Virginia Mahoney: Fragments (Project Space)

I’m a saver of things—parts and scraps of my old destroyed artwork, remnants of the past.  The impulse to mine my own history, to save the seemingly worthless for future use, is perhaps a sign that hope still exists, that another series can materialize, with the right amount of focus and effort.

I have spent the past few years on a project (still ongoing) called “Holding Thoughts,” in which I memorialized the contents of my old sketchbooks in an intensive revisit of earlier times in my creative practice and life. Turning to these fragments feels like a natural extension of that work. Indeed, I see the two as deeply interrelated. Kingston’s Project Space has created an opportunity to step in this direction without abandoning the other. 

These objects became what they are over time. There are hints of their identity, but no true reveal. At their core are the shattered remains of pottery, saved shards of large ceramic vessels that defined my practice long ago (and taught me how to be an artist). Experiments with wire to mimic and respond to a shard’s configuration created structure around the clay fragments, expanding ideas and inventing new, quirky characters. The paper pulp, made of mixed papers from a long teaching career, obscures what’s left of the art. This personal archaeology of memory, content, and ideas destroyed, saved, and recycled—these ethereal, obscured, altered forms—feel akin to the misty thought processes of our brains.

Hands working with materials can direct one’s thinking; the physical interactions of making prompt a stream of thought. Process begets ideas as well as objects, about which we ask ourselves, where did this come from?

The discovery of meaning from work that is ambiguous takes place over time, often expanding beyond the “completion” of the work. I’m not saying that this work is completed, but it is in a space that beckons observation and critique.