Pamela Wye Day Life Series, Web, 1993.
Acrylic, collage on paper. 8 x 7 inches
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ONCE UPON A TIME a girl who made pictures needed a ladder out. Out of what? you might ask. Out of the muteness of her pictures, perhaps. Or out of the cage of her own waking. I'm not sure. That's why the ladder is so important. In fact, it's a ladder spun from within. The girl's head, possibly. It's not a stiff wooden ladder, it's more like a knotted rope or chain ladder, made of pods, one after the other. I can't say for certain whether it accretes from the girl's head or some other part of her body. Divine sources have been ruled out. The pods hold words that the girl diligently and meticulously ties together, after changing the order several times. It's hard work. But the ladder allows thoughts to climb out of the girl that otherwise would not. Sometimes in her labors, she loses control, and the ladder branches out wildly and becomes a web in which she gets caught, entangled and frustrated. But if she finds a sense of direction for this strange ladder, she can climb out on it to places she's never visited, both faraway and within her very self. You can see, then, that there is a payoff for her work. So she continues to rearrange, spin, and tie and knot. Pulling other people in to her handiwork as well.
Pamela Wye is represented by Luise Ross Gallery in New York City.
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