Gayle Friedman
Measuring the Weight of Longing
June 1 – July 1, 2018
There’s a different kind of returning that happens after both parents have died.
In my case, my childhood home shattered and their deaths brought so much stuff to me. My mom’s obsessive collecting of Delftware and my dad’s beloved tools, compelled me to dig.
In this work I sift through the leftovers of lives lived, and look for meaning. I use plaster and clay in this investigation because they are materials of memory and record the surfaces they come into contact with—the scratches and dings of time that illuminate and complicate. I yearn to hear the stories my parents wouldn’t tell, to hold my parents, to feel their touch.
I am exploring time, family relationships, traditional gender roles within the home, matter and death. I want to know how and why we hold onto our loved ones and our sense of self through the things they leave behind. What does this stuff help us to remember, and what do we wish we could forget?
Gayle Friedman is an artist who was raised in Birmingham, Alabama. Friedman studied Anthropology and Spanish at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. One summer, she did an archaeological dig on an island in the Tennessee river and since then is always looking for the hidden. She lives and works in Washington, DC, where for the past decade she has been a jeweler, teacher, and the founder of Studio 4903, a group art studio space. Friedman received a DC Commission on Arts and Humanities Fellowship Award in 2017. She has work in an upcoming show at WAS Gallery in Bethesda, MD. Friedman is an artist in residence at Red Dirt Studio in Mt. Rainier, MD.
