Putting the House in Order
2016 - 2017 | MOCA-GA
“Elizabeth Lide looks for the profundity in small moments and common materials. Her work quietly acknowledges the beauty of things torn from their origins.
“Lide has long explored how the objects that surround us define and explain who we are. In Putting the House in Order, she recreates and rearranges memories, mining several pasts—of family, friends, and studio—in order to determine what has most influenced her life and work.”
– from Putting the House in Order catalog essay written by Barbara Schreiber
After organizing my studio and house, and taking off the top layer of unwanted stuff, I found my way to see and think more clearly. With fresh eyes, touching and seeing objects in my studio and house triggered memories and associations. I categorized and archived some of the objects, especially from my father’s family, whose members tended to collect things, from beautiful objects to the ordinary; these included my father’s collection of little paper towels neatly folded and stored in a plastic bag and the fabric cut from his pants when they were hemmed, neatly rolled and secured with rubber bands. Using paper pulp, plaster, and aluminum, I molded some of the “finer” objects—vase, tankard, jug, ice bucket, and pitcher—passed down from my grandparents and great-grandparents, strengthening them with my daughter’s hair and strips of fabric torn from an old blouse. Ordering space became a focus of my drawings, using grids to create metaphorical containers or drawers, repositories for samples, and suggestions of larger things out in the world.
