Primo Levi

I have loved and worked with lead for a long time now. I love its qualities of softness, malleability, color, its low melting point and the "mood" it exudes.

Primo Levi, the Italian Jewish chemist and writer, wrote the unique work, The Periodic Table (1975), linked to qualities of the elements, which the Royal Institution of Great Britain named the best science book ever written.

His essay on lead has always moved me, and I find it particularly appropriate to my project.

"There and then I found a hammer and a curbstone and showed him how easy it is to fashion it into slabs and sheets; then I explained to him that with the sheets, welding them on one side with a red-hot iron, you could make pipes.  I told him that wooden pipes for example, the rain pipes in that town Sales, leak and rot; I explained to him that bronze pipes are hard to make and when they are used for drinking water cause stomach trouble, and that instead lead pipes last forever and can be joined together very easily. Putting on a solemn face, I also took a random shot and explained to him that with a sheet of lead you can also line coffins for the dead, so that they don't grow worms but become dry and thin, and so the soul too is not dispersed, which is a fine advantage; and still with lead you can cast small funeral statues, not shiny like bronze, but in fact a bit dark, a bit subdued, as is suitable to objects of mourning. 

Since I saw that these matters interested him greatly, I explained that, if one goes beyond appearances, lead is actually the metal of death: because it brings on death, because its weight is a desire to fall, and to fall is a property of corpses, because its very color is dulled-dead, because it is the metal of the planet Tuisto, which is the slowest of the planets, that is, the planet of the dead. I also told him that in my opinion, lead is a material different from all other materials, a metal which you feel is tired, perhaps tired of transforming itself and that does not want to transform itself anymore: the ashes of who knows how many other elements full of life, which thousands upon thousands of years ago were burned in their own fire. 

These are things I really think; it is not that I invented them to close the deal.  That man, whose name was Borvio, listened to all this with his mouth agape, and then he told me that it really must be as I said, and that that planet is sacred to a god who in his town was called Saturn and is depicted with a scythe."

Slow . . .

There is slow stitching, which seems to be making a return these days, but there is also SLOW PRINTING . . .

I wanted to print text on a sheet of lead, and used my die tool to do so. But in order to get nice straight lines, I had to build a jig first.

It was worth the effort:

Tomorrow the page will be finished and I will post a better picture of it.

A little teasing . . .

I'm preparing the different platforms to the stage where they'll be ready to receive their text. But that's not going to happen until later in the process. So, rather then not posting at all in the meantime, I will show you the progress of the platforms. This will give you a chance to attach an emotional value to what you see. Comments welcome!

The Maze

An explosion of . . .

The Drain

About the project

Eleven years ago I was diagnosed with debilitating clinical depression. After two years I started climbing out of the hole. I learned letterpress printing, bookbinding and making artists’ books. Several years ago I started forming ideas for an installation about depression.

Statistics[1] show depression

· affects over 18 million Americans belonging to any gender and age;

· is the leading cause of disability in the U.S. for ages 15-44;

· affects twice as many women as men

· is seen by 55% of Americans as a weakness to be dealt with personally. (Alarmingly, more than 50% of men and women are quite embarrassed to seek professional help once they have been diagnosed with clinical depression).

Creativity is a basic instinct and the release of creative energy is essential for mental health in any person. The process of creating art and the final object are a form of communication between creator and observer, with the resulting object being the conclusion. In most of my undergraduate work I have found the process almost more interesting than the end result, for in a number of cases it has proven to be a journey of self-discovery and catharsis. The subject of my dissertation was “A Necessary Journey – The translation of dealing with loss and subsequent grief into art”, written after my sister passed away. Depression is part of the grieving process, so I can draw from the extensive research I did at the time.

I want to translate emotions related to depression into visual elements, for people to witness and develop a greater comprehension of the many facets of depression. These depression statistics show that there is clearly a need for awareness regarding this neglected condition. Plus it is my way of getting back at the beast!

I would also welcome the opportunity to utilize these works in gallery exhibits to create a connection between the visual arts and their healing nature, particularly to profile the plight of people faced with debilitating depression and the benefits of the arts as an underutilized healing mechanism. After all, I use my art to purge or enhance my emotions.

As a base I am using the book. Then on top of, and embedded in these bases, 2D and/or 3D objects and text will represent various emotions. Text wise I intend to use, among others, quotes from other artists who have suffered, and worked through, their depression. There will be a series of books, open at “different chapters”, which represent the different stages of the depression. All this in black, white, and gray.

Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to the self - to the mediating intellect - as to verge close to being beyond description. It thus remains nearly incomprehensible to those who have not experienced it in its extreme mode 
- William Styron in Darkness Visible

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[1] www.nimh.nih.gov

Studio Residency at the Women's Studio Workshop

Yesterday I started my residency at the Women's Studio Workshop  in Rosendale, NY. For those of you who are not familiar with this concept:

Artists are selected through a jury process. The award includes on-site housing and 24 hour access to our studios. Artists are given a thorough studio orientation at no charge, but should be able to work independently. 

Open for artists to work for four to six weeks in any of our studios – etching, letterpress, paper making, silkscreen (paper or fabric), traditional black and white photography or ceramics. 

For a number of years now I have wanted to do a series of artists' books on the subject of depression, and I am given the chance by the WSW. I intend to keep a running diary of this process here on my blog. If you are interested, you can become a follower of this blog and you will then be notified when a new post has been added.

My workspace: