The Nightdress of Mrs Dai Bread One and Mrs Dai Bread Two

This piece featured in Lyrical I at Mission Gallery. It explores the duality of language in the mother/lover split.

“Well, if you say you haven’t, you’re a prude, if you say you have you’re a slut. It’s a trap.”

The Breakfast Club, John Hughes, 1985

 

“The mother-lover clash creates so much misery because it is unexpected and very deep rooted.” (Postnatal Depression, Vivienne Welburn 1980: p.13)

 

The Nightdress of Mrs Dai Bread One and Mrs Dai Bread Two

Scrunched and letter stamped Fabriano paper and stitch

Laura Bishop Reynolds

An exploration of the mother/lover split

The seams are where we are joined together and ripped apart – the text sited there is the language of duality, where the exact same words, spoken by the exact same person, are changed by the context of the relationship; where physical contact is experienced differently according to this context, where the overlapping of the sexual body and the biological body occurs (Kristeva).

 

MA Fine Art show

Making up for lost time

So, I finished my MA and now have a
Masters in Fine Art. Here’s what you’ve missed (or rather what I haven’t had time to add, until now…)

Period drama

Period Pants and Period Pyjamas mock ups in progress…

Two Weeks in Bed

Giant adult feeding spoons

‘Help Me’ 

Inspired by Victorian baby feeding spoons these oversized adult feeding spoons, made from sheets of rolled clay, textured with wall paper, each spoon is individually drawn into the clay, cutting out over antique spoons, and imprinted using letter stamps to deliver messages to the one being fed. 

 

Unconditional Love?

This is a development on from my Unfinished Prayer Cushion series, the crocheted bunting is constructed in the style of my handwriting, using one continuous thread, reading ‘I will always love you, as long as you don’t commit genocide’ because everyone’s got limits, right? This could be seen in terms of familial, romantic or parental love, questioning where would you draw the line? How would it feel to be the parent of a fascist dictator? But there’s also an element of dark humour here, as it’s such an unlikely incidence! The bunting was hung for a day outside a church on a main road in Swansea City Centre and remained there to be found by passers by.

Unfinished prayer cushion #2 and an experiment in abstract expressionist knitting

Unfinished Prayer Cushion #2
I’d rather be having sex
Cheeky, inappropriate, ironic, a contradiction within itself, the red writing in a dashed handwritten style, takes time to render neatly in stitch. The experiment in abstract expressionist knitting holds similar contradictions, knitting a painting, paint a quick, passionate, splashable medium. Knitting is a slow, considered process, most often hand knitted items are usable and made for others, but not in this case, it is a slow experiment with colour and texture to knit an abstract expressionist painting.

Lazy update

This is the first test piece, now glazed, ready for a second firing before a final clear glaze can be applied.

Lazy

Work from yesterday, first ‘Lazy’ spoon rest test piece, part of my experimentation with words and phrases on domestic kitchenware…