Landing Lights

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Hanging sculpture/artists book
Digital drawing on paper, machine cut lettering, wood, cord.

60 x 70cm

2023

Responding to the needs of an infant child in the dark; being in the house more during maternity leave; watching the seasons change by the light filtering in through windows during pandemic lockdowns; these things have informed Landing Lights. Being shown for the first time at a show with (M)other Collective in Manchester in January 2023, this hanging sculpture takes the form of a window blind. A digital drawing is based on observations of light filtering through the slats at a window and this has the words from a poem cut into the concertina-ed printed paper.

A close up of a sheet of grey paper folded like a concertina, with words cut into it. Only the words closest to the camera can be read.

The work can hang as a window blind, with the opportunity for it to interact and cast shadows with the light in the exhibition space or be folded up and wrapped as though it were a scroll. As with many of my artist book works, they are a maquette for an installation and a way of thinking about an idea within a personal, controlled space.

A grey rectangle of concertina-folded paper has the following words cut into it: My heart awakens first. Its beat back-tracked by the wailing melody that echoes from down the hall. I fight the adrenaline and, as the smooth cold enters my toes I begin my flight. Stumbling, I transit from one exhausted state to another. My fingers tiptoe against dark walls. White ribbons of landing lights guide this journey, night after night after night. I wrap a layer around me, to keep the chill from entering - to recreate the enveloped comfort of sleep - before unwrapping and parting layers to create the smallest gap where I press his warm whimpering voice to my breast. Silence rests, the beat slows. The score is written across the walls by the observant street light. The bars in the window frame a phrase of time that I am learning how to dance to. Leafy shadows, a foxtrot beneath the gaze of the lamp post. Winds worry me, weaving under and through wooden limbs. The silhouettes promenade across the walls inviting me to dance freely. I sway. In a repeated two-step, side to side to side. A warm palm thumps my chest, awakening the knowledge that, for now, I must lead him in close hold as he learns the steps of sleep.
The paper from the previous image is folded tightly into a long thin concertina, bound by black strips of wood and silver cord.