here are two of the images i did... wow, i really love this process. i finally know what to do with my photographs! there are so many little things to learn... its not just painting with wax... you get to play with fire too! you can go to judy's website and see more. http://judywise.blogspot.com/
signed sealed delivered! wow... what a great experience. i loved making this piece...though my hands are a bit worse for wear. that photo fabric is really woven very tightly and this piece is all hand quilted. i loved putting the photos together and i want to do more of that. i will try it with my own fabric and bubble jet next time. i was in a hurry to get this one done so it wasn't an option. here is the info if any of you are in the portland area and want to go... its a lovely space. and the pieces that were being hung when i was there were really good. this will be an interesting show. so you can get a feel for what's going on here, i included an artists statement at the end.“A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The
larger the denominator the smaller the fraction.” - Leo Tolstoy
SPREAD EGO
Is it really possible to feed the ego?
I’m a difficult subject. The whole notion of posing really makes me uncomfortable, silly. In years past I’ve
referred to myself as ‘an acquired taste’ to potential suitors– often allowing adequate time for pause. As a
maker I’m almost exclusively behind the lens of the camera, often shooting the inanimate -- poised
outside the frame. Though this frame is self-defined. Perhaps pieces of my personality may surface in the
work over time, but the viewer would have to be a master decoder to decrypt my soul as its ticking.
“If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am.
There's nothing behind it.” - Andy Warhol
The reluctant subject: In this piece it was hard to initially imagine dozens of images of myself made by the
hands of fellow artists, all to be hung staring out into a single space. If anything this project is something
of an inversion on the subject, or rather, an anti-self-portrait -- less about me the person, less about the
history of portraiture on the grande scale and more about all its supple implications. But there’s a baseline
here, one of absurdity and of allowance -- and my penchant to allow certain curatorial sensibilities to take
over guiding this course to search and find a more critical role (super-ego) to unleash such a dialogue.
And for this I’m honored that a large handful of artists were willing to create portraits of me to be shown
collectively, to breathe a collective voice (or sigh as it were). And if I told you the thought of seeing these
amassed will make me blush would you believe me?
“The higher we soar, the smaller we seem to those who cannot fly.” - Friedrich Nietzsche
Did you know that the possible derivation for the word narcissus could mean sleep or numbness? There
is a lot of myth and fallacy around what constitutes ones ego, in particular the artist’s ego. It is from the
deep self in which one projects the core of their being through a physical/tangible medium. It’s the
impression of others that becomes the public eye. Through the history of the artists’ gaze many have
been portrayed in their best light, classically commissioned for court portraiture. But this idealism speaks
as loudly as the flat surface. You cannot buy your own self image, it’s often handed back to you, and not
always on a platter.
“There used to be a me behind the mask, but I had it surgically removed.” - Peter Sellers
Over the last three decades of studio work I have discovered that there is this innate sense to just let fate
take place, and allow the self to be substituted for outside intervention. To let things dry and meld with the
elements. What I am most interested in emerging in ‘Spread Ego’ is a sense of letting go of my own
image to a sense of trust, acceptance, perspective and gaze. In these works artists are fully allowed
license to fill certain gaps, flaws included. As I age my body changes and things find settle and disruption.
‘Spread Ego’ incites and embraces that change. It reminds me of the posturing in the Grace Jones song
“I’m Not Perfect, But I’m Perfect For You”. A time-based reality check.
TJ Norris
December 2010
