BAMBI BREAKSTONE MEDITATIONS ON MOURNING

BAMBI BREAKSTONE MEDITATIONS ON MOURNING September 23 - October 23
My work contemplates the contrast between living and the void. I developed a method to begin to consider the inconceivable. What does it mean to be here, what is now, what remains?

My process of tearing strips of cloth, sewing them piece-by-piece, and repeating this action focuses my mind into a meditative state. Tearing cloth is reminiscent of the ancient practice of rending a mourner’s garments during a funeral. This rending represents a profound expression of pain and anger at death. I then embed the resulting cloth forms in wax. Black wax reminds me of the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, where tar trapped and then preserved the bones of thousands of animals, as well as a young woman, during the Ice Age. As a child this place gave me my first awareness of the finite reality of life, the concept of time, and my place in the continuum.
As the work has evolved, it has become increasingly a conversation between materials. The arrested flow of the wax seeping into and preserving the fragile cotton cloth. The wax bringing the illusion of permanence to the cloth. While seemingly solid, both materials are subject to the elements and the erosion of time. The ephemeral quality of the material is central to the work.