Virginia Woolf–The Years

Paintings on found materials incorporating text from Virginia Woolf’s The Years. The interest here, as with Woolf’s writing generally, is in the accounts of women thinking, acts related as always embodied and environmentally attuned. The quoted passages are footnoted below.

Virginia Woolf–The Years, A flower had fallen on the grass, 2022, spray paint on found materials, approx 80″x60″x4″

Virginia Woolf–The Years, Not a word was recognizable, 2022, spray paint on found materials including insulation board and steel window gates, approx 96″x50″x3″

Virginia Woolf–The Years, Where did thought begin?, 2022, spray paint on found materials including mirror, brick dust, and plumbing fixtures, approx 50″x60″x50″

Virginia Woolf–The Years, She switched off the light, 2022, spray paint on found materials including steel gate and fluorescent light, approx 80″x48″x3″

Virginia Woolf–The Years, She switched off the light, 2022, spray paint on found materials including wooden door and metal sink, approx 80″x48″x20″

Virginia Woolf–The Years, She switched off the light, 2022, spray paint on found materials including wooden door and rubber hose, approx 80″x48″x5″

Virginia Woolf–The Years, She switched off the light, 2022, spray paint on found materials including wooden door and door frame, approx 80″x48″x8″

In May 2022 three of these pieces were included in The Scripts Found in a Bottle, Found in Can, Found in a Discourse, curated by Matt Morris at The Green Gallery, Milwaukee.

1 She broke off a twig, she picked a flower and put it to her lips…She threw away her flower…The billowing land that went rising and falling, away and away…Yes, and do you see there’s a flower fallen on the grass? She turned and looked at the picture. The face, the dress, the basket of flowers all shone softly melting into each other, … There was a flower – a little sprig of blue – lying in the grass.

2 Etho passo tanno hai,
Fai donk to tu do,
Mai to, kai to, lai to see
Toh dom to tuh do —
That was what it sounded like. Not a word was recognizable. …
Fanno to par, etto to mar,
Timin tudu, tido,
Foll to gar in, mitno to par,
Eido, teido, meido –
… The rhythm seemed to rock and the unintelligible words ran themselves together into a shriek. … ‘But it was…’ Eleanor began. She stopped. What was it? It was impossible to find one word for the whole. ‘Beautiful?’

3 It was easier to act things that to think them. Legs, body, hands, the whole of her must be laid out passively to take part in this universal process of thinking which the man said was the world living. She stretched herself out. Where did thought begin?

4-7 She switched off the light. The room now was almost dark, save for a watery pattern fluctuating on the ceiling. In this phantom evanescent light only the outlines showed; … Colour was slowly returning.