Singing to the Difference: An Examination of Surface Strategies 2024
Celena Peet
Bio:
I grew up in a small town in Iowa, playing outside, making things, and reading voraciously. Many of the craft techniques that I use today were learned from my mother for 4-H projects, which ranged from sewing to embroidery to refinishing antique family furniture. Annual picnics to my great-grandmother’s farm were like treasure hunts for me, with the abandoned old house and outbuildings filled with discarded items from her past life. These “treasures” had served their purpose on the farm but were no longer needed once she moved into town and were a source of fascination and beauty to me.
As an adult living in Oakland, California, I produced fine art photography for several years. But as my photos continually grew more and more abstract and macro, I finally concluded that my work should be three-dimensional, rather than merely trying to capture images that conveyed that quality. My practice today combines a love of craft techniques and a fascination with the histories contained in found objects to produce works that question, explore, and expand the humble raw materials and techniques used to create them. I love to play with scale, use fiber in unexpected ways, and celebrate the new stories that can be told by exploring the improbable.
Artist Statement:
Making art lets me tell the unlikely stories that are in my head and express the tenuous connections that I see in the world and in disparate materials. Found objects fascinate me, both as representations of the people that used them when they were new and in the way their messages change as they age, break, and become imperfect through use and time. They inspire me to curiosity about their origins, the lives they had before they were discarded, and who lost or threw them away. My pieces focus on these everyday objects and show others the stories I see in them.
Craft techniques that I learned as a child feature prominently in my work. But by using these techniques in contrary ways to produce pieces that are neither functional nor traditionally decorative, I hope to explore the intersection of craft and fine art, of the “womanly” qualities I was supposed to gain in learning them, and the power I have gained to manipulate materials to create precise forms.
27 Cents
Mixed Media (wool yarn, found doll leg, plastic stuffing)
18" x 20" x 12"
$575
Work Statement
This piece sprang from repeatedly having doctors, when I complained of chronic abdominal pain, tell me that maybe I was just pregnant, which I was distinctly not. The title comes from the price of the perfect doll leg, found at a thrift store; the stomach shape was knitted from wool yarn and then felted down, and red spirals embroidered on the surface.
(W)hole
Mixed-Media (felt, reused sweater fabric, beaded trim, cotton rope, cotton cord, found doll parts, plywood, paint)
26" x 26" x 5"
$650
Work Statement
The equilateral triangle has mathematically “ideal proportions,” which to many symbolize harmony, integration, and strength. This piece was made for a show for which each artist was given the same wood triangle to use as a base for their piece. I created a triangle that may have holes in the ideal, but the snaking rope forms covered in a cozy hand-stitched patchwork of fabric fill the holes and support the overall shape; doll hands embrace the ‘imperfections’ and celebrate that one need not be ideal to be whole.
Sospitas
Mixed-Media (Felt Furniture Pads, Cotton Cord, Found Doll Parts, Plywood)
24” x 22” x 3”
$650
Work Statement
Sospitas translates from Latin as safety, health, and welfare, and reflects the feelings many strive for in making a home. The piece is made primarily of felt furniture pads used for moving, specifically 133 strips of felt, one more than the 132 square feet that make up the average bedroom size in US houses. They are stacked into a cozy shape, cradling welcoming arms and bright eyes from found dolls, and joined together with stitches like the stories and possessions from our past that we bring with us no matter where we move.
Greater Than or Equal To #11
Mixed-Media (reclaimed industrial copper o-rings, found fiber, binding posts, copper paint, paper)
14.25" diameter X 1.25”
$495
Work Statement
My Greater Than or Equal To series began with used copper o-rings reclaimed from my husband’s physics lab and my explorations in filling them with found fibers. In mathematical notation, a filled circle can mean ‘greater than or equal to’, which seemed an appropriate description of fine art created from used and low-value materials that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Series #11 uses a variety of blue textiles ranging from jeans to moving blankets to a rubber yoga ball to a martial arts belt; the fibers were folded and stacked starting at the bottom of the piece and the swirls and patterns emerged capriciously as more fiber was packed into the circular frame.
Greater Than or Equal to #13
Mixed-Media (reclaimed rubber bicycle inner tubes, reclaimed industrial copper o-rings, binding posts, copper paint, wood)
12.125" diameter X 1.5”
$425
Work Statement
Greater Than or Equal To series #13 and #10 (below), explores the effect of using a single material, reused bicycle inner tube rubber, to fill the circular frame; the rubber strips were folded, stacked, and rolled starting at the bottom of the piece and the swirls and patterns emerged capriciously as more fiber was packed into the circular frame.
Greater Than or Equal To #10
Mixed-Media (reclaimed rubber bicycle inner tubes, reclaimed industrial copper o-rings, binding posts, copper paint, paper)
6.75” diameter X 1.5” deep
$90
Exhibition Season:
An Examination of Surface Strategies