Friday, June 13, 2014


Vessels: Land and Sea

This beautiful vessel is from Marged Pendrell's "Traces of Walks" series, which is a subset of her installation entitled "Vessels: Land and Sea." The series gathers physical evidence--in this case sand--to evoke memories of walks taken by the artist and her friends on journeys in Wales and abroad. It's made of collected sand and paper pulp; as Marged writes, "An object or material is collected as a connection to a place. It marks the quality of time passed, the essence of the place and the memory of the experience."

I found Marged's work at the Gas Gallery in Aberystwyth, Wales, and purchased the above vessel. I was struck by the strength of the her work and its beautiful, concise way of evoking place, physical activity, and memory through the physical shape of the vessel and the use of paper pulp; like books, it represents our hope of holding and containing the past. I love the fact that this vessel is filled with the stuff of itself. We are our memories.

To see more of Marged's work please visit www.axisweb.org/artist/margedpendrell