Briana McCarthy
Art Practice and Supporting Work
The Veggie Cutter
The Veggie Cutter, 2023, acrylic on wood with air dry clay, 22 x 15 x 1 1/4 inch
The initial idea dump from a living doc I keep.
Sketch notes:
Woman cutting vegetables. Normal, every day chore & behavior. Wolf hanging from her throat - we must carry-on but the pain remains.
The jaws are crushing. There's blood on the cutting board.
She is looking down at what she is doing or her eyes are cut off...off the painting edge.
Huge pile of cut and ready to cut veggies - overdoing the task/ritual to try to ignore the wolf.
Grief is the wolf hanging from your throat, but you must carry-on.
She is cutting so, so close to her fingers - distracting/balancing on the edge.
OR
She has cut the huge pile of veggies & is paused, one hand on the wolf like she has just noticed it.
When choosing the wood, I knew I wanted something that would allow the figure to sit to the side or above, leaving a space to fill with the cut veggies.
In the chosen piece, I was drawn to the multi-levels of the surface. Considering it as a space my figure would exist in, it felt subterranean and other-worldly. This was further supported by the grain flow and the horizontal texture left from the saw blade when the slab was cut. I also liked the narrowing, pinch point that provided a transition point from veggies to mushrooms and helps enhance the sense of volume in the mushrooms.
Three of the source images I used. I took these myself and had potatoes for dinner.
Sketch notes:
-potatoes: plenty/hearth/home (the memories can feel toxic and damaging. they hurt)
-nightshade
-green toxic - green starting into potato flesh
-fungi - life from death - difficult to identify - edible and toxic often confused
Some anticipation or hope of transformation
-potatoes - association w/ daily tasks and normalcy. Caring for others, no time for one's self. Can be used to, or just naturally, hide the rot/damage/pain, therefore causing a toxic buildup of all those ignored, unresolved things.
-grief and feeling trapped or board/stuck/depressed
-continue the mundane because it must be done
-Blood drops on board and throughout potato slices & where they turn to mushrooms
-eyes not shown - is the character aware? self aware? avoidance of the issue. Attempt to return to daily activity and normalcy. Also, eyes hidden to show grief in many paintings, historically.
X...eels? There is something called potato eel worm. It kills plants by attacking the roots...potatoes attacked instead of green?
I have been writing poems or chants alongside my sketching. Thinking in the vein of folklore, the occult, and spells/rituals, this felt appropriate and helped me get into the overall feeling I wanted the piece to have. I had considered how to display this with the piece, or if I should. If I did, I think it would require moving even further toward the idea of a ritual object and carving out a small drawer or cubby to store the rolled poem in. However, the work being more representational and less artifact makes the addition of the poem/chant feel more accessory and less merged with the object.
Figuring out my color palette and taking mixing notes.
I chose to use air dry clay for the mushrooms because it dries overnight and is extremely light, so the mushrooms didn't weigh on each other and stayed firmly attached to each other and the piece. The downside was that the acrylic paint didn't always stick well to the clay and the mushroom were fragile to pressure and handling. In hindsight, I would have chosen a clay closer to my color palette to reduce the painting and touch up time.
The Veggie Cutter - Reflection
I feel that the materials and imagery of this piece were successful in portraying the idea of "other" and fringe/occult practices, transformation, and ritual.
The color palette, wolf image, use of live edge wood, and mushrooms all borrow from western expectations of folk and occult culture. The natural wood slab alludes to nature and natural cycles as I consider old rituals that were often born of nature and meant to control or appease nature. Unnatural skin tone and the partial face and body of the human figure denote an "otherness" and being an outsider.
The experience of painful, difficult transition, death and loss being one of the greatest transitions we experience as humans, is present in the elements of the work. There is a transformation from potato to mushroom: potatoes a plant of bounty, hearth and home but also a part of the nightshade family and can become toxic. Mushrooms, as well, can be edible or toxic and it is often difficult to distinguish one from the other: the process of transformation can feel devastating, but it is not a total obliteration of identity. Associated with decay, mushrooms start a new cycle of life from death.
The repetitive action of forming and painting all the mushrooms harkens to ritual action. We can consider daily rituals, such as preparing meals, as well as the sense of ritual drawn from folk imagery and natural materials. The act of ritual often has a goal of transformation or physical effect, which is represented in an action flowing into a physical transition, potato to mushroom, in the work.
8 Day Vigil: 9 years, 37 years, 70 years
8 Day Vigil: 9 years, 37 years, 70 years, 2023, acrylic on wood with sandpaper, cotton cord, and paper, 20 x 16 1/8 inch
I was, and am, very interested in knot lore and the use of knots. I began planning my ritual around the concept of knot magic, but that fell away as a focus as the ritual took shape. Here are the beginning stages of planning a meaningful ritual for myself that would result in a ritual object.
