Dust Threads

Dust Threads
Hannah Berger
August 2-6, 2022

Satellite Project Space
121 Dundas St
Gallery hours: Tuesday-Friday 2-7pm, Saturday 12-5pm

Reception: Friday, August 5, 5-7pm

Artist Statement:
“Dust Threads” is a series of drawings I made in bed while recovering from COVID in the summer of 2022. Isolated in a single room, I became increasingly sensitive to the drama of the minute things that surrounded me. Though the first few days were marked by impatience and anticipation, as I became less feverish I began to accept what would become the subject matter of “Dust Threads.” Dead bugs, alive bugs, the hills and valleys formed by my sheets, my face in the mirror, red and puffy as it was, my ibuprofen, my neat stacks of cups. They all became important, there were no other diversions. It became imperative to illustrate the emotional arc of confinement through the most mundane subject matter around. With the chaos of blind contour drawing, I imbue such boring subjects with my entire, intense range of emotions while sick in bed: the loneliness, the private joy in solitude, the waiting, the anxiety. -Hannah Berger

The whole ordeal of seeking beauty in something so quiet inspired me to take the title of my exhibition from the poem Laguna Blues, from Charles Wright:

Laguna Blues by Charles Wright

It’s Saturday afternoon at the edge of the world.
White pages lift in the wind and fall.
Dust threads, cut loose from the heart, float up and fall.
Something’s off-key in my mind.
Whatever it is, it bothers me all the time.

It’s hot, and the wind blows on what I have had to say.
I’m dancing a little dance.
The crows pick up a thermal that angles away from the sea.
I’m singing a little song.
Whatever it is, it bothers me all the time.

It’s Saturday afternoon and the crows glide down.
Black pages that lift and fall.
The castor beans and the pepper plant trundle their weary heads.
Something’s off-key and unkind.
Whatever it is, it bothers me all the time.