RENEWAL

SEPTEMBER 16 to OCTOBER 10, 2020

RENEWAL speaks of regeneration - Earth re-awakening for Spring’s new growth, sowing our seeds for the future. This Spring, COVID-19 turned the world upside down, shaking the status quo, testing our resolves. Our own and societies’ flaws magnified. For Thurlow, RENEWAL continues to speak to her determination to recycle and revitalize materials, rebuking societies’ environmental and ethically toxic demands for never-ending wasteful growth. This COVID time has also made more urgent, her initial desire in developing new forms, to provoke conversations, while also combining sculptures renewed by their association.

From flotsam found on many beaches, to enchanting vintage drapery and upholstery fabrics, this sculptural installation draws on materials collected over time. The beach flotsam collected come together in a vessel with a personal family story pre-plastics, pre the mass-marketing we are enveloped in now. She had stowed away remnants of vintage fabrics for over forty years when she was last designing and selling her one-of-a-kind brand of clothing. These beautiful fabrics, culturally diverse and intriguing, are still stable, some now close to a century old. They remain, far removed from the low priced synthetic mixed fabrics of today’s fast fashions.  

Recently, Thurlow added a studio loft space with room enough to hold small gatherings. She returned to these vintage textiles, for minimal and beautiful seating turning them into bolsters - the kind used for meditation or conversations. Reflecting her interest in our psychological makeup, she applied to each, the name of a different archetype (based in Jungian psychology, brought forward by Carolyn Myss). Myss shows how by coming to understand our archetypes, they may have a profound impact on how we live our lives, allowing us to achieve our personal best. 

Her idea was to invite studio visitors to choose which archetypes they felt attracted to sit on and perhaps share a related story. Since she has had 6 months extra time due to the COVID  gallery shut down, she has also had time to develop twelve wall pieces from the smaller remains of the vintage fabrics, adding in related thoughtful additions. Each offers a different physical and emotional impact, considering that Thurlow was working through this COVID lens, considering everyone's four constant archetypes at work, the Child, Victim, Prostitute and Saboteur, and others in her house of twelve. 

Now, responding to these uncertain COVID times, the bolsters will lay on the gallery floor forming several sandbagged style walls, isolating, no longer offering repose. But visitors may still contemplate which archetype could apply to either their present, their past, or to other people they think they know… Whatever visitors decide, by utilizing archetypes and stories to practice solidarity, Thurlow is still making space to foster reflection, deliberation and discussion.

Although the exhibition is over, Thurlow continues this series in her studio where she takes commissions. Requests can include textiles from special old clothing, table linens, granny’s crochet work, or kids’ early clothing. Her process transforms your materials into textile collages that become a personalized bolster with your choice of Archetype. The bolsters are filled with 100% cotton with a zipper hidden at the bottom. Each commission takes about 4 weeks to deliver. Click here to contact Thurlow for a commission.