Kriah for Highland Park
This MFA program is mysterious. I keep attempting to locate a direction, yet the wealth of information, colloquium, studio visits and readings encourage us to keep open to experimentation. I do.
I keep wanting to secure a clear path forward. I am resisting that.
Even before I arrived in June, I was thinking I might work with fabric and thread somehow. I brought very few materials; paper, raw canvas, drawing tools, sumi ink and waxed linen thread. Left behind in my hometown studio were the paints I normally use.
A goal here is to learn how to embed research into my projects. One direction that research is heading toward is traditional collective processes of mourning. How communities grieve together.
I have written in previous posts about the Jewish custom of Kriah (rending a garment) at the funeral of a loved one. I was not specifically intending to make a piece related to this ritual. Much of my process takes place just beneath my conscious mind. So a lot of sensory information goes in and I’m unsure of what will come out and when. (Let’s just say it’s the opposite of planning).
A significant unexpected event took place during our residency.
On July 4th, a mass murder in Highland Park left seven people dead. Highland Park is a predominantly Jewish suburb 24 miles north of Chicago. I lived there from the time I was six until I was seventeen. News of the shooting had a powerful effect on me.
I was not planning to make work about it, however, last Thursday before the visiting artist lecture I was tired and decided I would rest in my studio for 45 minutes. I sat still for a few minutes before reaching into my locker for the jar of sumi ink and my stack of raw canvas. I poured the ink on to the canvas, took my metal scraper in hand and spread the rich dark liquid onto the canvas. As soon as my hand made the downward gesture, I was overtaken with the thought that this was an act of commemoration for those killed on July 4th. I knew right away I would make seven Kriah ‘flags’. One for each of the humans lost that day. I was planning to tear into the fabric to represent the action of ripping a garment until a member of our group suggested that the swift downward motion made with the scraper could be the act of kriah. That feels right to me.
Our group visited each others studios this week to get an idea of how the work relates and is different from each others’. We have decided to present one work each, likely with various images. We’ll see what changes take place between now and next week.
I look forward to seeing everyone’s online exhibition spaces :)