1.
Mimi Czajka Graminski
Logs and Lace
Mimi Czajka Graminski
Logs and Lace
- Cut logs with lace stencil patterns
- Dimensions variable various sizes (approximately 1’x2’x1’ each)
- Each log will be anchored to the ground with rebar posts. No maintenance required.
I am interested in the many paradoxes that exist simultaneously in our world – fragility and strength, transparency and opacity, vicissitudes of memory, beauty in flaws. In Logs and Lace, I juxtapose heavy logs with delicate lacy patterns. Trees felled in a storm gave me an abundance of raw material and I use the cut logs and combine them with lace stencils to create an installation that honors both the trees and the lace makers. I begin with the delicacy of woman-made intricate patterns, deriving strength from the hundreds of interlocking stitches, an homage to women’s labor. I use found lace as a stencil to apply patterns to the rough-cut logs. The work speaks to the balance of nature’s creative and destructive forces. A tree weathered by a storm enjoys new life as lace blooms across its severed branches. Like memories, the patterns fade and dissolve over time.
I pay tribute to the lace makers, their labor and the energy they imbued into each stitch. Their lace has outlived them just as the logs will outlast the intricate stenciled patterns on them. I honor the fleeting and enduring quality of both women’s labor and the natural environment.
The logs are various sizes (approximately 1’x2’x1’) and will be anchored to the ground with rebar. The photos show different possible formations. However, the work will be site specific and will be determined at the time of installation. When installed it will be sited to honor and complement the tree under which it will be located as well as the landscape of Lyndhurst.
Mimi Czajka Graminski lives in New York’s Hudson Valley. She works in many media exploring light, color, and movement. Recent exhibits include those with Inspiration Art Group International at the Hudson Valley Museum of Contemporary Art and Arts Westchester. Exhibitions also include those at Cornell University, Lockwood Gallery, Window on Hudson. She currently is showing work at Bla-bla Projektraum in Berlin, Germany and Odetta Digital online and in Connecticut. She has received many awards and has been invited to residencies in Iceland, Finland and the UK. Her work was recently highlighted in the EcoArtSpace blog as well as the Dutch magazine Textiel Plus.