Garment Forms
Since the fall of 2002, my work has focused on sculpture that includes garment forms, specifically women’s bodices and corsets. These garments were familiar companions during the 27 years that I studied, performed, choreographed, and taught ballet and modern dance. The costumes I wore were typically built on a boned bodice, much like corsets. Even the more lyrical costumes for modern dance traced the shape of the torso, allowing every nuanced gesture to be entirely revealed.
Construction methods reference traditional corsetry (boning, casing, lacing, and eyelets). Canvas replaces historic coutil, allowing surfaces to be painted with oils and/or wax. Meanwhile, the shapes, colors, imagery, and textures suggest autobiographical as well as political content. Embroidery spills from flayed linings. Interiors are theatres, ribs are rooms, and wounds are geodes. The corset forms are at once elegant and decayed, commanding and fragile, lyrical and fractured, sensuous and deteriorated.
The corsets are part of larger architectural environments. One small corset hangs within a gallows/stairs form. The construction of the gallows references Frances Bacon’s method of positioning figures in architectural spaces with minimal brush strokes. In two recent experiments, a corset is paired with a 9’ embroidered vessel form, while another corset hangs between needle shapes that project from the ground. The organic bodice, Chamber, is suspended in a starkly angular cube.
These life-sized sculptures are forged by traces of emotional and narrative experiences – attachment and loss, connection and abandonment, exhuberance and limitation, cohesion and rupture.
Chamber. Back view.
48H x 18W x 15D.
Oil on canvas with photomontage, silk organza, Swarovski crystals, #14
Japanese seed beads, thread, gimp, muslin.
2003
Chamber. Front view.
48H x 18W x 15D.
Oil on canvas with photomontage, silk organza, Swarovski crystals, #14
Japanese seed beads, thread, gimp, muslin.
2003
Chamber. Detail, front.
48H x 18W x 15D.
Oil on canvas with photomontage, silk organza, Swarovski crystals, #14
Japanese seed beads, thread, gimp, muslin.
2003
Chamber. Detail, side.
48H x 18W x 15D.
Oil on canvas with photomontage, silk organza, Swarovski crystals, #14
Japanese seed beads, thread, gimp, muslin.
2003
Corset form #4. Front view.
19H x 13W x 11D.
Oil on canvas with photomontage, silk organza, Swarovski crystals, #14 Japanese seed beads, tulle, thread, muslin, gauze, metal hooks and eyes.
2003
Corset form #4. Back.
19H x 13W x 11D.
Oil on canvas with photomontage, silk organza, Swarovski crystals, #14 Japanese seed beads, tulle, thread, muslin, gauze, metal hooks and eyes.
2003
Corset form #4. Detail, interior.
19H x 13W x 11D.
Oil on canvas with photomontage, silk organza, Swarovski crystals, #14 Japanese seed beads, tulle, thread, muslin, gauze, metal hooks and eyes.
2003
Gallows
77H x 48 W x 40 D.
Steel, wood bolsters, oak .
2003
Gallows. Front detail.
20 H x 15W x 13D.
Oil on canvas, silk organza, gauze, thread, metal fragments.
2003
Gallows. Back detail.
20 H x 15W x 13D.
Oil on canvas, silk organza, gauze, thread, metal fragments.
2003
Corset Form #3
2003
Corset form #3. Front view.
27H x 17W x 17D.
Oil on canvas with photomontage, silk organza, Swarovski crystals, #14
Japanese seed beads, tulle, thread, muslin.
2003
Corset form #3. Back view.
27H x 17W x 17D.
Oil on canvas with photomontage, silk organza, Swarovski crystals, #14
Japanese seed beads, tulle, thread, muslin.
2003
Corset form #3. Detail, back view right.
27H x 17W x 17D.
Oil on canvas with photomontage, silk organza, Swarovski crystals, #14
Japanese seed beads, tulle, thread, muslin.
2003
Corset form #3. Detail, back view left.
27H x 17W x 17D.
Oil on canvas with photomontage, silk organza, Swarovski crystals, #14
Japanese seed beads, tulle, thread, muslin.
2003
Corset form #3. Detail, back view left and center.
27H x 17W x 17D.
Oil on canvas with photomontage, silk organza, Swarovski crystals, #14
Japanese seed beads, tulle, thread, muslin.
2003
She was spared the banality of perfection.
Cotton cheesecloth, hide glue, oil glazes, wax.
65H x 58W x 33D.
2002
She was spared the banality of perfection. Detail.
2002
Traces #1.
Cotton cheesecloth, hide glue, oil glazes, wax.
Garment form: 30H x 15W x 11D.
