Lynne Schlesinger Ruedeman

I make things from parts. Parts discarded, or cast-off. Broken things. From things that no longer function as originally intended. Like shells that once held and protected an animal. Their wholeness, abandoned and broken. Battered, worn and beaten. Repeatedly. I see beauty in the attempt to reassemble. I assemble without a manual, without an instruction booklet. I use sea glass and driftwood. Both used before, lives filled with purpose, now cast-off, set free or lost, broken. Sometimes I imagine that the shards of glass or drifting wood escaped from where they were and their original responsibilities. They’ve been set free to bob in the ocean waves and have made their way to me. I love how sea glass is translucent. It lets the light through, exposing the other side, hiding nothing. I set goals for myself that are hard to achieve like sewing sea glass to paper. I allow the placement of the glass to be determined by the problem-solving of attaching glass paper. I hand stitch irregular patterns with metallic thread creating shimmer amidst the attempt, the struggle, the work. The bits of glitter as an undying light, persistent, resilient. My work made of fragments held together by delicate threading.. Dysfunctional. Without function. The nest or bird like eggs cracked open, arms spread wide, inviting in. Sometimes I don’t know which one is happening. Is something being birthed from this egg? Or is it a nest like habitat with wings spread wide, welcoming? Like blooms that open and close depending on the light of day. I have started a new series of vessels. Disparate pieces coming together as a whole. All pieces with a past life coming together to create a vessel, a container, something that carries. Something that holds..