Feature Articles

November Issue 2002

Furman University, in Greenville, NC, Features Works by Jane Allen Nodine

by Fleming Markel

Furman University in Greenville, SC, will feature an exhibition entitled, traces, by Jane Allen Nodine, in the Thompson Gallery, in the Thomas Anderson Roe Art Building, from Nov. 4 through Dec. 29, 2002.

Nodine's installation traces invites us to consider the family, its patterns of memories, the traces left by family and the myth of family. Nodine presents traces like a well-written essay, complete with introduction, body and summary. This is not a family values essay but an invitation to reflect and contemplate.

Nodine introduces traces to us through giclée prints that flank the gallery. She has used a family's intimate snapshots as the central image of the prints. The black and white, slice of life images trace the family through a period of childhood growth years. Nodine has transformed the specific family photos into the found objects of an archeological dig by her own marks, digital alteration, combining the photos with other images and then finally greatly enlarging them as giclée prints. The small, palm-sized photos become traditional painting-sized images. The specific sixties decade photos are old enough to serve as memories without becoming vintage curiosities and current enough to engage contemporary viewers. The once specific family snapshots are a trace of that family expanded into myth by Nodine. This expansion into myth provides the viewer a page to begin creating their personal essay.

The specificity of images continues into the body of the installation essay with the collection of white shirts hung as an orderly grouping for a family portrait. The shirts, like the family photos, are found objects that bear traces of the individuals who owned and wore them. The shirts and photos are gender and age specific individually, but as a group include both male and female images and a variety of ages. Nodine, through laundering, starching and ironing, has made her mark on these shirts and they are displayed sculpture. A vintage ironing board complete with utilitarian stains and an electric iron, is the foreground for the pristine shirts. The unstable, three-legged ironing board with the iron perched precariously on top stands as sentry or guardian. The iron, cord dangling, stands ready to protect while simultaneously foreboding. This iron that produced the pristine shirts can also bruise and burn.

As the body of the installation continues into the middle of the gallery with daily vestments, the digitally produced images of generic underwear appear as tracings. The photos are specific images of people but mythological. The shirts are also personal and specific but metaphors. Here the metaphor is not for individuals but for groups. The reproduction of life-sized underwear in print form has obscured uniqueness. The spindly, easily collapsible clothes-drying rack echoes the instability of the ironing board and iron without the dangerous foreboding.

Vestige is the summary of traces. Rows of freshly starched handkerchiefs are pinned to the wall. Images have been transferred to each handkerchief; many are images from the prints that flank the gallery. This summary is a restatement of family as a group of individuals. It reiterates the metaphors and myths but couples the male handkerchiefs with the traditionally female tool, the iron. Again the irons stand guard, this time perched on a narrow shelf that provides a boundary for the handkerchiefs. Here the irons are powerful but less foreboding.

See traces alone and when the gallery is quiet. Nodine's installation is almost void of color; even the black and white prints are grayed. traces invites contemplation and reflection. Nodine has included the viewer as a vital part of her installation by purposely presenting an essay without a conclusion. Nodine does not tell us what to think but gives us the opportunity to think. She provides tracings of memories and myth that we have in common. We leave with the traces of our own unique experiences revisited and newly reflected by her installation.

For further information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings or call the gallery at 864/294-2074.

Fleming Markel is an artist and freelance writer/reviewer. She has an MFA from Clemson University in sculpture.

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