Sketch notes:
Knot Calendar
-a knot for each day since her death/illness
X-undo a knot each day I don't cry?
OR
A knot for every day I knew her & she lived, a knot for every day she lived, a knot for every day she has been gone
-her life - one color
-her life when I knew her - one color
-separate rope for how many days gone or a new color for that?
-maybe incorporate important dates w/ small wood circle paintings - eels on border or writhing in the image...they become less and less. painting becomes less clear. confusion.
Birth > marriage > Jeremy > Amy > Bri > grandpa passing > grandma passing > diagnosis > tumor stopped growing > grandmother >>>>Death
The Hollie Starling quote below is what put me on a firm path for this work.
Sketch notes:
Artifacts of grief ritual 10/30/23
-circles of wood w/ dark forests painted on them.
"By trying not to think about death perhaps we have lost the tools we need to live. I sensed there had been a pathway that had become grown over, and in writing this book that it might be cultivated for others who find themselves deep in the woods." - Hollie Starling, The Bleeding Tree
In fairytale and folklore, a lot of dark and dangerous things lurk in the woods. The necessity to pass through it, and the courage to do so makes the story. As I create work around my mother's death and illness and my grief, this is my step into the woods. I have grieved sporadically, unhinged and without structure. I have tried to stop the grief because normalcy looked like the path. Nothing can be what it was. There is a hole in my world. I will never not miss my mother. I will never not grieve, but maybe I can structure it in a way that is healthy and fulfilling. Mom is important to me. I want to keep her. She deserves to be kept.
-sand in the center, middle, and outer edge
-over 8 days ( the # of days from when she stopped eating to when she passed)
There are many notes from trying to figure out my mother's timeline. I kept forgetting dates and doing poor, incorrect math. It become very important to me to know the facts of her existence/journey and the time they added up to: it was something factual amongst the confused memories. I eventually chose the chunks of time that were most meaningful to me, personally:
-the length of vigil before her death (when we knew it was coming) was 8 days
-the 9 years she was with us after the diagnosis (in the grand scheme, the suffering was short. She had almost 9 years, mostly, stolen. Only got 9 years of being a grandma, something she was so looking forward to.)
-I got to have 37 years with her (Remove the outer edge because I get no more time. My grief is central and sharp.)
-her life spanned 70 years (Remove center because her grief is over. The cancer interrupted what should have been a much longer life. It stole her years of rest and restful joy.)
I spent time designating where sanding would take place based on the time spans and what those each meant to me. This decision will change through my sketch notes, ending up completely different than what is noted here.
Sketch notes, page two:
Concentric rings in the wood is a measurement of age and life. Circles are also infinite, as we hope existence is. As I believe grief is. As the cycle of life and death is.
Wrap a stick or something w/ the sandpaper to make sanding easier and allow yourself to follow the same path.
Video record some of each of these.at least one session each...maybe at the start and the end (day 1 and day 8).
Paint with a light hand. If we could still glimpse the wood rings through the paint in parts that would be nice.
Save all the implements and the sawdust. Maybe the dust is used in other work. Maybe it goes in a small urn, displayed below the pieces.
I chose the wood slices I did for this work because they weren't perfect circles, or very close: they looked like the shape of anatomical hearts.
I finally hammered out the final ritual details. Each day, over an 8 day period I would sand a full circle along the chosen sanding path for each noted year (9 passes, 37 passes, 70 passes). I ended the ritual with an intensive one day session sanding each month into the pieces as well (108 passes, 444 passes, and 840 passes). This reflected the intensity of the final day of the vigil.
Sketch notes:
9 years stolen
-dark/murky/disconnection/confusion
-outer edge sanded for late life being stolen
37 years with her
-complicated mother/daughter relationship
-difficult to know they way through
-no path, still beautiful
-sand out middle because I feel hollowed out and missing a piece
70 years of life
-large detailed trees, some semblance of a path
-simplified by time
-memory of the big moments
-clear timeline of a path
-sand middle ring because life was interrupted
Ritual tools
Use cloth that brushes are blotted on while painting forests.
Tie figure 8 knots - used for protection and safety. Infinity.
Oak - strength, courage. Mom's strength to carry on. Our courage and strength to carry on.
Chosen wood slices.
To keep track of the sanding circle count, I marked the stem of each sanding tool.
Sketch notes:
Sanding Ritual cont. 12/6/23
The image left most intact is that of the tangled branches, representing the span from Mom's diagnosis to her death. It has been the clearest reality, eradicating memory and becoming all consuming for the last 9 years, so it makes sense that it is no intact.
