A Room of One’s Own, Accumulating Weight

I recently finished A Room of One’s Own for the first time. There’s so much more to say than this initial post but in the midst of several funding applications I am reminded of two of so many phrases that hurtled towards me.

“That collar that I have spoken of… bowed my head to the ground.“

A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf (p.5, Vintage Classics)

This physical manifestation of worry or preoccupation is a concept I’ve ruminated on for some time. The Daily Journeys We Wear is an overarching concept for my present art practice. The notion being our lived experience can be manifested in wearable sculpture, portraits that enclose, cage, guard or amplify us.

I am developing a new series:

Worn: A Battleground.
Exploring what we carry with us.
Accumulated weight. An armour of sorts.

Worn Weft Weary. A trio.

Vestiges of an emotional battleground, artefacts.

I like the sense of a trio emerging here. They’ll be several stances forming a group I think. The W words are textural and a ripe starting place as specific words often are for me.

“A nugget of pure truth to wrap between the pages of your notebook and keep on the mantelpiece forever.”

A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf (p.4, Vintage Classics)

I loved this phrase from the moment I read it. That preciousness and the idea of a gift of words. A weightiness too though that can be burden like the previous collar. It is writing I want to write and the pressure I feel to find such writing when deadlines loom.

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