|
The search for a place in which happiness may be found is always a metaphor
for the search to recover a memory of happiness. (1)
Physical and emotional places, time past and time spent, memory and remembering
coalesce in Jim Hodges's poignant works. Hodges mines the ordinary materials
of our domestic lives, creating objects that signify desire, longing,
nostalgia, memory, and time. Souvenirs of our lived experience, Hodges's
works conjure memories, sustain narratives of place, or mark a moment
in time. According to literary theoretician Susan Stewart, "The souvenir
involves the displacement of attention into the past. The souvenir is
not simply an object appearing out of context, an object from the
past incongruously surviving in the present; rather, its function is to
envelop the present within the past. Souvenirs are magical objects because
of this transformation." (2)
Jim Hodges's silk flower cascades and wall sculptures, delicate silver
chain-link webs, mirror pieces, photographs of suburban homes like homey
snapshots, and other works are firmly grounded in the real moments of
our lives. Yet they are also gentle couriers for contemplation, enchanted
objects that function in Stewart's realm of the souvenir, storing memories
and signaling messages about lives past and lives being lived. The title
of this exhibition, Welcome, is poetic yet accessible-the keystone
of Hodges's work. It suggests his desire to welcome us all to our own
experience of material (often the stuff of our daily lives, such as fabric
or paper napkins), its cultural meanings, and the personal, intimate meanings
it may embody. In Hodges's words, his works are "an attempt to talk
about the bigness of things, the wonder and the greatness of all of life."
(3)
Ordinary materials such as paper napkins, silk flowers, or mirrors become
extraordinary through Hodges's transformations. Hodges's work is a diary
of his experience, a record keeping for which material is the vehicle
of remembrance. And as diaries, his works sustain memory and therefore
specific moments in time. Diary of Flowers is one of the principal
works from which all others materialize. Literally a collection of doodles
on small paper napkins, Diary of Flowers grows out of an ordinary
and personal act. Most of us doodle, perhaps while we talk on the phone
or daydream in meetings. By grouping together the napkins on which he
has doodled, Hodges activates a narrative we may "read" in his
intimate gestures. Because Hodges may recall when and where he made each
mark, and the marks may remind us of our own daydreams, the doodles' idiosyncratic
fingerprints in Diary of Flowers mark time and record memory.
Hodges's respect for material's multiple meanings reflects his loving
memories of growing up in suburban Spokane, Washington. For instance,
Hodges often works on the flower cascades with family members and thereby
forms a community of shared and lived experience, enriching his own art-making
life and in doing so, enriching the lives of those who work with him.
Similarly, Hodges's collaborative installation at the Kemper Museum, Untitled
(Mark), draws from childhood memories and his desire to gather others
into his artistic process. Hodges worked with schoolchildren of all ages
to mark their heights on a gallery wall with their choice of colored pencil.
The children then signed their names, thus making their "mark"
on the wall both in their signature and in their height. The signatures
and marks, a kind of doodling, not only indicate each child's body, but
also mark a moment in time-"this is how tall I was in April 1998;
this is how I signed my name; and this was the color that represented
me at that moment." Untitled (Mark) suggests the emotional
and physical accessibility of Hodges's materials and artistic practice.
Throughout Hodges's body of work, moving from one material to another
is organic-one material may suggest the viability of another. He has
been working with chains since 1989-longer than any other material in
this exhibition. Prior to the chain pieces, Hodges had been making "drawings"
of roses with Scotch tape and tar paper. His shift to chain developed
from serious thought about his and other people's reactions to the tape
and tar paper roses. Hodges began to view the works as too fragile and
so chain emerged as a viable material as he realized its metaphorical,
conceptual, and physical largesse. The silver chain represented strength
while the tape began to represent weakness. Hodges's attention to how
material functions in both nature and culture strengthened the chain's
material richness. He had traveled to Ireland and noted the lasting
artistic practices of lace and metalwork he saw there; he had spent
time in Seattle with his brother and remembered beautiful spider webs;
and finally, he had gone to a concert in which an enormous rope spider
web was part of the stage set. These collected memories are stored in
the chain webs. Chain spider webs also began to, in his words, "make
sense." They were beautiful and natural-spider webs in nature are
clearly sculptural and architectural-and, like the web at the concert,
they pop up in unexpected places.
