Oddments

2021 - present

Oddment
noun
plural noun: oddments

a remnant or part of something, typically left over from a larger piece or set

“As this wave of memories flows in, the artist soaks up like a sponge and expands. A description of the artist today should contain all of the artist’s past.” -Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

For many years, in my studio and in several public installations, I have been fascinated with visual and conceptual connections in my work that I made 40, 30, 20, 10 years ago and what I seem to be attracted to making now.

Since 1980 I have made site-specific installations and have periodically pulled individual pieces from those projects and placed them beside objects intended for other purposes (found) and projects, taking all out of their original contexts. The first time I publicly placed out-of-context objects was in 1984 in the large attic gallery space at Nexus Contemporary Art Center, Elizabeth Lide: An Environmental Installation.

“She created a city comprised of work constructed in the past.” -Xenia Zed and Alan Sondheim, Elizabeth Lide: An Environmental Installation. Art Papers, Sept/Oct 1984.

The most recent public display was in 2022 in a small installation representing 40 years of projects in the exhibition New Lamps for Old, curated by Tom Patterson.

New two-dimensional pieces play with these same ideas, using small remnants, old and new, and floating them on heavy handmade papers, alluding to the boundaries of a table or a room. My collection of natural objects, picked up here and there, the inclusion of scraps from past projects that trigger memories, my current and evolving gardens, and the use of natural materials, as red clay, egg shells, and acorn ink, often contribute to these pieces. Some drawings record personal sadness, terrifying occurrences and politics of our time, made in the safe, quiet, meditative space of my studio.