During the worldwide health crisis, I like most people, am doing as we were advised to do by the health professionals, staying in-place to prevent the spread of the virus. For me, that means working alone in my studio. (Well, not totally alone, my dog Izzy is here providing her much appreciated emotional support). Anyway, I have spent most of the last couple of weeks doing the finishing touches on the drawings for some digital prints, posting images of them on my website and Facebook page, packing up the molds of my recent sculpture so they are ready to ship and now writing this post. I almost didn’t write this post, but then I decided it was better to concentrate on being productive and positive rather than the opposite. I will admit all of this wasn’t an easy thing in this time of uncertainty and concern. Staying focused and trying not to worry is definitely easier said than done, as you all know.
Izzy my studio buddy.
As fate would have it, the digital prints I needed to finish in my studio were from my YinYang Series. This series began as an exploration of what I saw as ‘so Chinese’ when I was living in China a few years ago. As I was working on it, it became evident that it was really about the concept of dualism, or the theory of YinYang. The idea of how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent. This is so much a part of this culture’s way of looking at the world and is something to think about in our global community. While I did the initial drawing back then, I have been stalling their translation into digital prints. This was due to their number, and never seeming to find a focused period of time to deal with them all. But now that I have the time, I have become mentally ready to revisit my Chinese experience.
The YinYang Series is a series of thirty paired images. Each pair expresses a concept hinted at in it’s title. For example, Community concerns how all life forms, whether it be humans or bees, have learned to work together for their welfare and survival. Community 1 was inspired by a human-made cave dwelling while Community 2 was inspired by a beehive that was incorporated into a stone formation, I saw just outside of Beijing at different locations. Both the cave dwelling and the beehive struck me due to their visual similarity and the fact that they demonstrated tight-knit communities through it’s form and function.
The images below are just a few pairs in the YinYang Series, but the rest can be seen on the digital prints page on this website. The titles for the images in this post in order from top to bottom are; Elements 1 & 2, Farm 1 & 2, Job 1 & 2, Kart 1 & 2, Kind 1 & 2, South 1 & 2 and Vegetation 1 & 2. While I got started by telling you the inspiration and the thinking behind Community, I will let you decide for yourself what you think the inspiration and idea behind the rest of the paired prints are.
The molds I packed up were of my recent sculpture, Counting Sheep, Moon Rabbits and Community Spirit, as well as Farm Labor and Bear Hug. I have mentioned in my biography (on the artist page of this website) that Counting Sheep deals with the interpersonal dynamics of groups and that Moon Rabbits play off rabbits’ inherent form and mythical ideas surrounding these animals. But my latest sculpture, Community Spirit, is making its debut in this post. It communicates the gentleness of spirit of lambs and their desire to belong to a group or environment. Like all of these sculptures, they work visually alone as well as in groups, expressing different concepts. Farm Labor and Bear Hug are earlier works that I am now casting. I had gotten away from casting for a time due to living overseas and travel, but have once again started casting in earnest. That being said, Farm Labor honors horses for their physical strength, vitality and the labor they perform while Bear Hug expresses concerns surrounding the effects of global warming. All these sculptures will be shipped out of the studio when it is safe so they can hopefully be cast in bronze by this summer. I am scheduled for two Solo Exhibitions, one here in Connecticut and one in Vermont, and then we will have to wait and see how the situation evolves. You can see images of the plaster casts of these works of art below. They are presented in the above order both alone and in couples.
Note: If you would like more information about my casting process, I have a process page on this website under the menu listing (serigraphy, digital printmaking and casting) on this website.
A final note, I will update this post with news about the progress of the castings, about my Solo Exhibitions dates, my galleries re-openings and the next serigraphic print. In the meantime, I wish you all a safe, productive and positive month!
Kathleen Zimmerman