The Seeing of Sweet Knees
Soft Pastel on Vellum
3'X6'
2014
The Seeing of Sweet Knees
This project began by thinking that my edge would be to engage with an artistic modality that I don’t normally work in. I decided that drawing was my edge, because it is not a part of my practice, yet seems so fundamental to art making, so simple. As I began, I couldn’t help thinking that my edge should be in direct contrast to what my process usually is. I usually begin with a previously researched concept. I then work this concept through textile methods and materials. I decided that for EDGE I would simply begin by drawing an object. I would work on paper with pencil. I thought at the time, this was a fairly neutral decision and that the drawing would be an exercise in looking. It was weeks into the project before I realized the profound choice I had made, both in modality and object.
As the weeks went by I drew my object from different angles, in different scales on different papers. I kept close to my initial commitment to the simplicity of drawing on paper, no research, no thinking, no context. I stayed just within the limit of my object - its' edge. I remained here until the day I decided to add colour to my drawing. I decided that what I was looking at were not simply lines rendered with my pencil, but shading and contour and colour. On this day I realized that I was falling off that outside edge and into that frontier space of the unknown. Unknown in some ways but glaringly obvious in other ways; this was a piece about – whiteness. In this moment I understood that the very intention of this work, the simplicity, neutrality, this objective representation of my seemingly very innocent object, embodies the mythology of something that I have been subconsciously waiting to explore, something that has been waiting at my periphery - my edge. What I saw in this exercise of looking was my identity as a white colonial settler.
Issues of identity are as fundamental to my practice as drawing is too representational art making. Over the weeks as I constructed this image, by just looking, I began the process of knowing myself as a Canadian white person. Working in a new way, I ventured into a new kind of space. In looking, I really saw Sweet Knees. This process of constructing the drawing became a metaphor for how gender, race, and class are constructed and how this seemingly innocent toy embodies the mythologies of white colonial power that are characterized by normativity, innocence, benevolence, banality and aversion to a direct gaze – an aversion to seeing. As a white settler, raised by white settlers, I realize that Sweet Knees and the process of understanding/looking at her is fundamental to who I am, what I think and how I act. This confirms my edge, which is working at that outside limit of understanding, waiting and willing to fall off and sticking with the trouble found there. Now that I am here, Sweet Knees will never look the same again.
This piece was created for a group show at Keep Calm and Carry on Gallery on Gabriola Island, British Columbia. The Galleries owner Sheila Norgate invited a small group of artists to create work that was at there edge.
This project began by thinking that my edge would be to engage with an artistic modality that I don’t normally work in. I decided that drawing was my edge, because it is not a part of my practice, yet seems so fundamental to art making, so simple. As I began, I couldn’t help thinking that my edge should be in direct contrast to what my process usually is. I usually begin with a previously researched concept. I then work this concept through textile methods and materials. I decided that for EDGE I would simply begin by drawing an object. I would work on paper with pencil. I thought at the time, this was a fairly neutral decision and that the drawing would be an exercise in looking. It was weeks into the project before I realized the profound choice I had made, both in modality and object.
As the weeks went by I drew my object from different angles, in different scales on different papers. I kept close to my initial commitment to the simplicity of drawing on paper, no research, no thinking, no context. I stayed just within the limit of my object - its' edge. I remained here until the day I decided to add colour to my drawing. I decided that what I was looking at were not simply lines rendered with my pencil, but shading and contour and colour. On this day I realized that I was falling off that outside edge and into that frontier space of the unknown. Unknown in some ways but glaringly obvious in other ways; this was a piece about – whiteness. In this moment I understood that the very intention of this work, the simplicity, neutrality, this objective representation of my seemingly very innocent object, embodies the mythology of something that I have been subconsciously waiting to explore, something that has been waiting at my periphery - my edge. What I saw in this exercise of looking was my identity as a white colonial settler.
Issues of identity are as fundamental to my practice as drawing is too representational art making. Over the weeks as I constructed this image, by just looking, I began the process of knowing myself as a Canadian white person. Working in a new way, I ventured into a new kind of space. In looking, I really saw Sweet Knees. This process of constructing the drawing became a metaphor for how gender, race, and class are constructed and how this seemingly innocent toy embodies the mythologies of white colonial power that are characterized by normativity, innocence, benevolence, banality and aversion to a direct gaze – an aversion to seeing. As a white settler, raised by white settlers, I realize that Sweet Knees and the process of understanding/looking at her is fundamental to who I am, what I think and how I act. This confirms my edge, which is working at that outside limit of understanding, waiting and willing to fall off and sticking with the trouble found there. Now that I am here, Sweet Knees will never look the same again.
This piece was created for a group show at Keep Calm and Carry on Gallery on Gabriola Island, British Columbia. The Galleries owner Sheila Norgate invited a small group of artists to create work that was at there edge.