thighs. In the next image, the bull’s head is on the figure wearing the skirt and the woman’s head is on the galloping beast. In it, I read that the act of exposing oneself (not in the sense of the pervert in the park) and becoming vulnerable leads to mutual understanding and momentum.<br />
<br />
The exhibit includes a wealth of support material presented in an unobtrusive manner. Dancoes reads the story, sotto voce, in a recording. A small digital photo frame features text and images that present information on the extensive research done by both Hannan and Dancoes into the mythology and spiritualism permeating the work. A fat little book features “sketches” –hand embroidery in black thread on canvas squares where Hannan has explored imagery and text. Considering the time invested in each cloth page, the images certainly have the immediate, experimental feel of drawings.<br />
The final sentence of the story spins off the wall in a slightly larger piece that sports a strange maroon shape. In reading the support material, I learn that the shape is the hoof-print from a real bull. It is not clear whether Hannan had to lift her skirts to tame him, but in the photo, he seems calm and obliging. Hand embroidered imagery and text circles the hoofprint; a woman’s figure in a red skirt strides into the distance. She has inventiveness, courage, and maturity as the letters swirl around her: “I don’t know, I’d be content with a small herd, maybe 18, a few colourful skirts and a red petticoat.”<br />
<br />
The works are, of course, best seen ‘live’, but one can also visit:<br />
www.1001funnythingswithaskirt.blogspot.com/1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-7549945807146601122011-07-24T10:49:00.000-07:002011-09-04T10:05:43.329-07:00KnowingKNOWING <br />
The story<br />
<br />
I always knew that one day I would find myself somewhere else. My therapist assured me it was a resistance to commitment but I continued to save for that eagerly awaited moment, content to deny myself luxuries she implied were an insane depravation. Well, that day finally arrived when, on my fortieth birthday against all odds in an unpopular cafe on Main, an abandoned brochure attracted my attention over cappuccino: KINESTHETICS, KUNDALINI AND THE KABALA ON KNOSSOS FOR UNDER $300 A DAY and I had my very first vin-dit (a very personal shove in the direction of my zah-mah-ki-bo, remember Bokonon?).<br />
<br />
The process must remain secret (though the weather’s been great) but these three things may be revealed: rather than uncoiling spiritual energy up the spinal channel to the radiant thousand petaled lotus, as per usual, I have been directed to master unfurling the curled kundalini OUT; I have rediscovered horns, crescent moons, sacred Yonies and the mystic in mathematics: 25,920 (2+5+9+2+0=18, 1+8=9, 9 3=3) makes my heart beat faster (43200 beats in twelve hours and 25920 60=432, 432,000: the number of years reckoned to the Kali Yuga, wow!); and this morning in the pale absinthe dawn of the new moon, I lifted my skirts and cowed the bull, my bare feet wound themselves in the curls at his loins and I rode him, the power in his shanks shifting between my thighs - well, let’s just say life hasn’t been the same since. And thanks to high interest no risk futures I can pursue my dream; I don’t know, I’d be content with a small herd, maybe 18, a few colourful skirts and a red petticoat.1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-36752827997903027462011-05-12T10:24:00.000-07:002011-05-13T13:25:38.780-07:00PersephoneAnyway, Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demeter">Demeter</a>. This whole story starts (about the skirts) because Persephone (in her loveliness and perfect innocence) was out picking <a href="http://www.alchemy-works.com/myrtus_communis.html">myrtle</a>...1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-21065216491118554462011-03-22T22:29:00.000-07:002011-04-08T12:42:46.235-07:00about Still Waves, Defy Death (and the other figures with skirts raised facing into the page)A friend recently asked me " How can raising your skirts still waves". Such a good question, the basic idea is that raising the skirts exposes the source of all life. <br />
<br />
It is a symbolic gesture of course with ancient origins, but the essence of this whole story is the power in that recognition; the gesture exposes the source of all life. Now what is that about? Does that heal? is it simply an expression of creative power? is it useful in this world or does it merely confuse? <br />
<br />
I wanted to include here a quote from one of our main sources " The Metamorphosis of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baubo">Baubo</a>" by Winifred Milius Lubell.<br />
<br />
" I think it would be a sad mistake for us to lose sight of Baubo and her icon, the vulva, to relinquish her playful joking, to let her slide out of Western consciousness into scholarly obscurity or into the netherworld of demons and pornography. Her strangeness to modern eyes warns of the danger of her loss. But Baubo is a survivor. She has constantly refused to stay put in a single or confining role of womanhood. She is irreverent she is sacred. She represents those revered sexual and procreative feminine energies that merge to form the nurturers, the transformers and the balancers without whom civilization cannot survive. Baubo's arresting gesture of exposure holds the clue to understanding all the metamophoses of this complex and enigmantic figure."1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-12540657029382028432011-03-13T18:03:00.000-07:002011-03-13T18:03:42.617-07:00Art Statement for showThe work for 1001 Funny Things began as research on the history and mythology of the skirt. <br />
