Beyond Words
Artist's Statement
I have chosen objects from nature one by one, found them, dug them, preserved them – a squirrel’s skeleton, poplar saplings that sprout from one long root, broken egg shells lying on the forest floor. I have taken them, or been given them, from the land on Prince Edward Island where my grandparents visited each summer, where I now have a cottage. I chose these things because of their extraordinary beauty – and because they seem to hold the mystery of life and death.
My family’s 1932 Oxford English Dictionary seduces me with its promise to teach, to offer knowledge, even to dispel mystery. But entrancing as it is, leading me from one word to the next, this well-used book lets me down. Words are incomplete; they fall short of conveying the miraculous presence of a squirrel’s skeleton, the complexity of a bird’s nest, the delicacy of a moth. Six letters – l, u, p, i n, e – represent the tall stemmed purple, pink, yellow and white flowered perennials whose palmated leaves turn a dusty grayish green then brown, giving way to hairy seed pods that lyrically soften the late afternoon sun by the middle of August. The word ‘lupine’ doesn’t convey what I see and love, but neither does my long string of words. A word cannot even describe the beauty of a book.
Nevertheless I need the words: they matter: they name what I see, they describe a color, a shape, an action, an attribute. Thus in my photographs I wish to portray the lure and beauty of language itself.
I have brought together objects from nature that exist outside my cottage with my dictionary, the world of our intellect. And with these I offer the artifice – the wire and pushpins and tape and thread, though sometimes barely visible – of my effort to comprehend and represent, as well as to suggest the fragility of such efforts. The construction itself has become interesting to me; it is the grammar with which I work. And yet each tableau, like each object, is delicate and cannot last. The plants will die without soil, the skeletons will fall apart, the threads will let go. The pages of the dictionary will continue to yellow; the binding, continue to loosen. Like my dreams, my beloved signs of life will eventually disappear.
Details
The photographs are made from Polaroid 4" x 5" negatives and are Iris prints. Each image (20" by 25" or 25" by 32") is limited to an edition of 10 prints. Please contact Vaughn to exhibit this work or Miller Block Gallery to purchase.