Blue Motor Mollusk

In my effort to prepare for a show in March, I have been scrambling to come up with compelling imagery for new photo weavings of engines and plants.  When I saw this engine at a Pick 'n Pull in Richmond, CA, I was struck by the bright blue color and how it hung, suspended, in the gutted out blackness beneath the car's hood like an octopus emerging upward from a great abyss.  Have you ever seen a blue engine?  I sure haven't.

I then mirror imaged the engine in photoshop and combined it with imagery of succulents. The mirror image effect is interesting to me in many ways.  Not only is the symmetry pleasing to the eye aesthetically, but the symmetry gives the engine an insect-like quality. As nature and technology are fused together, a writhing, organic life is breathed into cold machine components.  It is a marriage of stems, leaves, tubes, and bolts, giving birth to a hybrid creature which is part machine, part plant.

Photoshop test.  Click on image to enlarge.

After showing this image to my boyfriend, he gave me some very good feedback.  He thought the circular image in the middle looked too face-like.  Like a grinning caterpillar.  I agreed that it was a bit "too much".  What if I squeezed the engine image together more to fuse the two eyes into one single eye?  I did some readjusting in photoshop and the result was far superior creating a more ominious creature.  Now the engine resembled more of a squid beak as opposed to an Alice in Wonderland caterpillar.

After hours of cutting and then 10-11 hours of weaving, I was finally done with this monstrosity--the largest weaving I have ever created (30" x 60").  



THE FINAL WEAVING

"Blue Engine", 2012, Woven Photographs, 30" x 60". CLICK TO ENLARGE

"Blue Engine".  DETAIL.  Click to Enlarge.

"Blue Engine". DETAIL. Click to Enlarge.