<br />
Writer Elizabeth Dancoes has done brief, original stories based on our research but in contemporary idiom. <br />
<br />
In total we have worked together on approximately 10 stories, three of these are forming the basis for this exhibit. They are Lunch, She Who Walks and Knowing. <br />
<br />
The images and stories are based on the ancient, mysterious gesture known as “Ana Suromai”, literally “to raise the skirt”. The origins of this intriguing gesture come to light in the Demeter, Persephone story from Ancient Greece. The gesture haunts so much of subsequent mythology and story that it can hardly be ignored. <br />
<br />
Ana Suromai (“to raise the skirt”) was an incitement to transformation. And while its spiritual implications were deep, it encouraged laughter as a conduit to renewal. It resonates in fables in the guise of mysterious things concealed beneath a woman’s skirt and continues into modern times with the ever-present and compelling image of Marilyn Monroe’s skirts billowing over a subway grate. As anyone who as ever work a skirt will tell you it is a spontaneous gesture. <br />
<br />
My work for the series includes drawings, paintings and embroideries as well as digital images that are made to resemble embroidery and traditional stitchery.<br />
For me this work reflects my intense emotional, expressive involvement in cloth, in sewing and stitching cloth, in interpreting cloth in paint and in pure, unadulterated, long hand stitching, the stitch as a teller of tales taking in and speaking with each breath, with each passing of thread through cloth. <br />
<br />
Though the images reflect the humour and magic of Elizabeth’s stories, it was the sharing of our respective experiencing of the gesture of “Ana Suromai” that inevitably inspired the revelations that inform the visual notions that run through both text and image. We initially worked simultaneously on the evolution of one set of image and story then she wrote for my drawings, as we evolved Elizabeth wrote and I interpreted. Part of our desire for this exhibit it to share the methods and means of this ongoing, productive collaboration.1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-22138738187523961662011-03-08T09:57:00.000-08:002011-03-24T11:36:08.776-07:00A few things you should knowA few things you should know before the show:<br />
<br />
A long time ago Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, was abducted by Hades while out picking Myrtle. Demeter , beside herself with grief, went searching for her. Demeter was goddess of the earth and when the earth goddess grieves things get serious; no water, no crops, no food, no wine....<br />
<br />
Demeter wandered searching and she came to the home of the King and Queen of Eleusis where it was her intention to rest (in disguise). <br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baubo">Baubo</a>, a servant in the household, felt deep compassion for Demeter and after having given her as a special drink made from barley danced for her wildly, raising her skirt, in a wild gesture where she raised her skirt, it was said that the gesture made Demeter laugh (uproariously) bringing her out of her grief and giving her hope. The gesture is called “Ana Suromai”- to raise the skirts- the gesture is the basis for these stories. <br />
<br />
Note: the “1001 funny things” refers to the “too numerous to count” incidents, stories and myths throughout story telling history that have as there source and meaning this powerful gesture. Elizabeth and I (early on in our work on these stories) discovered the four on which this exhibit is based : Cow Bulls, Still Waves, Blind the Devil, Defy Death.1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-56618743881997095592011-02-18T22:45:00.000-08:002011-02-18T22:45:42.687-08:00Elizabeth's Ana SuromaiLifting Our Skirts<br />
Background information<br />
<br />
Setting: Greece <br />
Time: lost in the mists BCE<br />
Event: Demeter is raped by Zeus gives birth to Persephone.<br />
Persephone is raped by Hades (with the support of Zeus) gives birth to Iaachus<br />
The Eleusinian Mysteries follow <br />
Involving the pivotal act of ana suromai – the lifting of the skirt<br />
<br />
The mythic moment of ana suromai:<br />
<br />
The Goddess is laden/troubled/despairing. Her daughter has been ravished/raped/ abducted and her rage has brought an end to productivity/fertility/invention. The world trembles at her vengeance. All fear catastrophe. They claim this very thing has happened before. <br />
<br />
But by the wild fig tree/poor peasant hut/crossroads, a hearty serving maid/pregnant wife/ wild woman waits. She waits, her desire restrained/tucked/concealed, secret beneath her skirts. She waits and so is there when the Goddess passes. <br />
<br />
The maid/wife/woman throws/falls/dances herself onto her back, her thighs spread and beckoning. She murmurs/whispers/laughs lewdly.<br />
