The Kitchen Sink

 

There is something profound about the kitchen sink.  It seems odd to say this of a seemingly mundane entity which carries the loathe of daily life's chores, mostly for women.  (My husband, bless him, helps out most nights, when he is home, because I've done so many dishes during the day that I am done by evening time.) 

The sink, whether in the kitchen or laundry room (as pictured above), carries significance.  Our daily lives, 0ur seemingly mundane tasks, carry significance.  Abstracted, highlighted, and placed in a different context, we are able to see anew what lies beyond the surface.  

Over the sink, we have time to think.  Our thoughts connect us to the divine as the water runs and we wash and the grunge is washed off and sinks down the drain.  I placed my word, freedom, over my sink, wondering {and deciding} that this place was holy.   



To see the sink literally in a different context, as artist Ann Agee has done through her installation in the picture at the top of this post, sheds light on the work of women {by means of the artist} exemplified in its true essence.  As my friend Anna expressed recently, "... I understood why people write fiction - you can FREELY talk about what is under the surface.  It can be more true than nonfiction.  Similarly, for me abstract art is more true than realism, because it tells the deeper story, 'what's essential.'" {"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye" is a quote from The Little Prince that a group of us Art Journalers were discussing online.}

Ann Agee's work plays with historical conventions of decorative and fine art, as seen through contemporary eyes—the white porcelain quotes both the eighteenth-century English porcelain, and chinaware found in second-hand stores. The resulting body of work resembles a range of fantasized objects that tell the artist's daily life, which is inseparable from her art. The gallery space is transformed into partly a replica of the artist's home studio where all the pieces are produced, and a hybrid market place. Stenciled floor-to-ceiling scrolls reproduce parts of Agee's home studio in unrealistic, bright colors. A jumble of white, flowery sculpture-objects in porcelain cover large tables. Figurines represent daily life activities, from gardening to street protesting, children studying, and the artist modeling her pieces at the wheel. Some are kept under glass domes, while smaller porcelain objects are stored in jars. Hand-made shoes, dresses, and steel chairs, among other things, complete the tableau. A hand-made catalog advertises the objects on show, most of which bear the Agee Manufacturing Co. stamp, as a signature of the artist's "production". Quoting the artist, “for the sake of the labor, and the freedom to make variations,” she will carry forth concepts and motifs that continually develop in unforeseen ways. The resulting body of work resembles a range of fantasized objects that lie between the ideas of usefulness and decoration. On the walls, Agee’s large-scale paintings on paper often function as a backdrop for her installations by depicting the space of her Brooklyn studio—a creative cacophony in which all the pieces are produced. info

During the Thread Painting workshop I recently took, we had plenty of time to talk about art, and found a common love for fibers and beads and such.  Liza Lou's Kitchen was mentioned, as she covered the whole scene in beads, as seen in the sink above.  It's beautiful.  Liza Lou is known as the Queen of Beads, whose world is glittering.


"A splendid introduction to an artist whose devotion to her work
produces environments so dazzling they verge on the miraculous."

I believe art can transform our vision.  I believe art has the power to change how we see.  I know it has happened for me, as I click away, urging my camera to capture fragmenting views of the sink that has become an altar space {an alter place}, a holy place, where I spend plenty of moments of my days. 

Why not honor it as venerated?