Well, this was the first work in the Divorce series. I just discovered I have already partially written it up here, but i went to more trouble in this post (written in early December).
it took me a long time. It went through multiple iterations.
By the way i should say up front that this is one my favourite works, colour-wise. The blues and lilacs are very very pleasing, and as it turns out because the strokes of the portrait are so large, it would be pretty much impossible to know this were originally a portrait of James.
First it was 60 x 30 panels, cut from the original portrait.
The back of the canvas paper was not pretty at all, so i took a panel to officeworks and bought 3 x different A4 papers, just photocopy paper, thinking that would suffice. I always have a problem with the backs of works, often making them better than the front, and then I have a problem, so i thought i’d go simple. In Divorce there is no such thing as simple.
The glue was ugly, the pieces were not smooth.
I cricut-cut some large words to the song I wish you love. which I do, and did.
stuck them down, still ugly, glue worse, even after I used it like a glaze.
so i cut them into 10 x 10 squares (or thereabouts, i did measure i just don’t remember).
started sewing them together with what i thought was called a figure eight stitch (which it turns out is used in surgery!)
ran out of the pale blue cotton. Had to make do with other colours.
Still not right.
Added another poem which I cannot quite locate right now – i’ll get back to this! I do know that it involved the making and unmaking of spiders’ web, and that i left some lines out, but it still makes sense (as poetry does tend to do).
The box was one I found in the street. i had to make it slightly higher to hold all the pages. decorated it with leftover bits of the original portrait – the canvas paper doesn’t like glue, so i had to peel off the collaged part from the base, which left me with slightly damaged / weathered pieces of blue, which i very much like.
It was a labour of love (or a labour of lost love?), and I might do it differently if i were to do it again. But when I look at the complete (so far) oeuvre of the Divorce theme I understand why it took me so long. Each piece was plagued with new decisions and obstacles.
Did it help me get over my divorce, well, who knows? it’s so integrated into who i am now, i can’t tell. I know that I’m not doing as much artwork now, but when I do something it feels so good!
