Early in April 2001, I found several spider webs among the shrubs covered in dew. Ideas emerged. I associated the dew drops with tears, with the fluids released when tensions disappear, according to Louise Bourgeois.
I observed the working spiders continuously redoing their webs with enviable efficiency.
A few days later I got involved with knitting with transparent yarns and thick needles that I had devised. I worked with the building of meshes without foreseeing the final result. I had to knit a lot, repeating every gesture continuously for hours on end.
At times I had the feeling that time was suspended and the intense involvement allowed the surfacing of memories and emotions. The making became work.
The first modules emerged and shortly thereafter I began a series of observation drawings by recording the overlays of threads, knots, wavy and continuous lines. I used several types of nibs and pens with different inks. These variations generated special interest because of the subtle differences that occurred in the lines.
The eye fixed to the meshes, to that which is already built, captures the course of the threads and the hand translates them into ink on paper.
Once assembled, the produced modules acquired a characteristic of drawings in space. There was a complementation, a mirroring of both productions.
Then knitted objects appeared, others in crochet, put together with seams and lead threads. And the series developed further with etchings, dry point and painting on canvas.
Paintings, engravings, objects and artist’s notebooks were produced in parallel.
January 2017
www.mariavillares.art.br
