effigy

2009 - steel wire

It was my birthday, and I was driving to my studio, when I had the idea: I could make a wire sculpture, stomp it flat, and then use it to make prints on canvas. What a feeling! To this day, I often get a little thrill when I drive past the spot where the idea came to me.

I was still using Serena as a model, and I started wiring her up as soon as I got to the studio. This time I left her legs on, and I encased her down to the joint you can see on her left leg in this photo:

(Sometimes I worry about people being offended by that picture. And then I get super annoyed at the idea that anyone would be offended by a simulacrum of a butt.)

Here's what it looked like after I cut the wire off the mannequin and stitched the whole thing back together:

And this is what it looked like after I stomped it flat:

It didn't take long for me to ink her up with a paint roller and cheap acrylic paint, and to start making prints. Generally I made two prints at a time, folding the fabric over so that I got a print from each side of the sculpture. I'd wrap the "sandwich" in a padded blanket (the kind of thing you use to protect furniture in a moving van) and use my feet to press the paint into the fabric.

Here are some of the first prints I made:

The toile was a lighter weight canvas remnant that I found at a local fabric store. I sprayed it with water before printing, which caused the paint to run. As a result, people often think the toile is quilted. It's not. Here's a closer view of the "back" print from that run:

Eventually I settled into a process of using heavy canvas like people use for oil paintings, and thinning the paint with water so that it released onto the fabric more easily. It's always a little unpredictable, though. There are blobs and runs and blank spots in every single print.

A friend suggested that I should write on the prints, and I did. A lot. Someday I'll get around to uploading some of the results. But for now, here's a photo of the flattened sculpture (she is actually slightly concave) hanging on the wall of my studio in the early morning sun: