Today, I would just like to remind everyone that my current piece is not about Third Reich Germany or World War II. When this piece is complete, it will be a beaded replica of the Banksy pink car which is located on Brick Lane in London, England. You can learn more about it HERE.
When I saw that car in April, I imagined what it would look like in a semi-beaded future. Remember that the future cannot exist without the past, and my bead-embroidered shipping crate represents mankind's 'writing on the wall'. The prisoners in my beadwork are reminders of genocide, which is the worst possible crime on the face of the earth. At first I thought perhaps I'd be criticized for incorporating these images into my piece, but then I remembered that creating art involves taking risks. I chose these particular images because I feel that everyone will understand them, and also because mankind must never forget the past.
In my last post, I had mentioned the possibility of adding more numbers to the wall, and others have suggested adding the colours of the Nazi concentration camp badges. Well, the beads have spoken, and I am not going to do this. The first thing I want viewers to notice are the faces because the human face has the ability to communicate without saying a word...
What do the faces tell you?
When I saw that car in April, I imagined what it would look like in a semi-beaded future. Remember that the future cannot exist without the past, and my bead-embroidered shipping crate represents mankind's 'writing on the wall'. The prisoners in my beadwork are reminders of genocide, which is the worst possible crime on the face of the earth. At first I thought perhaps I'd be criticized for incorporating these images into my piece, but then I remembered that creating art involves taking risks. I chose these particular images because I feel that everyone will understand them, and also because mankind must never forget the past.
In my last post, I had mentioned the possibility of adding more numbers to the wall, and others have suggested adding the colours of the Nazi concentration camp badges. Well, the beads have spoken, and I am not going to do this. The first thing I want viewers to notice are the faces because the human face has the ability to communicate without saying a word...
What do the faces tell you?
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14 comments:
Hello Diana Lynn,
your beadwork in progress looks excellent. Those faces are speaking, indeed.
Your photos of Germany at flickr got a very favorable comment on my blog by Julie C. Come and have a look. If you wish you can send me your comment by email again and I'll put it on.
By the way, I have linked your blog to my blogroll. Did you see?
Take care -
Olivia
Hi LB,
The pictures say they want to be seen. The concentration camps were the end of so many lives, and the banksy car is the end of that car's life, I think it is a good mix.
Well I think it is cool that you are putting those pictures in there.
I'm sure it will be amazing beadwork when you are done. =)
Pain, anguish, despair, courage and, perhaps, hope.
“The last of human freedoms - the ability to chose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances.” –Viktor E. Frankl, psychiatrist and Nazi concentration camp survior
You're amazing.
Thanks for the replies=:)
Nick, that statement is so true...
And, Olivia, thanks so much for linking to my blog:)
acceptance without acceptance..
i can't wait to see this finished.
it will be magnificent.
7/7 was a dreadful day and of course Aldgate tube station, where one of the bombs exploded, isn't far from Brick Lane.
I arrived at Liverpool Street station about 10 minutes after the Aldgate bomb and ended up being one of thousands stranded in the city of London for hours. That day I felt utterly useless.
I also meant to say that the faces are a powerful addition to what is already an excellent piece.
The faces are a reminder of the human dimension of genocide. THat may sound like an odd thing to say but talking only of the numbers of Jews, Armenians or Tutsi murdered last century dehumanises evil actions.
Stalin was right when he said "a single death is a tragedy, a milion deaths is a statistic" That is possibly the only occasion where I would say that butcher was right!
the faces are like the marks made by graffiti artists. It says I was here, I existed, I had something to say, I live, breathed, ate, I WAS HERE.
I think as an artist works on their piece they have to do what feels right otherwise you lose that authenticity. I love what you are doing and I have absolute faith that the end result will be a complex and magnificent piece.
The faces speak of the naivete of our endless hope that humans are essentially good and want the best for each other.
This isn't to say that we shouldn't continue to hope and pray for what is right, but the faces remind us that we should never follow blindly and that we shouldn't hesitate to pursue rights for all.
Thanks for that.
Denise
"...the faces are like the marks made by graffiti artists. It says I was here, I existed, I had something to say, I live, breathed, ate, I WAS HERE."
Jafabrit, you got it! That is exactly how I want this portion of the piece to be interpreted...
Jams, your interpretation is also correct, and one that I hadn't thought of before....
And, Denise, thanks for stopping by. I am glad that my piece has inspired your thoughts...
Dear Lone Beader, I followed Jane's link from Chilly Hollow to you, and I'm so glad I did.
What do the faces say to me? Well ... my daughter is fascinated by history, and when I was clicking around my old school's website (in Cape Town, South Africa) I found this poem, written by another 17-year-old who had visited a Holocaust Museum. I copied it for my daughter, and since it is pretty much what the faces say to me, here it is for you, too. Thank you for your thoughtful work!
ZERO
i see
grey people in photographs
grey like old soggy cardboard, smelling of smoke and rust
and a silver sun in the white dawn sky;
the tired grey people watch me, and
i don’t know
if they would have wanted
me to look at them sixty-odd years later
in a museum –
do you want to be in a museum?
in the reverent quiet,
with everyone talking
so carefully in case they hurt the photographs’ feelings
do you want that?
i wonder
and then i think
that if I had been in a grey place
in a cold grey hungry place
about to become a number
i wouldn’t want to disappear
i wouldn’t want to slide away into the empty darkness
i’d want to be remembered
be remembered
and right now
i just want to be sad about it
i don’t want to know the numbers ‘cause numbers confuse me
i don’t have to be jewish to be sad about it
or gay or gypsy or slavic
i just have to be human, because
it’s for everyone to see and know
see and know and remember
see know and remember and be sad
so that maybe
one day the sadness will stop happening
so that maybe
one day no one will ever have to be sad again.
so anyway i watched the movie about Anne Frank
and at the end i caught myself thinking
wistfully: oh no, poor kid – oh wouldn’t it
be nice if she had lived
had come back home –
then i realised
that i should be thinking that
6 000 000 times over
and that’s a lot of zeros.
Camilla Christie Rustenburg High School for Girls, Grade 11 History
Hi Deborah,
Thank you so much for sharing this touching poem. You interpreted the faces exactly how I had hoped. Please stop by again sometime... :)
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