The Palimpsest Process #1 - The Kite

I was making an art piece on sacrifices in romantic relationships, and the closest I had come to having one was holding a boy’s hand. It was on a school hike, and I learned shortly after that he was purely being nice because I looked unsteady on my feet. I don’t think it even occurred to me to question my choice of subject. I decided to conduct interviews to get my information. I asked some adults invasive questions about their relationships, and picked through their answers for material that felt interesting enough to put into a piece. 

I can’t imagine what I would say now, at 27, to a 15 year old asking me what I had sacrificed to be in a relationship. I appreciate that I was younger, but the audacity baffles me still. I was working on my Personal Project for the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program (IB MYP), and was making a two-part art series. One part was exploring betrayal, as a theme, and the other explored sacrifice.

My sole memory of the interviews was telling a family friend that his wife had told me she had sacrificed some of her youth and youthful freedom to be married to him, all casual-like. I was not interviewing him for this project, and I don’t remember how casual I was when he said something to the effect of “Well, she’s making up for it now.”

I wish I could say I didn’t know what I was doing. I had known they’d married young, and I’d heard the affair rumours. I had mostly decided on the direction of the piece before the interview, but felt the need to make my process seem more credible.

I could have chosen to watch YouTube videos, or read articles, or even cite movies or books. But that would have required an honesty about the shame I felt for how little I knew, firsthand, about romantic relationships. I can now laugh at how silly it was for a 15 year old to be ashamed of that, but at the time, in my knotted up, sexually repressed way, it was more within my capacity to hide behind the academics of it, and go with “I’m going to do research for a school project” instead. 

My biggest takeaway in making this palimpsest has been a strange appreciation for how powerful a motivator shame can be. I chose to redo this piece out of shame. I made it more than a decade ago, and have moved far enough away from who I was then. But it has been a real struggle for me to consider anything about the piece that isn’t from a place of shame, embarrassment, or at the very least, bashfulness. 

In remaking this piece, I was primarily focused on updating the symbolism to reflect my current values and beliefs around romantic relationships. I wanted to still think about the sacrifices and costs of being in a traditional romantic relationship, without being quite so damning of them. I tried to be more honest about my personal experiences, despite the shame or embarrassment. This palimpsest is an attempt at looking at who I was then with a little more sympathy, as undeserved as it feels, and maybe even gleaning some wisdom from it. 

The Palimpsest Points:

1. The original piece was in paper mache. I used clay to reinforce the clefts between each section, and made slots for incense sticks in the corners, and a tiny well for sambrani at the top. I added a lip at the bottom to slot in burnt out incense sticks. 
2. I painted over the sections to brighten up the colours. Initially, the yellow and blue sections represented each individual, and the green section was the relationship. The blue and yellow sections were heavily pigmented at the top, and faded towards the bottom - something about losing your individuality. The green section started out pale and became more pigmented. 
3. I had ribbons of yellow and blue interweaving to arrive at the yin-yang. I’m cringing at the callousness with which I used the yin yang initially, but I’m sticking with it anyway. I got rid of the ribbons though. The interweaving imagery doesn’t work for me anymore, and neither does the fading individuality. 
4. I got rid of the religious symbols. I’m not sure why I included them, perhaps an interview, but I was thinking about a relationship where the individuals had different faiths. When religious differences have been relevant to me, they’ve only been challenging for people outside the relationship. 
5. While the use of the coin was on the nose, I’m oddly impressed at myself for that nearly accidental sense of financial literacy. I used 25 paise coins the first time. This time I’ve used coins of different currencies, in thinking about how much space in a relationship can be taken up by a difference in financial backgrounds. I’m also thinking about my experience of a very long distance relationship and how much of a nuisance international bureaucracy is.
6. I switched out the archaic family symbol for a heart-shaped flower with leaves, to more generally represent other loves and relationships. It’s trite, but I’m trying to be comfortable with that. At 15, I believed being in a romantic relationship inherently meant moving away from your family. I don’t buy that anymore, but I can’t deny how new romantic relationships take space from other relationships.
7. To give the piece more texture, I used paper quilling for the heart-flowers and the clocks. I extended strands between the clocks bridging the two people. The tiny clothes pegs were given to me by a boy who broke my heart a little, but shared my love for arts and crafts. They made me think of how the labour of domesticity can be taxing in a  relationship.
8. Instead of the paper windmills (they look like flowers in the original) to represent whimsy and youthfulness, I used sea shells that I’d collected as a child. I have learned how easy it is to neglect doing things alone when there is someone to do them with me. I’d like to think I’m getting better at that, but who knows?