Vigil

CF + Tracy Crisp, Wake, 2018. Letterpress on cloth, blanket, chair. Printing: CF. Text & textile interventions: Tracy Crisp.

Exhibited as part of Collaborative Variations, Gallery 1885, Adelaide, Australia, 14 November – 20 December 2018.

“Curated by Simone Tippett, the exhibition explored the possibilities of collaborating. Adelaide artists paired with regional South Australian and interstate artists to make collaborative works, against the odds of distance, time constraints, travel and very busy lives. Collaborative Variations explored the nature and form of the relationships that grow from making work together (often despite great distances), with the results evidencing the integrity, intimacy and friendship of each unique collaboration, and each pair of artists finding new ways to make work, despite all odds.” Mei Sheong Wong, 2019, Print Council of Australia blog.

I grieve.
I grieve, I cry, I scream.
I sleep, I wake, and I still dream.

Tracy and I have been online friends for a long time now, from back when we both blogged. Tracy is now a published writer, a performer, and a funeral celebrant. When Simone invited me to collaborate with someone from South Australia, I jumped on the chance to play with Tracy. We’ve met twice now, both since I pitched this project to her. Once in Adelaide, and once in Canberra. We’re both a little shy about IRL meetings. We are both good at keeping ourselves busy away from people. And we both have a strong interest in exploring grief.

Tracy sent me words, a bunch of them to choose from. I had a hankering to print on fabric. I was heading to the UK to do a quick and dirty printing residency (which resulted in We are Lost) and en route I found some sheer fabric at a little market in Santander, Spain. I bought a length of it and threw it in my bag, just in case. Happily, the print workshop at University of West England, Ashton Bower campus, has a wonderful quantity of large wood-type, larger than anything I have access to in Australia. So I pulled out the fabric and had fun playing with the entire pressbed as a matrix. The fabric was very slippery, and long, but I managed to get something I was happy with. I took it back to Australia and sent it to Tracy, who, poor thing, was lumped with everything else: bump in and bump out.

The best part of this pairing was the chance to share ideas. We both loved the various rituals of grief in different cultures: opening windows, sitting vigil, washing the body, holding loved possessions, silence, keeping the hands busy, having a wake.

I feel like this is just a single moment in our collaboration. I hope we get to extend it in another direction.