Drawing Dust

Artwork, adventures and ideas from Naomi A Hart

[naomiahart]

Digital collage experiments, 2015

[naomiahart]

[naomiahart]

My birthday, 2002

I’ve been looking through some of my old photography work and in some of it I can see the beginnings of my fascination with traces of existence and physicality. 

[naomiahart]

Spotting, 2015

[naomiahart]

Dust Ball Still Life experimentation

Dec 2014

[naomiahart]

New experiment, Dec 2014

[naomiahart]

A couple of experiments with layering, exploring the negative spaces within my dust and hair drawings

[naomiahart]

My work on dust developed out of an ongoing practice of collecting things that I look upon as "relics" - objects that have no monetary value but have become sacred or valuable because of their role in providing a tangible link to memories.  Many of us do this, even collecting objects that would be considered gruesome to others, such as a child’s milk teeth, locks of hair, etc.  My collection includes: a pony-tail of hair, the stitches that were removed from my head after a car accident, what remains of a scab that once covered most of my face, my milk teeth, a glass bottle of beard shavings from an ex-lover, tiny animal bones, and many, many dust balls.

[naomiahart]

I found this antique barber's kit in a thrift store a few years ago.  As I get more involved with exploring and working with hair I keep finding myself staring at it.

[naomiahart]

[naomiahart]

Recently I've been using video to play with recording my dust and hair specimens.  I'm interested in shifting the focus so that I can explore the structures in a more three dimensional way, something I thought about a lot when I worked on this image.  The video work is developing slowly, but I'm enjoying getting lost in a new process of working.  I'll get something up here eventually...

[naomiahart]

A few press pieces recently, published in The Chronicle and The Journal

[naomiahart]

Looking back at this series of Dust work from last year in California, I can't wait to get back there to experiment more.  Looking at Dust from and in new environments and in public spaces too - an exciting development!

[naomiahart]

Post on the Bay Area Discovery Museum's website about my upcoming residency there.  I'm really excited about this project.  It will be such an interesting transition, looking at dust collected from a public space rather than private, domestic space.  San Francisco here I come!

For more info check out http://www.baykidsmuseum.org/tour-the-museum/art-studios/current-artist-in-residence/winter-2014/

[naomiahart]

I found this one yesterday.  Sometimes by the time I find them they have become heavy with lint and dust and lost their spherical form.  This one is still delightfully spherical.  It's sitting on my shelf, a beautiful little accidental sculpture of hair and dust

[naomiahart]

A new hair drawing in progress.  I'm still thinking about hair as some kind of record of existence, and so with each day that passes I use a hair shed on that day to represent it.

I also really like the back of this piece.  I like how the hairs form their own lines, liberated from the format I'm enforcing on the other side

[naomiahart]

Looking more closely at the components of my dust specimens