semi-daily musings from a sentimental fool.

now, focus.


Sunday, August 8, 2010

Know Thyself.









Mary Mikel Stump
Corsicana Home for Widows & Orphans
2005

wood, glass, thread, wooden spools, wire, found photographs








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"Know thyself'? If I knew myself, I'd run away!"
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

My grandmother was an orphan. Having lost their parents at a young age, she and her sister grew up in a home for widows and orphans in a small east Texas town. This work is about them.

She used to speak of blowing bubbles out of wooden spools as a source of entertainment, as toys were scarce there and when I found these photos from a girls' school in San Antonio, it made me think of how odd it is that these photographs - tangible residue of memorable experiences - were then abandoned and left to decay on the shelf of a junk store.
Memories are like that, really. They are held dearly, then let go - as ephemeral and fragile as the bubble in which they reside.

It is through the practice of art-making that I come the closest to knowing myself. Not the "self" that I want others to see, but the honest bits of self to which even I don't have access. Is it the fact that we are not self conscious during the creative practice or that we are so distracted by the task that we don't notice it coming out?
Either way, I'm grateful for the portal in and the time and inclination to go through it.

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