<br />
An intoxicating whiff of desire escapes the Goddess. She marvels as this bubble of life force erupts from the blight of her mourning. She wonders at the maid/wife/woman’s rashness: how can the mortal know it is good that looks her in the eye? The maid/wife/woman winks provocatively. Should it matter? <br />
<br />
The Goddess finds her grief/despair/rage relieved infinitesimally, but it is enough. Possibility has reinvented itself in the distraction, whispers of negotiation and compromise have been impressed on her divine ear. She walks<br />
in reverie, her passage marked by bounty, abundance escaping her skirts.1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-35843687021460668882011-02-18T22:42:00.000-08:002011-02-18T22:49:42.966-08:00The ExhibitIn order to present this complex material so that it's comprehensible and can be enjoyed it will take this form : we have used as a start point <b>four of the powers of a woman with her skirt raised</b> (from ancient sources), they are <i>Cow Bulls</i>, <i>Still Waves</i>, <i>Blind or melt the Devil</i>, <i>Defy Death</i> the core of everything is <i>Defy Death</i>.<br />
<br />
We have also used the two ideas of "ana suromai" (the <b>raised</b> skirt gesture) and the myths of what is <b>under</b> a woman's skirts (such as is represented in the Sheba story below {older post}).1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-13830777217229635312011-02-18T22:34:00.000-08:002011-02-18T22:35:26.253-08:00Some of our main resourcesHere is our basic resource list for the mythology from which we have built the stories and the imagery.<br />
<br />
Winifred Lubel: The Metamorphosis of Baubo<br />
Carl Keneryi: Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother And Daughter<br />
Marina Warner: The Beast and The Blonde<br />
Robert Graves: Greek Myths <br />
Robert Graves: The White Goddess<br />
Rian Eisler: The Chalice and the Blade<br />
Nor Hall: The Moon and The Virgin: Reflections on the Archetypal Feminine1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-25741414235706940682011-02-15T21:25:00.000-08:002011-02-15T21:31:09.949-08:00Bridge of JestsI am working on this image called the <i>Bridge of Jests</i>. In many forms, this is a digital collage from an original drawing.<br />
<br />
At the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries">Eleusinian Mysteries</a> the <i>Bridge of Jests </i>provided the transition point between regular life and the place of ritual for the participants. The participants arrived at Eleusis after a solemn procession of several days during which they left behind their daily concerns. <br />
As the participants approached the place of ritual they had to cross a bridge on which was performed the <i>ana suromia<b></b></i> gesture. This had the purpose of provoking ribald laughter following the solemn walk, preparing the participants for the many and varied complementary transformational experiences of the <i>Mysteries</i>.1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-88745791920163208382011-02-07T15:05:00.000-08:002011-02-15T21:15:19.264-08:00a dream; BauboThis is from a dream I had about the extraordinary character Baubo. <br />
If you are new to this blog read down to find out more about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baubo">Baubo</a>.1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-68803224782509895552011-01-12T22:01:00.000-08:002011-01-12T22:01:40.960-08:00"She" from the story LunchYou will see <b><b>She</b></b> as a large black thread on canvas hand embroidery at the show.1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-54599741168251391582011-01-11T22:13:00.000-08:002011-01-12T20:19:12.781-08:00The story VoyeurHere is another story by Elizabeth from our collection. It is based on the idea that one of the powers of a woman with her skirt raised was to frighten (or melt), (or blind) the devil. There were a few thoughts from ancient sources on the power of a woman with her skirt raised. <br />
Here is a basic list: cow bulls, still waves, melt the devil,defy death. <br />
<br />
We have focused on this collection of ideas for the work in the upcoming show.1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-7456179244517145952011-01-11T22:08:00.001-08:002011-01-11T22:08:40.605-08:00VOYEUR<br />
<br />
It was a dark and stormy you-know and I was stretched out over some very pricey construct of rose thorn, restless doves and froth of the sea, looking to reconstruct the pride in my adolescent swing, hips that nestled my butterfly perched on orange blossoms - ah, memory! - hoping it would drape like mirror’s sand, sway over my trembling wrinkled silk, my shaking mane and take in all the best men I have known. Preoccupied with such musings, I did not notice at my window the silencing wind rippling over a falcon’s shadow, erasing its skinny arrested moans. I did not notice ravening eyes transforming my rediscovered blossoms into a bread box bursting to be brunched. When, in a great torrent, little rain women crumbled the blood between the brick in the walls of my humble-but-currently-being-remodeled tenement, the surface made slick, my industrious contemplation was pierced with a cry and dastardly tumble of disquieting turbulence. Looking out, wondering what accident of nature worried my scaffold, sulfur burned at my nostrils and blue smoke rose to obscure the pattern melting into the freshly landscaped lawn. I considered contacting officers of the law, deeply, for a few moments, after which I returned to my so rudely interrupted reveries and chef d’oeuvre.1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-50556768657519811662011-01-03T20:47:00.000-08:002011-01-09T23:01:41.068-08:00The images that will be posted to this blog are all based on the theme of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baubo">Baubo</a>, the dynamic mythological figure associated with the ancient Greek stories of Demeter and Persephone. She is known to have made the great earth goddess Demeter laugh by dancing before her with her skirt raised. <br />
