a sentence we've all used... a sentence we've all heard...

the 3rd banner is finished!



this banner is actually a re-vamp of an earlier version i'd done in school- minus all the kinks and flaws in the design. :)

i'd become attracted to cliches- their importance within our culture... how they could be used to identify members of a culture...
how a cliche could actually function as "common ground"... a statement that could cross the divide of difference and bring people closer together... offer a place where real discussion could take place because, with the help of a cliche, we might actually feel understood by The Other...

and i've been thinking about cliches ever since...



Dear John, Dear Jane
Crocheted LED Banner
angela simione, 2009


we've all heard these words. we've all used them.
this banner asks the viewer to finish the sentence, make the cliche specific, personal... fill it up with your own heartache, your own losses, your own wishes.

the banner project moves forward... again

anonymous
angela simione, 2009


a crocheted L.E.D. sign in honor of the Anonymous Girl(s) series of paintings and drawings...
and sorta autobiographical as well.

the banner project moves forward...

detail

i started this project during my senior year in college when i slipped one of the disks in my back (twice) and was laid up, flat on my back, for a solid month: no walking, no painting, nothing. but, in my prescribed vicodan stupor, i was more than able to lay back on the couch and twist yarn.

everybody at school loved these and, though i think of them as banners to be hung on the wall (big ol' L.E.D. signs), a great many people ohhed and ahhed at the prospect of wearing them. i'm still not sure how i feel about that... i mean, these guys take an awfully long time to make.

anyway, a few weeks back when i was getting completely depressed by the onslaught of dreary, grey, rainy, winter days, i picked the project back up. i had been reading sylvia plath's Ariel, again (HA!), and was totally taken in by the last line of her poem Sheep in Fog:

"Starless and fatherless, a dark water."

yes, yes, yes... that's me too.

i had originally planned to embroider the entire sentence on the banner but i got stuck on that word 'fatherless'. such an odd word, rarely heard, and entirely, intensely sad. autobiographical in more ways than one...



fatherless
6" x 74"
crochet
angela simione, 2009


it's realized in the bastard stitch, my favorite stitch, also known as the afghan stitch- a cross between crocheting and knitting- and another fine level of conceptualism. :) the reverse is completely backed so that the beauty of the stitch itself can be fully appreciated and adored. my sweetie thinks i should sell these but i honestly have no clue what i'd even charge for something like this. it takes a super diligent week and a half to make just one.

p.s. that's my big, green backyard. :)