Saturday, June 27, 2009

Epiphany: Text In All the Right Places

So, yesterday was a cruel day when I felt I'd never assemble another collage, ever. Got a decent night's sleep and this morning I decided to try out the three markers I bought to draw on china and glass. Draw, then bake in a 300 degree oven and they are ready to hang on someone's wall. Yesterday I bought 50 cent yellow dinner and salad plates at Value Village and I decided to plunge in and write cryptic little messages around each plate rim. That worked, so I added a decorative border around the edge of each plate and that worked too. Then I brought in some vintage plates from the studio that are covered with flowers. Began to write among the flowers and I liked the way they looked. My floor is now covered with plates that dry for 24 hours and then spend those 30 minutes in a low oven. You can't eat off these plates and platters, but they will look great on someone's wall.
It was when I was writing on one of the last plates that I had an epiphany. I've been planning on adding text to each table. Hang tags like the ones I made for Marfa seemed the best idea and I still intend to make hang tags. However, I also decided to write on absolutely every dish, vase, goblet, copper gelatin mold and candlestick on that banquet table. Just a few words, a fragment on each. I know it will pull the table together and may pull the whole show together if done well.
One has to be in the right frame of mind to write small convoluted messages and this morning everything was working. And more 'happened' than just the writing on plates. It's the bigger idea of adding text to every single object's surface that made for a breakthrough moment. Ever onward.

3 comments:

CaShThoMa said...

...love the creative energy and wish it were contagious.

The plates are really great.

Sharon said...

Perfection.

Mary said...

Mom - love writing on the dishes for the show - much better than the tags which were perfect for Marfa...like clothing tags. What this reminds me of is that artist who collected salad bowls from the 70s and burned words into them that her mother said to her. I haven't found a link to her work but I do think I have a postcard somewhere. very interesting and definately the right direction.