Micromanaged, 2010
Marcy Sperry
45” x 45”
Fused silk, hand embroidery, seed beads

My new work consists of complex clusters of fragments made from craft materials such as fabric and beads that take on forms inspired by patterns and textures found in the natural world. They resemble imaginary topographies — I think of them as “mini utopias.” Rendering these complicated groupings of fragments with the slow, methodical techniques of sewing and beading is a critique of the contemporary need for immediacy, fast results, and easy answers.

3:39 pm  •  14 September 2011

Microcosm I, 2010
Marcy Sperry
15” x 15”
Fused silk, embroidery, seed beads

7:08 pm  •  15 September 2010

Microcosm II, 2010
Marcy Sperry
15” x 15”
Fused silk, embroidery, seed beads

12:19 pm  •  1 September 2010  •  1 note

Joy, 2008
Marcy Sperry
45” x 55”
Found fabric, t-shirts, yarn, beads

12:00 am  •  2 August 2010  •  1 note

12:00 am  •  1 August 2010  •  2 notes

In my Muscle Series and Collaged Clothing,  I altered and embellished the surfaces of with an emphasis on children’s clothing, with images from popular culture (consumer items like magazine fragments, t-shirt graphics, etc.) as a way to reveal how mass media shapes our perceptions and beliefs from a young age.

Working with this theme, I started doing a series of works called “Muscle Babies.” They consist of children’s sleepers (the kind with footies) embellished with beads, hand embroidery, and a collage of fragments created from the steroid-enhanced physiques found in bodybuilder magazines.

“Muscle Babies” explore the phenomenon of using children’s physical bodies as transgressive sites in which to act out the dreams, fantasies, and ambitions of adults who ostensibly care for them. The idea originally came from popular culture’s current fascination with child beauty pageants, a subculture where mothers exert control and authority over their daughter’s (or in some cases their son’s) physicality in terms of appearance and body modification (false teeth and hair extensions, to name a few). But the idea to focus on muscles rather than makeup took shape after I learned about child bodybuilder Richard Sandrak. Under the staggeringly extreme regimen of weightlifting, diet, and exercise created by his fitness-obsessed parents, (who maintained the widely disputed claim that drugs had no role in his unnatural development) he developed into a mini-hulk promoted throughout the media as “Little Hercules,” all before turning twelve years old.

Embellished with muscles, the cocoon-like infant sleepers, once snuggly and safe, become over-the-top spectacles that replace innocence with pathological adult desires.

See: Muscle Series (About)

 

Richard Sandrak, youthful bodybuilder extraordinaire

1:36 pm  •  1 June 2010

A random man at Around the Coyote festival (Chicago) dons my Muscle Suit jacket, circa 2006

The movie Silence of the Lambs is about a serial killer nicknamed “Buffalo Bill,” a tongue-in-cheek moniker created by law enforcement that referred to his method of “skinning his humps.” Buffalo Bill was on a mission to collect enough human skin from his victims to create a…ladysuit, which he could wear to transform his physical state at will. It was cheaper than getting the surgery.

Scarily enough, the work in my Muscle Series was based on much the same pathological impulse. I created a series of garments from collected “human skin” (clipped from muscle, health, and beauty magazines, not human victims, thank you) that offer the possibilities of transformation when worn. I focused on skin as a way to explore America’s obsession with youth, unattainable physical perfection, and our culture’s unwillingness to deal with mortality and the physical changes of aging in constructive and life affirming ways.

I tried to ask the question: Would it be preferable to re-think how we deal with our aging bodies, or should we just go for the quick fix, regardless of how ridiculous it might be?

Off to the tanning beds…

See Muscle Series

11:59 am  •  1 June 2010