Project: Letters to

This projects consists of a book work (and a few prints) which use Franz Kafka’s Letter to his Father as a starting point for the imagery. These images are centered around our own understanding of what constitutes place: where we fit into the world physically and emotionally. This perception is coloured by emotion, and the memories attached to both where we are, and where we wish to be, or not be. Letters to grew out of this discrepancy between memories of places, and changes to the nature of the space, seeking comfort in memory. Letters to also came from the woven nail sculpture I have been working on—something at once both comforting, and disquieting; in a way, the repetition of the work involved in creating such a piece, of the repeating nails, is itself an escape.

Kafka’s Letter to his Father is written about his home and childhood, and the unhappiness recalled there in the relationship with his father. The images taken from the sculptures grew into a dialog between the text and the nails to create more sculptur oriented work. The images are grittier, and the text deteriorates—Kafka’s work, and mine, is about real people, rather than any kind of perfection.