Lockdown is where the home is
Judy Rogers 2020
‘Lockdown is where the home is’ acknowledges the feelings of imprisonment some people had during lockdown: there is no door and the face looking out and in (mine) is rather worried.
I didn’t feel imprisoned in my home but I did share the possibly worldwide anxiety that humanity is trapped in a situation that we maybe caused and definitely have to deal with.
‘Lockdown is where the home is’ also expresses the way I felt my home was a physically and emotionally safe cocoon. A place where I had more mental space than usual and created more art than usual, like this sculpture.
The title ‘Lockdown is where the home is’ riffs on the title of my previous much, much larger sculpture ‘Heart is where the home is’ which was about feeling at home within oneself.
‘Lockdown is where the home is’ continues my ongoing exploration of looking in, looking out and looking through. It also continues my more recent determination to increase the proportion of materials I use that are not bought new. Instead, they are materials that are reused or leftover from previous uses.
This sculpture is made from 2nd hand picture frames painted in leftover house paint with added leftover fabrics. It incorporates a number of art works which depict previous art works of my own, including elements of ‘Heart is where the home is’ and others concerned with the concept of home or enfolding. The painted chair was on an autumn theme, chosen for this sculpture as lockdown was in autumn – and I’ve echoed that on the design on the window shutter.
Many thanks to my husband Steve Rogers who found all sorts of ways to fix my awkward ideas together!
The base of this sculpture is 60 x 60 cm so it needs to be placed on a plinth or table of those dimensions or greater. The highest part is 40cm and it needs to be placed with the base at about table height so viewers can see into it from the top – as well as peer through or into the ‘windows’. Ideally, it can be placed to be seen from all round but it’s fine to be placed with the red and blue parts as the ‘front’ and the open ‘shutter’ seen from the side. It’s mixed media: 2nd hand wood and metal picture frames, with glass, acetate and cardboard, on MDF base, mostly painted with house paint; fabrics; artists’ acrylics; brass, steel and aluminium fixings. The date is 2020 as I started it in lockdown and finished it since. The price is $900.