<br />
The images and stories are based on the tradition of "Ana Suromai". The origin of this ancient and mysterious tradition are present in the myths of Baubo and Demeter and are there described in the Eleusinian Mysteries. The gesture itself,<br />
literally " to raise the skirt", extends forward into later Greek stories and into the stories of Pliny and Plutarch. <br />
<br />
The gesture has resonance in more modern myths generated from the tales of the hidden things beneath a woman's skirt. And even into this century with the ever present image of Marylin Monroe with her skirts billowing over a subway grate.<br />
<br />
The <i><b>Defy Death</b></i> images marked the start of the body of work. The work began as drawings and will become machine and hand embroideries as well as paintings, prints and interdisciplinary work. <br />
<br />
This work and these stories continues to occupy a significant part of my art practice.1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-85583565160504332842010-10-20T21:41:00.000-07:002010-10-20T21:53:39.909-07:00Are the stories relevant?I am back at work on <i>1001 Funny Things</i>, I was working away today and thought about the issue of the relevancy of the stories. Elizabeth's stories encourage us through really provocative humour to explore ourselves to the very depths of our desires. Working sentence by sentence by sentence on the images I am becoming intimate with the meaning and let's call it the "scape" viewable from each created verbal image and idea.<br />
Just to remind any followers of the blog we have based the stories and the images on the character of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baubo">Baubo</a> and her antecedents.1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-38985449311332359802010-08-18T22:25:00.000-07:002010-10-27T22:20:07.966-07:00KnowingHere is the story called <i>Knowing</i>, this is one of our collection. I am including one of my first sketches for this story.<br />
<br />
KNOWING <br />
<br />
I always knew that one day I would find myself somewhere else. My therapist assured me it was a resistance to commitment but I continued to save for that eagerly awaited moment, content to deny myself luxuries she implied were an insane depravation. Well, that day finally arrived when, on my fortieth birthday against all odds in an unpopular cafe on Main, an abandoned brochure attracted my attention over cappuccino: KINESTHETICS, KUNDALINI AND THE KABALA ON KNOSSOS FOR UNDER $300 A DAY and I had my very first <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokononism">vin-dit</a> (a very personal shove in the direction of my zah-mah-ki-bo, remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokononism">Bokonon</a>?).<br />
<br />
The process must remain secret (though the weather’s been great) but these three things may be revealed: rather than uncoiling spiritual energy up the spinal channel to the radiant thousand petaled lotus, as per usual, I have been directed to master unfurling the curled kundalini OUT; I have rediscovered horns, crescent moons, sacred Yonies and the mystic in mathematics: 25,920 (2+5+9+2+0=18, 1+8=9, 9 3=3) makes my heart beat faster (43200 beats in twelve hours and 25920 60=432, 432,000: the number of years reckoned to the Kali Yuga, wow!); and this morning in the pale absinthe dawn of the new moon, I lifted my skirts and cowed the bull, my bare feet wound themselves in the curls at his loins and I rode him, the power in his shanks shifting between my thighs - well, let’s just say life hasn’t been the same since. And thanks to high interest no risk futures I can pursue my dream; I don’t know, I’d be content with a small herd, maybe 18, a few colourful skirts and a red petticoat.1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-57042305263446018252010-06-28T22:01:00.001-07:002010-06-28T22:01:52.890-07:00She I, II, IIiThese acrylic paintings are "She" from the story <i>Lunch</i>. I would like to tell you more about their evolution, coming soon....1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-47829244417670579682010-06-02T23:21:00.000-07:002010-06-02T23:44:04.075-07:00What inspires me about this work?I wanted to begin to answer the question what inspires me about this work? <br />
First, I love Elizabeth's stories and I am fascinated (as we both are) by the richness of the source material. Really one could work from this material for ever.<br />
<br />
