18 Feb Exploratory research – Part 1
FFF -> Labyrinths -> Cast Shadows -> Ariadne’s red thread -> Red Coat???
The Red Coat is the starting point and in an effort to stay experimental I’ll deviate wildly. I’m resisting the urge to plan. I’ve taken time to research red and coats. Thrown cohort image suggestions (thanks Brigitte, Bob & John) into the mix. I’m assuming these could end up as a load of photos on my blog (and that irritates me already) so I’m going to try and challenge my making habits and introduce/learn some new ones. I like the notion of playful interrogation.
This cheered me up no end! Here was a mainstream Pop artist I had never heard about. Nicola L explored roles in society, the body, female and the body as an instrument and object. The artist directs the coat, she is the choreographer. Strangers enter the coat and experience something. She calls her sculptures made a series called ‘Penetrables’.
Red flannel
Image pending, as I have to purchase some locally in ‘Sarah Curran’s Fabric Shop’ (and yes, that is the name over the door). I spoke to her on the phone, part interview part interrogation. I can only obtain ‘a foot by a foot’ (about 30cm x 30cm) as it is blessed by Bridget…. I’ll expand on this once I have it…. “you wouldn’t be giving this out to anyone, do you know why you might want it?” [gave answer] “yes, that’s exactly why, good girl yes I’ll see you tomorrow so”
Red flannel appears across many cultures as a curative fabric in folk medicine. In Irish, African American, Native American and Norse traditions red flannel is used regularly as a cure for rheumatism, lumbago and protection against the cold. A patch sewn into a vest for sore backs, wrapped around an arm in pain. It has a warming effect next to the skin. The looseness next to the skin, ‘causing a titillation’ draws blood to the skin. Slow conductor of heat. Other cures are evident in these parts, through people and objects made by healers. A sock filled with warm salt for a sore throat. Salt for cleansing. Blood mixed with butter and applied to a wound. I lent a book to a friend on local cures, that I am waiting to get back for further research here.
Coat – to add a layer. To cloak – to hide. Cloak – to pass the cloak, to transfer power, a signifier of the next successor. A cursing, a shame hidden. A garment of vengeance. Cloak as a metamorphic object that facilitates transformation.
Visual Donations from Brigitte 14th Feb
WIDE SHUT EYES-2 (part of series), Courtesy of Gustav Metzger Painting by the artist known as Arina, Oil on linen, 175 x 195 cm, 2008
Looking for patterns I found most of the paintings and pictorial images featuring women treat the subject as an object, affection, attraction, power dressing . Any men in red appear in positions of power, bishops, military. This link is an interesting collection https://artsandculture.google.com/color?col=RED
Irena Orlov 
Karl Borhmann 
Karl Borhmann
I dreamt, Bob asked if I dream, A waking image – red coat and standing stones. A boy comes to play. The feminine and the masculine. Janus. I made coffee and returned to bed with notebook 7.02am. The cat visits. Red maw of her yawn. Looking about the bedroom I gaze upon the walls. The Fortune Teller by Mark Bourke. An ink copy of a Rembrandt – a sleeping girl. Oil impasto paintings of a dense thicket in a wood. They form a triangle. There are two round mirrors and a rectangular one, also forming a triangle. This is where I am, is this where I am going? I need a compass, a compass enables one to find a direction to follow. Making will have to be the compass.
Today’s jumbled splurge ended with me buying some fabric: red Irish linen, beige cotton canvas, an A6 notebook and a bag of dead sea salt. I also went to see an exhibition – CHAIR: Mary A. Kelly. Post to follow.