Armature: 72H x 21.5W x 18D.
2002
Corset Form #1. Front view.
Cotton cheesecloth, hide glue, oil glazes, wax.
Embroidery: tulle, thread, muslin.
Garment form: 35H x 16W x 15D. Armature: 72H x 32W x 17D.
2002
Corset form #1. Back view.
2002
Corset form #1. Detail.
2002
Traces #2
Cotton cheesecloth, hide glue, oil glazes, wax.
Embroidery: tulle, thread, muslin.
72H x 27W x 24D.
2002
Traces #2. Detail.
2002
Corset form #2. Side view.
Cotton cheesecloth, hide glue, oil glazes, wax.
Embroidery: tulle, thread, muslin.
Garment form: 31H x 20W x 18D.
Armature: 79H x 36W x 20D.
2002
Corset form #2. Front view.
2002
Traces #5. Front view.
Cotton cheesecloth, hide glue, oil glazes, wax.
Garment form: 20H x 14W x 14D.
Armature: 72H x 20W x 20D.
2002
Traces #5. Back view.
2002
Traces #4. Side view.
Cotton cheesecloth, hide glue, oil glazes, wax.
Garment form: 20H x 15W x 15D.
Armature: 72H x 20W x 20D.
2002
Traces #4. Front detail.
Traces #3. Back view
Cotton cheesecloth, hide glue, oil glazes, wax.
Kneeling form on plexiglass base: 16H x 24.5W x 15.5D.
With stand: 59H x 26.5W x 17.5D.
2002
Traces #3. Front view.
2002
Inheritance
Fiber and Mixed Media Installation
2002
Inheritance focuses on loss, displacement, longing, and memory through
the lenses of refugee women and the visual artist. Photojournalists
have given us images of many populations that have been displaced during
the past century. I often think about women who are suddenly packing
their families belongings. What do they take with them, what must they
leave behind? And what do I value? What remembered moment, emotional
response, solitary musing, or significant interaction becomes the impetus
for artistic response? How does the specific narrative or emotional
event - deeply explored - become a vehicle for content of universal
significance?
The title, Inheritance, is a reference to the image of a child who takes on the hand gesture of her mother - a visual metaphor for the psychodynamics of inherited emotional responses to loss and trauma. Vessel forms hold objects that one might take on a journey, or that a child might carry in a coat pocket: a yarn doll, string balls, a photo of the childs father, stones, potatoes, a musical instrument - objects that also have significance in my personal narrative. One life-sized vessel is empty. Identifiable yet abandoned garment forms suggest that our responses to loss - historical and contemporary, remembered and here-and-now, narrative and emotional - are organically related, congruent, and emotionally immediate.
Inheritance was made possible in part by a FY 2002 Career
Opportunity Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation
by the Minnesota State Legislature and a grant from the National Endowment
for the Arts.
Installation view #2. 2002
Ladder form, painting #5, garment form #4.
2002
Ladder form.
12 feet H x 24/36 W.
2002
Ladder form. Detail.
Mixed fiber with oil glazes.
2002
Debris at base of ladder.
Includes RR ties, RR spikes, shirts, shoes,
yarn doll, stones, unraveling yarn ball.
2002
Painting #5.
28 H x 16 W x 1.5 D.
Oil on canvas with photomontage.
2002
Garment form #4.
36 H x 9 W x 14 D.
Silk organza, oil glazes, wax.
2002
Vessel form with yarn balls.
26 H x 14 W x 6 D.
Embroidery, oil glazes, yarn balls.
2002
Painting #1 (installation size variable).
Painting #1 detail (painting).
34 H x 24 W x 1.5 D.
Oil on canvas with photomontage. Silk organza shirts.
2002
Painting #1 detail (shirts).
Silk organza, oil glazes, wax.
2002
Painting #2.
28 H x 16 W x 1.5 D.
Oil on canvas with photomontage.
2002
Installation view #4.
2002
Painting #4.
24 H x 18 W x 1.5 D.
Oil on canvas with photomontage.
2002
Vessel form #4.
83 H x 25 W x 25 D.
Cotton cheesecloth, oil glazes, wax, in wood construction.
Contains found and artist-made objects.
2002
Interior of vessel form #4, containing yarn balls, candles, photographs, watch.
2002
Garment form # 2.
25 H x 14 W x 10 D.
Silk organza, cotton cheesecloth oil glazes, wax.
2002
Garment forms #1 , #2 , #3 .
2002
Painting #3.
12 H x 10 W x 1.5 D.
Oil on canvas with photomontage.
2002
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Photos: Petronella Ytsma