A Million Keys

Jacqueline Gordon Studio Visit

While I was in San Francisco I met up with Jacqueline Gordon and visited her studio. We ended up talking for a few hours and she showed me some of her projects. Jackie works in a variety of mediums- sound, installation, photography and traditional crafts such as quiltmaking and cross-stitching.

Safety and the sensation of comfort are continuing themes in her work. For her dreamblankets project, Jackie built a room size dome constructed of afghans with speakers interwoven throughout.

Tape hiss from walkmen mounted on the wall facing the dome provide the sound inside.

Click here for further installation shots and a sound sample. Jackie is also producing a series of meditation tapes derived from tape hiss as well as a mandala series. Sound is a central element for her- she employs it to cloak and create warmth, much like blankets or a shelter. Jackie made another sound dome entitled dome home for the Lobot Gallery in Oakland. Microphones placed throughout the gallery transmit sound into speakers installed in the walls of a padded and cushioned dome.

The concept of home comes up again in Jackie’s wall hangings, which derive from 70s suburban americana. Melding cross-stitching with electronics, the bulbs interlaced throughout light up. She is also working on a black quilt (sample patch below) embedded with lights.

Back of “Good Morning Sunshine”:

Patch from quilt:

During my visit we discussed new age spirituality and its influence growing up on the west coast in the ’80s. I brought up Todd Haynes’ film Safe as it touches on a lot of the same concerns examined in her work. The film follows a Californian housewife in the 1980s as she becomes increasingly ill for no explicable reason- believing that she is sick from her environment, she moves into a new age community and retreats into a completely aseptic shelter. The protection and safety promised by the middle class environment which she blames for her illness and the new age center she retreats to both impose a sterlity and cleanliness which entrap the main character. The film expresses the paradoxical relationship between liberation through the pursuit of safety and the consequental confinement of that pursuit. Jackie’s art projects which formally reference the new age movement of the 70s/80s touch on the fragility of safety as well as the desire for enlightenment or even escape. Considering the current American preoccupation with fear and safety, it’s clearly a relevant subject.

Jackie is developing her website right now, which I will post later. For now you can reach her through email.