Georgeann Schellenger

“Being creative is not so much the desire to do something as the listening to that which wants to be done: the dictation of the materials.” Anni Albers, “Weaving in a College” n.d.

 

I create abstract narratives examining internal and external landscapes referencing both a poverty of spirit and human poverty inherent in that which is cast aside or flawed, and finding beauty there. I am gripped by the unnoticed or overlooked. American artist Barbara Bloom stated, “When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something’s suffered damage and has a history, it becomes more beautiful.”

 

Often informing my work, my photographs of barbed wire, broken windows, and rusted, abandoned cars represent decay, fragility, and the neglected. The sacred resides there. I explore the mystery through the process of mono printing, screen printing, and painting on cloth utilizing fiber reactive and natural dyes, discharge, resists, and thread.

 

Each piece is a reflective process, an intuitive meditation, which evolves and unfolds with sensitivity to materials. Cloth and stitch embody the eternal feminine. Texture, line, color, and gesture are pathways visually creating an opening into the unknown. The human hand and the marks generated tell a visual story, the layers revealing a history of mark making, experiences, and introspection.