SCREENS

It came to me as a question at night. It might have been very early. I was a mother of young children, so I was up at night mothering. I had started cross stitching six months earlier as a way to do art. I was using my recently passed grandmother’s supply of needlework floss and fabric. I could work out some ideas that i had, some visions. i was getting back in the flow of art and connecting with my artist self.

It started as a musing. Zoning out on a window screen. If I died, my soul would go through the screen and my body would stay on this side. One side of the screen was containing my physical self, while my soul, my energy could flow to the other side.

The question stuck with me. Enough that I wanted to see it. So I bought a roll of window screen and mapped out an image of my child. I caught him on that screen.

I continue to work with the idea of a screen as a divider, as a metaphor for skin.. We are part of a universe, divided by our skin. What does that feel like? How does this skin divide us? We label it, sort it into races, try to classify better and not worthy like grain. But we are not grain. We are people and we are also souls, energy that can connect beyond our skin.

Philosophers and theologians can put this idea in to clear words much better than I can. I can put the idea into physical form. The idea of oneness, of separation, and connection.

My work connects to the soul. My work connects souls. The screen is the place it happens.