The silver chain web pieces evolved into thresholds of silk flowers, which
in turn evolved into cascades of silk flowers such as In Blue,
which seems to float in space. In our culture, flowers suggest nature's
generosity, yet they are also associated with sorrow and joy, loss and
gain. At gravesites they are metonyms for mourning and love, yet are symbols
of life and lives lived; given as a present they are celebratory. Historical
depictions of flowers, such as those found in 17th-century Dutch flower
painting, represented horticultural sophistication and material wealth.
As theoretician Norman Bryson notes, " The simultaneous perfection
of so many flowers from different seasons banishes the dimension of time
and breaks the bond between man and the cycles of nature. Which is
exactly the point: what is being explored is the power of technique (first
of horticulture, then of painting) to outstrip the limitations of the
natural world." (4) Similarly, Hodges's silk flowers transcend time's
passing. They will never wilt or die. Hodges understands how material
simultaneously has meaning and produces meaning. Through pieces such as
In Blue or Every Day, Hodges suggests that various cultural
and historical interpretations of flowers (or any material he chooses)
intersect with the personal meanings we may attach to or discover in his
works.
Like those 17th-century Dutch painters, Hodges erases the boundaries of
linear time and space. In Blue provides a gossamer membrane between
two invisible places which may be emotional places or simply the passing
of one day to another. Like a photograph of a loved one, In Blue constitutes
a presence and an absence; it physically exists, and yet may stand in
for the absent loved one. The longed-for reunion with the loved one-the
remembered experience-is at the heart of these objects. In Blue's
nostalgic beauty may resonate with our culture's overwhelming losses to
AIDS. Thus the presence and absence of the body that the flowers may represent
constitutes a solemn grace and a quiet rapport with those still here and
with those who have left us. Yet, like all of Hodges's work, the flower
cascade's tender beauty is permeable, thus encouraging multiple interpretations
and personal stories. As Susan Stewart notes, "The acute sensation
of the object-its perception by hand taking precedence over its perception
by eye-promises, and yet does not keep the promise of, reunion."
(5)
The various materials that Hodges uses jell into intermingled ideas of
material-domestic, ubiquitous, and nostalgic. Pulled from his memories
and experiences, the series of photographs titled Our Simple Selves
suggests a nostalgia and respect for middle-class America that we find
in all of Hodges's work. Walking around his hometown of Spokane, Hodges
noticed the ways in which people adorned their houses to personalize them.
Through this simple yet important signal of personal identity within suburban
America we define ourselves not only for ourselves, but for neighbors
and passers-by. Our Simple Selves (Blue) encourages the viewer
to find narrative and artistry in something as common in middle-class
America as homes, and to realize the significance behind such a seemingly
simple act as painting one's house. Hodges's photographic method-the effect
is that of the domestic, documentary family snapshot rather than the artfully
rendered photograph-furthers his emotional claim in the territory of common
and homey material. By photographing these houses, this way, Hodges again
suggests how meaning is constituted in everyday life.
Hodges's latest material is the mirror, perhaps the material most laden
with cultural symbols. Why choose it over any other material he finds
in his daily landscape? According to Hodges it is a direct way to explore
the rich associations we make with another everyday material. For Hodges
"mirrors offer more questions than answers," and learning
to live with the questions rather than knowing the answers is one of
life's lessons. Working without cynicism or hidden agendas, Jim Hodges
activates layers of meaning within his works. Meaning exists on the
surface of the objects because Hodges accepts the already-existing ideas
we attach to material. Yet in making the objects, Hodges embeds in them
the personal ideas and memories we bring to the materials we come into
contact with every day. By handling ordinary material as the scripting
of a lifelong diary, Hodges creates mementos that are elegiac tributes
to the lives we live.
Dana Self
Curator |
