The House with the Golden Windows, East Wall. (about 5 feet wide )This post is a continuation of that trunk show series I started last fall, just after speaking to the Pomegranate Guild in Toronto. Putting it up on my blog gives me a reason to photograph older pieces in digital format. It's been slow going.
When I spoke in Toronto, I just took the East and West walls of my HOUSE but there are four walls altogether, each with an inner and an outer side. North and West are click-able.
The outside of the house is made from women's decorating magazine papers. I suppose they represent our some day dream house. There is a certain time of day when the sun’s reflection makes windows go golden and magical. 
machine stitched with miles of thread, the outer wall was then distressed in the dryer. 
House with the Golden Windows, East Wall from the inside. The inside windows were my view from the windows of our home in Kenora. I took one photo a day for one year from whichever window seemed best on that day. There weren't many photos from the East facing windows, as our view was blocked by the large house next door.
It was just lucky that the neighbours chose that year to replace their major appliances, and leave their old ones by the back door for months. I made this cloth and paper house for my BFA graduate exhibition from Lakehead University in 1993. It was then shown four more times over the next few years.
The House with the Golden Windows, 1993, machine stitched paper and photos, dyed canvas, hand embroidery, shown as installed in A Space Gallery in Toronto in 1994
10 comments:
Her it is again!...such a personal and mesmerizing piece...and I still want to know how the paper (photographs actually?)...you mention weathering in the text here....do you mean they crack? Did you use any special kind of paper other than the original snapshot paper itself...transfer it? Anyway, I would love to see these on exhibit all together, maybe with your rug of days as a path (not that people should walk on it (maybe covered with translucent plastic) on the floor leading through the exhibit. it's all so wonderful!
The size and scope of your work is truly amazing, Judy!
I am constantly amazed by the sheer body and size of your work! 1993 and creating such large story cloths (I love the use of womens magazines and photos...the dream of your own home, filled with the dazzle of furniture and fittings from those magazines. Perfect)
Jacky xox
a very interesting and relevant piece; the more you tell us about it, the more layered it becomes, timeless; building nests, making a home, noticing things others don't, womens' work
Fabulous. Your work, your blog, is such an inspiration for me!
I have the same question as Ms. about the paper.
i like the way you use your intelligence.
the images of outside tree in view of the outside stove really hit me. connected the natural source of stove, cooking, heat, the tree as material of house, warmth, even glow like the sun on the windows.
love the thread embedded images, as if miles and miles of attention embedded into those fantasy pictures... nice paradox in all directions.
laughed you took only two walls of your house. what if the North wind was blowing that day, you'd have no protection. ; ) made me think of impromptu forts as a child.
OK
I would love to answer the question re: the paper.
This is a canvas house shaped piece of cloth with dye in the 'roof' area. Onto that I placed in a traditional sunlight and shadow pattern, pieces of paper that I carefully cut from glossy magazine paper. Then I stitched them down. Then I put that cloth with paper stitched to it through the dryer.
THEN - I stitched the actual film photographs that were processed at the drug store, but cropped to be just 2 inches or so square - to a piece of cloth. I made a pieced frame, added buttons, added embroidery (solar imagery) and then attached that piece of cloth with photographs stitched to it, to the back of the first piece of canvas.
There are two golden windows then.
The outside looking in.
The inside looking out. It's just that the inside one is real life - banal and beautiful.
I'd love it if some art gallery or museum would purchase this house. What will my children do with it?
Thanks for your support. I appreciate it very much.
This is just amazing. It really strikes me that the outside is 'a house', maybe any house. Generic even. But looking out this is a specific house. With specific views. This is just amazing me this morning! Thank you Judy.
this is the kind of stunning work I have come to expect from this blog. you are an amazing artist, Judy... thanks for the additional detail about construction. it does make me want to try something (smaller) along these lines.
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