June 13-17

Welcome

Welcome
A few short thoughts about welcome mats:
Doors are protection. They are bolted to some and open to others, to
pass freely back and forth. Often welcome mats lie on the threshold of
a home, in front of those bolted doors, teasing you as to the
possibilities offered by a space that you may never be permitted to
enter. Occasionally, you are given consent to pass through and then
those welcome mats require a new function: to rid your shoes of the
dirt picked up through the course of your journey, so you don’t deposit
it elsewhere, leaving trails on shining linoleum or pristine carpet.*

But whether these footsteps leave marks or not, they warrant attention.
As someone moves around a space, they create an invisible drawing under
their soles. The modest and hardwearing carpet becomes a sturdy canvas
over which our everyday routines pass, and a template upon which a
succession of repetitive acts leave both visible and invisible traces.
Welcome explores these movements and the vestiges they create.

*Periodically, people abuse the trust that allowed them into a space in
the first place. This is known as a worn-out welcome.

A few points worth considering:
- You will require dust to set up your Welcome. You can use whiting or
lime dust or even flour or icing sugar on dark surfaces. Cocoa, or tea
leaves work well on lighter surfaces.
- Dust spreads, so choose locations carefully for your Welcome.
- When installing, lay the stencil on a flat surface and place all the
separate pieces carefully in position.
- Use a sieve to sprinkle your chosen dust over the stencil.
- Consider how much impact you wish your Welcome to make: this should
dictate how much dust you sprinkle onto the template.


Lizzie Ridout 2005

The Essence of All Things

The Essence of All Things: Beggar's Velvet, House Moss, Slut's Wool
Time erodes all things. Even the hardest of matter will ultimately
become dust. From vast cities corroded by wind and rain, to coins, worn
smooth by countless exchanges. The piles that fill our dwellings, in
amorphous swathes under our beds and armchairs, forming filmy mists
across our bookshelves and floors, march on unheeded despite our
efforts, for all time, to contain them.

Beggar’s velvet, house moss and slut’s wool were all slang terms once
used to describe dust, pertaining to its enduring legacy as the
discarded, the insignificant and the lowly cohabitant of the common.
However, conversely old superstitions reveal that dust was also
respected and feared: one was instructed to never remove entirely all
the dust from a fireplace or home, or else risk bad luck on a
household. The Essence of All Things celebrates this old ritual,
creating something out of nothing at all and ensuring that all
visitors, whether superstitious or not, leave the gallery with luck on
their side.


A few points worth considering:
- You are entitled to use any or all of the pieces, as many times as is
appropriate for the space.
- You will require Spray Mount to create the pieces.
- To achieve a bold result from the stencil, place in a position where
there is plenty of traffic - the piece will gradually become more
visible over time as people pass over it.
- For a more subtle result from the stencil, place under or on top of
furniture where dust is likely to gather, ie cupboards, chairs or beds.
- Nice results can be achieved when the stencils are placed beneath
desks where shoes come into regular contact.
- It is advisable to test a small amount of glue on a surface initially
to make sure that you can clean it off with the product normally used
to clean this particular surface.
- Kitchen cleaner will effectively remove the piece from the floor.
- Choose your location and lay the stencil carfully so that it is flat
on the floor/surface.
- When spraying the glue, make sure that you hold the can at right
angles to the floor/surface so that the glue settles in all the small
holes.
- Allow to dry for an hour or so if possible, so that the glue doesn't
smudge.
- You can accelerate the process by sprinkling some pre-collected dust
onto the glue if you want!
- Please destroy the template at the close of the exhibition.

Lizzie Ridout 2005
 

sluts wool