Still Life with Woody, Performance

 

Crochet performance, using a wooden phallus as a crochet hook. this performance is part of a body of work: Touchwood, which is part of another body: Ouma se Kind Ouma se Kind A couple of years ago I encountered the term ‘ouma se kind’ [grandmother's child]. I was informed that the term is used as a reference to gay people, usually gay men, and seems to come from the north east part of South Africa. The term had been introduced to me by a man who was sharing his coming out [as gay] story with me. I was born at a time when homosexuality was criminal in South Africa. It was an absurd time. Not only did I find myself to be a criminal by virtue of being [homo]sexual, I also understood, in a dark and pre-/nonverbal way, that being gay was also culturally taboo. That is to say; within my family, schools and communities that I grew up in it was not ok to be gay. I contracted into myself and lived a fair number of years in denial. To throw into the mix; my grandmother, who I adored, taught me how to crochet. It was also taboo for boys/men to crochet and knit. This body of work is a celebratory ‘coming -out’. I have mixed the ingredients; coming out, denial, taboo, the unheimlich, crochet, granny and a love of cock, together. It began as a crochet performance during which I crochet a granny-square using another man’s hard-on as a crochet hook. I have made videos and taken stills from them to explore and play with, in the studio making 2D assemblages with the images. The yarn I used for the granny square is what I call ‘size-tape’. This tape is found in haberdashery stores; small sections are sewn into garments indicating its size. This aspect includes another subtheme, cock-size. The issues men have about the size of their dicks, and the cliche ‘size-queen’. Yarn is a recurring feature in my work; yarns hold clues to the content and also honour the stories we carry and share. I celebrate my sexuality through this body of work and engage with the very curious human activity of denial. I can now say, at this age, I am comfortable with my sexuality; I accept it, I no longer carry guilt and shame about it. I am grateful to all my sexual partners, and all the men I have had sexual encounters with. Particularly for the delightfully intimate conversations through which stories have been shared, wounds have been licked and healing taken place. Cape Town June 2018