New Work

For many months I have been collecting woolen embroideries from second-hand/thrift stores. Friend Carol has also been collecting for me - she has superior gathering skills.

They are being used for a series called 'Handwork' and are about acknowledging the creative work done in the private home, by woman - work with no value.

I take the embroideries out of their frames, always hoping there will be some provenance but there usually isn't. These are anonymous creative works.

They are washed.

I picked the 2 on the right....

...to make this work. It is about how the human eye is designed to look for a figure on a background.
 The male eye looks for a focal point in the figure while the female eye searches for all-over patterns.
This work is for the female viewer.

Banff Mountain Building

I caught this mountain man on his way back from his coffee break. Just look at all of the safety equipment he has to wear. He looks like a mountain climber.

I zoomed right in with my little point 'n' shoot camera (so not a good quality image) to get a closer look at conditions on top of the mountain they are building. The billowing orange tarpaulins indicate how strong the wind is, which would drop the actual temperature the body felt. The low wind chill factor means exposed flesh freezes in seconds. Whatever the conditions, whenever I looked up to the top of this mountain, I saw these men working. Sometimes I couldn't see them very well because it was snowing so hard but they were still working.

Try again

Opps, I think I uploaded just one still. Hopefully this second attempt is the whole video.

Nope, it doesn't work. I'll have to play around some more.

In the meantime, I must get back to my Opus work. I am reading about whether there is a way of seeing the world that is inherently male or female. A big question. I know there are differences so I am looking into recent scientific research on the topic of differences between the male and the female brain. If I can't find anything convincing then maybe the differences are cultural.