Elizabeth's stories are as poignant as they are funny and brilliantly composed (I promise, soon I will include more) and I kind of enjoy not so much illustrating them as reading rereading listening and responding to the qualities in them and allowing the imagery to draw itself. My hand just draws her stuff really effortlessly(almost).<br />
<br />
The depth of the history of these original stories keeps me desiring to explore them in images until I find my own answers. They are for all of us, they teach and they express and they play with our imaginations <i>and</i> they heal.<br />
<br />
But they also offer profound truths. The essence of all the stories has to do with the healing power of the feminine. To me (to us) this is a crucial component of this whole body of work. As we keep our dedication to its evolution and development as artists in the atmosphere of a troubled world in need of healing we have this in mind. More about this as we go. Comments desired.<br />
<br />
Elizabeth and I have been collecting work for over 12 years we will continue to do so.<br />
<br />
Also, (for me personally) the power of the skirt as icon, image, expression, my love of the skirt as an imaginative transformative garment has been part of my vocabulary as an artist and my iconography forever. It is simply always there. <br />
<br />
15 years ago I created a show called <i>My Mother's Skirts</i> which was an exploration of the profound impact of remembered gestures of my mother in her skirts.<br />
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Here is one of the images from that show called <i>The Skirt as a Barrier</i>. These are mainly scratch drawings, a technique I basically modified for my own uses from silverpoint (an ancient for of drawing on gesso with silver).1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-75672572311700752672010-05-17T21:46:00.000-07:002010-06-02T23:26:03.808-07:00The story of the Queen of Sheba and King SolomonOkay get comfortable, tonight I am going to tell you the story of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. This story (one of our favourites in the long lexicon of "raising the skirt" stories)refers to the "ana suromai" in a very charming way.<br />
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King Solomon invited the great and reportedly very beautiful Queen of Sheba to come and pay him a visit. She was on the road for seven years (so the story goes). In that long wait time King Solomon overheard things about her and became ever more anxious about meeting the great Queen. One thing that people said was that she was the devil and that the evidence of that was that she had goats legs. Although stunning to look at, seductive as well as brilliant she accomplished all this as a result of her devilish connections. <br />
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Solomon had to know the truth about the Queen before she got too close. He had a lot of time to plan and this is what the clever king did. He had constructed in his receiving room a long narrow pool. Solomon foresaw that Sheba would have to <i>lift her skirts</i> to cross the pool before she reached the throne to greet and pay homage to him (apparently no slouch himself). He tried out the pool trick on everyone, every single non suspecting female in the court at the time. Yup, they all raised their skirts to cross the pool as planned!!!! That accomplished, he fought a few wars, gave really really good advice and waited. <br />
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Finally the day came when Sheba and her extensive retinue arrived in Solomon's kingdom. She <i>was</i> impressive as she rode into town, as stunning as they said, skirt right down to the ground.<br />
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When she arrived at court and was led into the receiving room she was amused to find the lovely long pool but she felt delighted and relieved as well as the journey had been hot. So,helped by one of her attending ladies, (Solomon holding his breath) she <i>raised her skirts</i> to make the descent into the shallow pool.<br />
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Solomon nearly wept for joy.... the gorgeous Queen did not have goats' legs after all she simply had <i>very</i> hairy legs! Solomon welcomed her into his kingdom and (as we all know) into his heart and eventually into his bed (but not for a long, long time) and in the meantime, while patiently waiting he wrote her tons of love poems (check the Bible)and... and.... and.... the most charming aspect of this whole story he invented(just for her)a depilatory cream. Forget about the <i>Songs of Solomon</i> that is love!!!!!1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-72371937987608598542010-05-08T22:59:00.000-07:002010-05-08T22:59:52.216-07:00the Story LunchThe work for Lunch and the entire set of stories for <i>1001 Funny Things</i> began approximately 10 years ago as research on the history and mythology of the skirt. <br />
<br />
Writer Elizabeth Dancoes has done brief, original stories based on our research but in contemporary idiom. <br />
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Lunch is one of approximately 10 stories with images. The entire set of stories comes under the heading of <i>1001 Funny Things you can do with a Skirt</i>.<br />
