On the Line

Today's post comes to you from Aviles, in the north of Spain. I am here doing some work and on the weekend I had a little walk around the town. And I came upon a Gallery, called galeria octogono . But closed, because when I went by it was Saturday afternoon. So I could not call in and look around, or have a conversation with someone there. But there was a very interesting display in the window. In fact, it looked like white laundry hanging on a clothes line. Underwear, night shirts, and night gowns. But on closer inspection, I could see that every one items was in fact plastered, so the clothing items had been dipped in white plaster or something like that. And so carefully preserving the folds and gathers and textures. I am not sure if this really conveys in the photos, but imagine these are plaster versions of their textile inspirations. I believe this is by artist Diana Coanda, who has work currently exhibiting at the gallery (see link above, click on the name of the gallery to follow it, and once there, navigate to find current exhibitions link to see more photos of her work). I liked what I saw of this installation--It was really quite cleverly done.

So again, I find art in laundry. If you have followed the blog before, you may recall this theme is now a recurring one.

Laundry As Art

I have been thinking about domestic forms of art from time to time of late. And one of the areas that has occurred to me has its own symmetry and poetry is Laundry. "Laundry ?'" I can hear you saying... "What is that possibly about ?"

Well laundry, especially when involving drying laundry on a clothesline, offers an opportunity for creating a visual installation, albeit a short-lived one (because most people will bring the laundry in before dark, at least that is what I do !). And this installation might require a bit of creative thought too, because you have to work with what you have before you (unless you go find more clothes to launder to add to your "palette").

Anyhow, I chose to use what I had in the works, which was some kitchen and table linens. And I

have been thinking about color blocks, so I did not do anything overly fussy or fanciful with sequencing of the individual items, preferring to group them into blocks of color that had some strength in numbers.

And at the end of the life of one installation a new one of disorder

was created ! I like to think that this is what the clean items want

to do--get all crumpled and tangled up, a momentary chance of

free play before they get put into their place. Eventually, the individual subjects were assembled into the orderly neatly folded pile, ready to be taken to their waiting places. And there they wait until they are chosen to be the next towel to work in the kitchen, or the placemat for some night's dinner.

When I was in Santiago in March (around the 26th), I saw another art installation involving laundry. Actually I had seen the photo of it in a newspaper while flying to Santiago (they had local papers aboard the flight, I decided to practice my Spanish reading). I loved the photo, thinking that someone had done an amazingly life like painting of the folds in the cloth. When I found this exhibited at the Contemporary Art Museum (MAC) in Santiago, I was very surprised to see it was a real shirt, on a real line strung across the canvas ! And the backdrop was what was painted. It is called "Entre la cordillera y el jardin", which means between the line and the garden. I am sorry not to be able to find the artist credits, which I had in hand notes I now can't find ! Looked online too and no luck. If someone knows the artist's name, please post me a comment so I can provide proper credits.

It seems I am not the only person who sees potential for art in laundry !