Looking at the complete removal of paint in the sanded areas of the pieces representing the time I knew her and her time on this earth, those missing bits start to shift from time stolen to representing greater impact. It should be apparent that 9 years is significantly less than 37 years and 70 years, but when your are in the mire of despair, it is difficult to reflect on that. Not only are you consumed with present survival, but looking back at what is past, knowing the future has no hope of resembling those times, is painful: a life interrupted.
As I come upon a year without her, I hope that the past I had kept at bay so long continues to return to me. I have been out of the tangled long enough now that I can welcome and cherish the good memories again. If each pass of sanding is a year, then the portions erased also represent impact and importance; the existence of a full life despite it being shorter than we expected.
Originally, I envisioned an intricate macrame piece that would hold and display the painted/sanded objects, however, it felt like it reduced the piece to decorative craft, distracting from the true intent.
I decided on a simple display that wouldn't distract from the works and included the sanding tools. This provided more evidence of the ritual.
Deep into the woods I go, no map, no string, no crumb to throw
At every turn the path is split, no escape by strength or wit
No tree keeps a blade made mark, no beam breaks the weighted dark
Heavy as soil, worms’ great pleasure
Close as the coffin made to measure
Thick as the lid, deep as the pit
Vast, endless, tightest fit
Deep into the woods I go, roots are strong but knowing’s slow
Seedling nurtured along the path: comfort, tears, care, and wrath
Cradled close, loved head to toe, set me free but please don’t go
Soft as moss beneath bare feet
Sharp as pain when stone they meet
Safe as the den, fraught as the night
Mother, daughter, love and fight
Deep into the woods I go, fresh and new and hope aglow
Verdant days and chirping nights, heavy heat, enduring light
Rain and sun and vibrant crowns, crisp and crunch and frost on ground
Gentle fall or violent storm
News and calls, thumb on thorn
Ice and snow, chill and wet
Catch your death, lose the bet
Sunrise, sunset.
The first poem, for the 9 years piece, was written before I started painting, but after I decided I would be painting forests. It initially served the purpose of putting me in the ritual headspace and setting the mood for the work, but as I sanded and the work felt less like pure lamentation and more like remembrance, I decided that each painting needed its own verse because they each represented different aspects of the experience. The ritual having been created with such heavy personal meaning, I felt the need to display the written pieces with the work to provide further context. They are on folded paper attached to the sanding implements so the work can be viewed without the text initially, requiring the viewer to touch the piece and open them. Some viewers will never open and read the poems, but further intimacy is a choice and I believe there is knowledge gained from handling ritual artifacts and tools.
8 Day Vigil: 9 years, 37 years, 70 years - Reflection
I'm not prone to ritual practices, so, since the power of ritual is in one's own belief, I needed to make sure I could believe in the ritual I was designing. When putting together the ritual, I became obsessed with getting the timeline and lengths of times correct: fact to cultivate meaning. The use of natural imagery and materials helped to that end: I can see and touch nature and it was here before we were part of it, so that mindset helped anchor the ritual to a source of power I already believe in.
The woods imagery, natural wood slices, black cord, and handmade ritual tools conjure folk and occult themes. Personal, homemade ritual leans that direction by its very nature, existing outside of society's expectations, but my aesthetic choices anchor it there more firmly.
Transformation is visible in the application of paint followed by the removal through sanding. Initially, this ritual was set up as a lamentation over lost and stolen time, hence removing portions of the painted images. As I completed my sanding repetitions, examining the wood grain and its warmth of color, the smooth shine as the ritual tool started polishing the wood and paint, it became a time of remembrance. While the specific transformation of my thoughts during the ritual aren't accessible through the visual presentation, ritual as a transformative action is.
Experiments
Painting Rings
Before working out the ritual for 8 Day Vigil, I considered painting all the rings of a wood slice. Counting the rings of a tree is how we determine their age and the conditions they grew in. The idea was to record my mother's lifetime, events represented by different colors, and gain a perspective on how much she had versus how mush was muddled by illness.
I still like the idea, but in the piece here, I kept kept seeing a parrot head, the central eye and the crack in the wood combined with the shape of the rings looking like a beak.
I also found it began to feel disingenuous because the rings were so small in some areas that I was guessing or I couldn't make a thin enough line with the paint. I have some wood slices with wider rings, but the intricacy and difficulty of the smaller rings would have a greater impact. The solution may be more thorough sanding for a smoother surface.
Here the paint has been sanded off and I carved out a number of the rings. The texture created, looking a bit like aged skin holds some fascination for me.