up to our necks - family ties

In preparation for our group studio show, opening on Friday, Sept 4th at the Morning Times Gallery in Raleigh, I have been disassembling neckties, printing on the white interliners, and reassembling them as if turned inside out. Not surprisingly I have discovered that the 40 year-old silk ties from my partner's grandfather have the loveliest innards of all - a three piece construction with felt and cotton, instead of today's polyester blends. These softer liners are more receptive to the etching ink (Charbonnel) I am using. The printmaking matrix is the down-and-dirty polymer lithography plate, imaged with a copy machine. Anyway, I am having tons of fun!

There is a dark side to this work - as every family has its tragedies, misfortunes, secrets; every person has her own scars or misgivings about familial events and relationships. I have been circling this subject for almost two years and hope to get somewhere with it this fall. If I do, it will be thanks to friends Theresa Brown, Stacey Kirby, Michelle Seaman, Yolanda McGill, Janet Cooper and Matt DeCamp, who opened their photo albums and generously shared stories and archives with me. Printing on paper, pillowcases, handkerchiefs, placemats and ties, I am seeking to graft their families together with my own and to make an artful bridge between the specific and universal.

Of course the subject of gender is very tangibly close to the surface here. The necktie as a 2,000 year-old phallic symbol has been explored at length by Willie J Spat. Another post I found relates that the black tie, for which Mormon missionaries are so known, bears more and more of an image dilemma for Latter Day Saints, now that lawyers and government officials are among the few still regularly wearing ties at work. These neckties - which I have flayed open, pulled apart and branded with the personal, the familial, the inelegant or inscrutable, feel like the tip of an iceberg when I start to wonder about what they could afford in terms of exploring lesbian culture and gender identity vis-a-vis the family tree.

Hope to see you at the Morning Times exhibition, on view through September, even if it's just to enjoy a few moments in this great downtown hangout with a coffee bar and swell baristas below.

Go Blam!