Plaster, paper, mixed media on wood. 29″x 18 3/4″. Collection of the artist.
I began painting the Madonna that is the foundation of this mixed media work when I was a preteen. From an early age I was visually attracted to an Early Renaissance sensibility- tho I don’t remember how I was first exposed to it—and to this subject matter; I can’t say why. Growing up, we attended church but would not describe our family as religious. I knew I wanted to be an artist and this was what i was drawn to paint. A year spent in Florence in 1974 deepened my affinity for this imagery and for the icon.
.0320 Italian Story, .0031 Clothes, .0032 Paintings, Prints and Drawings 1976-1978
.0120 Coffee, .0084 Cup Hair in Tip Envelopes, .0086 Bread Journal
.0087 Work Clothes .0307 Choir .0173Compacted Artworks 1976-1978
The first work pictured–“Italian Story” is seminal–the precursor to these works and many that have followed, foreshadowing many of the themes I continue to address and return to: saving, re-use, record-keeping, journaling with materials, autobiography:
Here is the story behind this recurring theme:
“Italian Story” is made from bits of fabric that had already been used when I discovered and purchased them in a store on Via Santa Reparata in Florence, Italy in 1974 or 75. This unusual store was located a few doors down from the Santa Reparata Printmaking Studio where I was first introduced to the exciting medium of etching. In what felt like an un imaginable juxtapostion, this “store” was also located steps away from “The Last Supper,”1445-1450– by Andrea del Castagno –a dramatic and powerful work that impressed itself on my memory (accessed through a door on Via Ventisette Aprile at the corner with Santa Reparata) I was on a tight budget and had never been much of a shopper, but I looked through these piles(small hills!) of rags and chose the ones that reminded me most of the colors of the Tuscan landscape that was unlike anything I’d ever seen prior. I had grown up in a (nondescript)Chicago suburb. In Florence I had entered a thrilling stage of my artistic development. I was also fortunate to be on the receiving end of great unexpected encouragement and affirmation of my experimentation with less orthodox techniques and materials. I began to print on these fabric scraps, sew them together, embroider them. I started to make a quilt. Ultimately, i was unsatisfied with it visually. But it was a reflection of a lot of time, thought , and experience. It had the aura of some of my history on top of the history the rags held-the life that the fabric had before it came into my hands. Italy was my first experience of a culture older than that of the US, with visible layers of long history, In this piece I chose to layer, compress, and thereby distill this record, and reveal some mysterious sense of it by exposing the layers.
Betsy Packard Art Archive 