When I don’t know what to do, I iron. I go to the closet and remove the rusty ironing board, passed down to me from my grandmother, and I press, I smooth, I eliminate the wrinkles I don’t want and I press in the lines that I do. I obsessively perfect and smooth the fabric, so that when done, the material drapes perfectly. This simple act brings me ease in a world of stress and clarity to a world of questions. It is something that I know, and I have been doing it for as long as I can remember.
In my work I am exploring domestic activities that generate rearrangements in the brain, investigating ‘mundane’ tasks that heal, and expanding what it means to have occupation. Pressing, washing, folding laundry, making a bed, dusting a shelf, are all acts we have taken part in. I meditate on these quiet simple postures to see what is there. Whether through object making, sculpting, performance or story telling, my work endeavors to reveal meaning behind the mundane and expand interest beneath the obvious.
Erin (Ellithorpe) Cogar (b. 1990) is a multidisciplinary artist whose education background includes fashion, sculpture and extended media. Although born in Los Angeles, CA, Erin attributes much of her creative inspiration to a rural upbringing in the mountains of North Idaho, where she and her siblings relied heavily on their imagination for entertainment. Her soft-sculptural works include a variety of materials such as textiles, papier-mâché, painting, drawing and photography, as well as found objects, short stories and poetry. Erin began her higher education pursuits in Fashion at Savannah College of Art and Design in 2009, and then transferred to the praised technical pattern-making program at Seattle Central College’s School of Apparel Design and Development, graduating in 2014. Here, Erin honed the technical sewing skills that she uses in the intricate, whimsical design work of her sculpture. Erin is presently based in Richmond, VA where she is completing a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Art Sculpture and Extended Media program.