cloud

cloud shape

paint stain in form of a pinup

legs (with grass skirt)

figures

"Zarah In A Tree," mixed media on paper, 2008

"Departure," oil on canvas, 2008

Cut-out Doll (reposted)

The cut-out doll has no reference to an associated environment. The body is lifted from the house and place of origins, place of upbringings. Therefore, the body becomes the dwelling point. The cut-out doll varies from the paperdoll, who has interchangeable bodies/outfits. Paperdolls are often packaged with a paper house and accompanying captions detailing the history of fashion and place in society. Cut-out dolls are used in ritual as offerings or as a representative of spirits. They are a source of shadows dancing against projecting lights. We can project ourselves onto the cut-out. We can play make believe that we are someone else when playing with the paperdolls who have a story based on an already existing identity from historic sources. We relate to them having dwellings and the universally human aspects of their stories and can also romanticize from the unfamiliar and with the dress-up. They are grounded in and play out a narrative. We identity with the cut-out because it is modeled after a body. It is laid bare before us as a free agent/shape. I imagine it could lift right off the walls and jitter around, limbs flailing in the wind.
"Paperdoll 1," 2007, mixed media on paper; "Dolls from Make it Not Suck site III," 2007; "Golden," 2010, Acrylic on doorCut-out dolls are nomadic. They have no fixed setting. They are ghosts with images that flicker on and off of their shape against walls. Others have histories laid out along the body and in their clothing but only if they are defined with such details by the creator. I think about the figures in my artwork and how many live on a white ground. I tried making a few cut-out dolls with this tendency in mind. Making them as intentional cut-outs, I pasted a few on a construction site. Now they have a reference point that is temporary -they may eventually be torn down or the paper may start to weather and decay. Their environment begins to shape what they will become. When the walls get torn down then they will have a story. My cut-outs have portrait faces and wear clothing so they already have a fixed identity. In a way they are closer to paperdolls but change according to their settings. I considered the setting I pasted them on as I created them so they are suited to their environment. They are not a blank playing field as the traditional cut-out doll who is set up for various projections. I can't help but think how much the blank cut-out is associated with it's maker and it's shape modeled after the body shows how much we long to create from our image. I'm attached to the dolls I pasted on the street and care for their longevity. I have created more that are stored away until I lose site of them. And only in safety is this possible to lose track. I bring them out when I find a place for them. It is most likely they’ll end up being pasted into new drawings.
My drawings on clothing tags (see earlier posts) follow the paperdoll in the simple figure on white ground. Clothing left behind is another presence. Dresses are cut-outs from a figure and when worn and discarded become remnants of that person. Clothing tags itemize this presence.

I grew up in impermanent settings -constantly moving with my family and changing schools. I am pretty restless as a result. My art does not reference a physical landscape. The grounds are imaginary and psychological. The marks and planes of colour originate and extend from the body and as I abstract from the body, I move the figure toward landscape compositions. Bodies leave a presence or trace on landscapes, evident in every apartment or house I've lived in. In my dreams, all the places I've encountered combine and then fall apart into one white plane. Right now I am craving interaction with real landscapes outside of the city's generic shapes and that longing is coming through in my artwork. The body now takes form out of lines and shapes referencing trees and water. I'm painting imaginary landscapes from my head where a figure resides as a cut-out without a solid face and the presence of the figure is suggested by the landscape. Head to feet caught in the teeth of the landscape.

The cut-out also references family histories from those who are nomadic and uprooted. Their identity becomes something new, that has to be created from the absence of permanent dwellings and coming into new places. The cut-out doll is easily portable without a house or accessories to carry around like the paperdoll sister.
Another tribute to those who have been lost to history: paper figurines standing in for spirits who cannot be named.

A History of Monsters

I have been gathering up my resources for another exhibit on monsters..."A History of Monsters" part II. The late writer Gilbert Bouchard was so supportive of the concept of the 2008 "A History of Monsters" exhibit, at ArtsHab One, that he offered to write a catalogue and letter of support if I were to continue with the idea. He said it is worth pursuing and he'd put the fire under me and the other artists in the exhibit to develop the project into a more focused, larger exhibit. He wrote us a great preview in the Edmonton Journal. 
I write this as my pledge to commit. I am pursuing other directions at the time but think about this discussion with Gilbert often.

Artist statement I wrote is posted here: click on the "History of Monsters" header

"A History of Monsters" poster designed by Jodi Tychkowsky
Image from "Harness," by Caitlin Sian Richards, 2008

The drawing on the poster came out of sandpapered marks on washes of rapid draw ink on poster paper. I am working on drawings using a similar technique on clayboard and scratchboards where I can build up layers of paint and then scrape away through the layers until an image emerges. I then work into the image and reduce the areas for a strong graphic image. 


I am going to enlarge these monstrous figures into a new series about chicks and their familiars, nudes with masks, and women wandering in transparent jellyfish, angelfish fin dresses. Some women are birds themselves, posing infront of a classical painting of the famly's pet hawk, and holding taxidermy blue jays. Other women lie infront of the doorway with opium seed dresses, foxgloves, and disperse into the ink spills and eroded surface. I want them to be as elegant and slink by the viewer as this women with the harness and her dog. I originally wanted to title the drawing "night watch" as she appears confident harnessing power over and from her familiar. We'll see what happens.