Mending

My fourth piece in the Loss series is finished.  It's called "Mending", which I think is an ongoing process we all go through when loss occurs. While working on it I was thinking about all the ways we heal, and it seems to me when we suffer a loss, we don't always heal.  Sometimes we just change. When I think about mending, it's about putting things back together, but they never fit back the way they were. There's a new, different dimension, layer upon layer.



When starting a new dimensional piece, I'm learning to think ahead to how it will be displayed. I was discussing the possibilities with Ted in his office when I noticed some magnets on his white board.  I knew I wanted the fabric to hang about half an inch apart and I  found some cylindrical half inch long magnets on line.



I wanted the hanging device to be as invisible as possible, so I decided on acrylic and found a fabricator who drilled the holes for the magnets, and smaller holes to use for mounting it.



It turned out to be really easy to hang it this way, and it's easy to disassemble.  The biggest problem is the magnets wanting to stick to anything metallic nearby.



Here are some close ups

I burned circles out, then hand stitched them back together



Below is a side view.



For whatever reason, my thinking on this series is somewhat out of sync.  While finishing this up, I started thinking about the anger and frustration that goes along with loss, usually one of the first emotions felt.  But I know there's no set rule for this.  How to show anger?  I'm not really sure.

Continuing On

I'm starting to plan out a new piece in this series about loss, and this time I'm actually thinking about the hanging and display options before I become too deeply committed to it.

This piece will probably end up being  40 inches wide by maybe 60 inches long, and it will consist of 4 layers. The furthest back will be my usual textured work, the next one in will be netting with some felted shapes on it, then the third layer will be organza with the repeating image on it, and last will be another piece of netting with some hand stitching.

The sample I made is 5 inches by about 9 inches.  My idea is to have these layers hang about 4 inches  apart, with the back layer against the wall.  since it will be  40 inches wide, I need to figure out what kind of unobtrusive hanging device would support that.

I cut some foam 4 inches long and attached the layers to see if that width apart worked for me.  I like the space in between, but I think the netting may cling to the other pieces.  I could probably solve that problem with some small magnets at the bottom of the piece.

Next, I cut some foam trying to figure out how to attach the piece to the wall and have it come out 12 inches to support the layers.  I thought about curtain rods, but I would really like to do this with acrylic so the hanging system doesn't distract from the work.

I love this kind of problem solving.