While researching open calls and artist opportunities online, I stumbled upon the Fabric Workshop and Museum. It’s located in Philadelphia and having read a bit about it, I vaguely recall seeing it from the street, considering its proximity to Reading Terminal Markets, and wanting to visit, but have not yet done so. In any case, I was browsing their website when I stumbled upon one of their former artists-in-residence: Jim Hodges.

Hodges is an installation artists from New York, and among his work are pieces comprised of artificial flowers. The work that I saw featured by FWM was You (1997), a large, mostly white with some color, veil made from sewn together silk flowers.

As a lover of flowers, I found it immediately striking and pleasing to the eye. I was delighted to discover that it was displayed at the 2019 Philadelphia Flower Show, though I can’t recall if I attended the show that year.

In any case, as part of my mother’s donation of arts and crafts supplies, I have a bunch of artificial flowers. They are in a sizable box at the moment, taking up a lot of space on my studio floor and I have been looking for a way to use them. What I started doing was taping the flowers to a string of lights to hang around the bookshelves in my living room, but I wasn’t quite satisfied with this application, if I’m being honest. I have also been thinking about incorporating them in a quilt/banner that I have been thinking about, but it’s not strictly necessary that I use those flowers, since I can also create my own appliques out of fabric.

So! I think I will deconstruct my unsatisfactory flower light garland and create a work inspired by the work of Jim Hodges.

I really like this idea but I’ve got a bit of a sticking point. I don’t just want this to be a mastercopy, I would like it to actually say something or be transformative in some way. And I’m not entirely sure that having already come up with the how of the implementation that I can genuinely and authentically arrive at the why. I think this point of actually saying something with art has been a tricky subject for me for a while. I was raised to appreciate representational art, which I think sometimes demands less of us. You see a painting of people celebrating a triumph or experiencing grief and you can more or less understand what the artist was intending with the work (this is a wild oversimplification, but walk with me here, Camera Guy). With abstract art, I have a hard time “getting it.” I’m trying to keep an open mind and have been reading more about abstract and installation art. But as an example of something I saw at the Guggenheim earlier this year, I just don’t understand how a blanket on the ground on top of some bumps has a particular meaning, regardless if the fabric colors echo the colors of the photograph on the adjacent wall.

I will continue educating myself on the subject because while I don’t feel drawn to abstract art, it’s undeniable that there is usually meaning behind it, even if that meaning is “everything is absurd and nothing matters!” (Dada, I’m looking at you). The reason I’m so interested in exploring this is that while I primarily create representational art (the thing looks like a real life thing that I’m trying to depict, pardon my mostly self-taught art history knowledge), I want that art to say something beyond being a rendering of a beautiful view or composition, though I often feel drawn to paint those too.

In the case of this floral veil, which of course reminds me that my actual wedding veil, (made by my mom! <3) has artificial flowers sewn into it, I am wondering what it can say beyond being a beautiful object or beyond being a mastercopy.

But that box of artificial flowers has got to be used!

So let’s take a look at Jim Hodges’s use of artificial flowers.

By all accounts his work often deals with time, love, and fragility. These themes pair well with flowers and he uses them often in his work. There is a contrast between the fragile look of artificial flowers and their actual longevity when compared with real flowers.

I haven’t managed to dig up much about You, the 1997 floral veil installation that started me on this whole Jim Hodges rabbit hole, though I did find an old photograph that indicates that he used a sewing machine to put the thing together, which is not what I had planned to do with my version.

That said, based on what flowers represent, what we know about his larger body of work, and the title, we can perhaps surmise that You is an ode to a loved one.

With these puzzle pieces connecting I have an idea for the floral veil I will be creating with my artificial flowers. Other than hand sewing it, I’m not yet certain how to distinguish it from the work of Hodges. Perhaps I’ll add some beads to it to use those up too? We shall see.