‘Narratives’ by Bonnie Stahlecker
Story-telling, in one form or another, is a common theme for the work in the exhibition. Many of the stories told here are internal monologs. When I first started using wet-formed leather, I quickly realized that the forms I was making were like vessels. There was an outside surface with a potential of inner space. The Story Within series manifests the dual nature of both domains. One can think of the human body as a vessel, encasing what truly defines us. The self-narrations that we are fond of telling ourselves are written on the pages of treasured books inside us.
The larger boat shapes came from the process. While working on the wall pieces, I would turn them upside down to insert the book-like elements. The forms were telling me that they wanted to be boats. At first, I resisted – until I realized that boats are another form of a vessel. The story turned into a journey of hope, of a story evoking travel into an unknown future. The smaller boats carry the message of possibilities also. They have an embryo of optimism protected for the journey. The likelihood that they can also be viewed as seed pods is not lost on the artist. Seedpods also carry the expectation of hopefulness into an unknown future.
With the installation, Towards the Other Side of Panic, I am featuring the empty boat hulls after delivering the promise. Universal stories are told through the books. The recollections we choose to evoke are illuminated in Remembering, Book One and Two. And sadly, the memories that are robbed of persons with dementia are revealed in the Forgetting books. So much so that on those pages, there are holes where the memories should be. Luck, Book One, Two, and Three are about recognizing the blessings in one’s life, and Yearning, Book One and Two deal with sentimental nostalgia.
