Artist Statement – Wire work

I came from two decades of being a UK Circus performer to the art world, curious to try my artistic expression in a new form. Initially I found working with ceramics, the opposite of the air borne flight I was used to, grounded me. Then a fabric weaving class threw up a host of reactions, the constraints of the loom, the backbreaking work and finally the teachers comment on how weaving historically was considered ‘woman’s work’. This, timed with the rise of the new feminist movement about equality, especially into todays fraught abortion focused times and my need to express some of my physicality, moved me to add a modern twist to bring the past narrative up to date. My curious choice is to weave and pierce with stubborn inflexible steel wire. It’s hard rigid form doesn’t loan its self well to weaving, I struggle with jigs and tools to form shapes that express my visions.

Women’s work has, in past times, been that using repetitive hand craft skills. I use these alternative materials to emphasize the difficulty of these pain staking laborious tasks.

Using steel wire that was typically considered part of men’s domain, I manipulate the metal with tools to weave it in traditional women’s style. I blend tender elements such as velvet and ribbon associated with women’s clothing in counterpoint to the rigid steel. I add wax to blunt the tips of the steel echoing the feminine practice of handmade candle making. Using these materials, I intentionally soften the appearance of the steel while maintaining its inherent strength, echoing the unequal role of women. I work with woven wall hangings and sculptures paired with wood. I started with works drawn from learned reality, my later works are becoming more conceptual, all deal with the struggle to formulate my feelings and empathy with what lies around me.

Working with these natural elements settles me into a rhythm. I endlessly repeat gestures: I pierce the wood, cut the wire, dip in molten wax, force into my drilled holes or bend around a jig loom– hundreds of times. Patterns and shapes emerge from these actions, decisions taken almost without conscious thought. Each sculpture consolidates gradually, sometimes a week will pass whilst my subconscious bubbles away solving problems, changing direction till I start again. Curiously this method of working is the same I used to make aerial acts in the Circus.

The energetic movement qualities I also discover in wire lure me to exploring the gesture. I aim to find its ‘backbone’, the essence of where the movement comes from and create that in wood. Pulling outward from there with wire, I draw in space the form. The metal wires are suspended and moveable, giving suggestion of breath. The sculpture’s echo with the energy of the wire, somehow reminiscent of a mini — tsunami vibrating in our midst.