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The images and stories are based on the tradition of “Ana Suromai”. The origins of this ancient tradition are present in the myths of Baubo and Demeter. And the gesture itself “Ana Suromai”, literally to raise the skirt, extends forward into later Greek stories and into the stories of Pliny and Plutarch. <br />
<br />
The gesture has resonance in more modern myths generated from the tales of the hidden things underneath a woman’s skirt. And even into this century with the ever-present image of Marilyn Monroe with her skirts billowing over a subway grate. <br />
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My work for this collaborative project includes drawings and embroideries as well as digital images that are made to resemble embroidery and traditional stitchery.<br />
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The project was originally presented in print form in postcard format with one of the images on the front and the entire story on the back. These were placed among marketing cards in racks around the city of Vancouver in the year 2000 with the full participation of the marketing company. They were free for the taking along with the other advertising cards and appeared anonymously. <br />
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The story in page form as it appears here was first exhibited in 2002 in a show called If Images Speak a Thousand Words.1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-13158280780937375312010-05-08T22:45:00.000-07:002010-05-08T22:51:41.301-07:00LunchShe slides into one of those invalid-blue discomfort chairs <br />
under ‘Gate 21’ where her future lay refueling<br />
a tiny brown paper lunch-bag perched in her diminutive lap.<br />
I admire the distinctiveness with which she slips <br />
from this unlikely sack a half dozen oysters <br />
artfully arranged on seaweed and how<br />
with the gusto of a gossip savoring overheard conversations<br />
she slurps them into mollusk oblivion.<br />
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I pinch my inner arm.She presses her tongue along the corners of her mouth <br />
and her skirts apparently without her assistance <br />
appear to rise and crowd her thighs.<br />
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Certain that I am deceived by a trick of terminal light <br />
I stare as from the worn and torn receptacle housing the gutted bivalves <br />
a platter of tossed greens emerges coated with crumbled chèvre <br />
and a tasteful sprinkling of fresh raspberries.<br />
<br />
I determine I am witnessing the impossible <br />
<br />
She pulls out a seven inch tower of Mocha Fantasy <br />
when her flight is called nibbling off a small chunk <br />
with unconcealed regret she replaces her fantastic post-repast indulgence <br />
into its chimeric culinary bindle and as she takes her place<br />
in the slow moving line a gust of air conditioned fate<br />
holds her self-determined skirts poised like a hula-hoop<br />
about her rolling derrière.<br />
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Now her plane is not my plane so I do not try to follow <br />
my feet firmly planted on the ground. Later<br />
I will be sure so sure<br />
that I have been privy to some mystery <br />
that I will begin buying tickets cheap ones, <br />
at first, to nearby locations just to roam the terminal <br />
hoping she will reappear later still <br />
I will begin to fly farther and farther <br />
spending more and more time in terminals around the globe <br />
<br />
When I find her again I won’t hesitate <br />
I’ll follow, find a way<br />
to lay my head in her magnanimous skirts<br />
and perhaps never return.<br />
<br />
-Elizabeth Dancoes1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-78685904710725654402010-05-08T22:18:00.000-07:002010-05-08T22:52:09.491-07:00About LunchA set of 23 machine embroideries illustrating the story called <i>Lunch</i>, one of the stories from the <i><i>1001 Funny Things</i> you can do with a Skirt</i> collection. The project is a collaboration between me and the writer Elizabeth Dancoes. This first piece was completed in 2002 and has since been exhibited in several venues in different ways including as an anonymous Street Card and at the Grace Barrand Design Center in London1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-362081421760717593.post-63496862960831302252010-04-05T21:16:00.000-07:002010-04-05T21:26:05.697-07:00Some things I would like to add to begin to fill you in about the meaning and imagery of this work. <br />
<br />
The images and stories are based on the tradition of "Ana Suromai". The origin of this ancient and mysterious tradition are present in the myths of Baubo and Demeter and are there described in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries">Eleusinian Mysteries</a>. The gesture itself, <br />
literally " to raise the skirt", extends forward into later Greek stories and into the stories of Pliny and Plutarch. (Eventually I will tell you the skirt raising story of David and the Queen of Sheba).<br />
<br />
The gesture has resonance in more modern myths generated from the tales of the hidden things beneath a woman's skirt. And even into this century with the ever present image of Marylin Monroe with her skirts billowing over a subway grate.1001funnythingswithaskirthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12902464020147074674noreply@blogger.com0