May – hannalie taute

Ah, well into the month of March and since March was named after the Roman God of war, I thought this picture with a toy gun is appropriate, (not that I am a fan of war) but as Alice Walker wrote in the book: The Colour Purple: “A grown child is a dangerous thing”

In the studio I am “fighting” with unfinished pieces, admin and time.

I recently had an encounter with a beautiful animal (seal) when I went for my daily swim in the Goukou river and afterwards a friend told me that I should regard it as a sign to “go with the flow.” So while I concentrate on going with the flow…I’d like to tell you about some exciting things that’s coming up in the next 3 months:

1….

“Stitched” (part 1) a group show is opening on the 24th of March at the Paradigm gallery in Philadelphia USA! Three of my works will be shown alongside some amazing artists using embroidery and stitching techniques in their work. It’s the first time that my work will be seen in the USA and I am super excited to be included in this show.

*Please contact sara@paradigm-gallery.com if you would like to be on the digital collector preview list for this exhibition.*

2…

In April I will be participating in “A Visual Requiem for Judith Mason” a travelling group exhibition..

….a tribute to celebrate the art and life of Judith Mason who sadly passed away earlier this year.

3….

For the month of May: I am in the process of getting my work ready to ship it to the Netherlands for the Rijswijk Textile Biennial 2017!

I will post some images of the work soon, but for now I’d like to leave you with this quote by Patti Smith from her book: Just Kids, which I finished reading over the weekend:

“In my low periods, I wondered what was the point of creating art. For whom? Are we animating God? Are we talking to ourselves? And what was the ultimate goal? To have one’s work caged in art’s great zoo’s – The Modern, The Met, The Louvre?

I craved honesty, yet found dishonesty in myself. Why commit to art? For self-realisation, or for itself? It seem indulgent to add to the glut unless one offered illumination…..

I wondered if anything I did mattered…..?

Robert (Mapplethorpe) had little patience with these introspective bouts of mine. He never seemed to question his artistic drives, and by his example I understood that what matters is the work: The string of words propelled by God becoming a poem, the weave of colour and graphite scrawled upon the sheet that magnifies His motion. To achieve within the work perfect balance of faith and execution. From this state of mind comes a light, life charged”

Behind April comes the goddess Maia. Her father was named Atlas, and it was supposed that the weight of this vast round world on which we live, with all its mountains and oceans and deep mines, rested upon the shoulders of Atlas. He had seven daughters who lived in a mountain, and Maia was the most famous of all these seven daughters because of her son Mercury, who ran swiftly from Heaven to Earth on errands for the gods and goddesses. Jupiter, the father of all the gods took Maia and her sisters and placed them near together as stars in the sky. the cluster of six stars called the Pleiades is supposed to be Maia and her sisters. The seventh star of the cluster is invisible. It represents one of the sisters who married a man named Sisyphus, and even had been condemned to roll a stone up a hill eternally, she has hidden her face with sorrow. (from an encyclopaedia)