Methodology

I weave together dissimilarities reclaiming them for my own. I do this to work with themes of feminism, capitalism, industrialism, environmentalism, spirituality, colonization, social justice and humanism.—the belief that society should function on the basis of what is best for its people. This may seem like a large scattered list, too many grand narratives with the inability to address them. These questions arise from life. My friends grapple with them. Knee deep in grass roots organizations, they plunge in the abyss of systemic change. I lived at Occupy Vancouver; I understand the 99%.  This culture is failing us. It is based on truths that are false. A democracy does not care for its citizens. Poverty is not the result of personal actions. Conformity to western culture will not improve your life. Spirituality requires concrete life choices. We are responsible for every person past and present who is causing or has caused environmental devastation.  The act of making consumables is destroying the fabric of our world. Whatever goes up must come down; an economy cannot have infinite growth. Not only is our society designed for males, but also gains made towards equality are being lost. Beware of the co-option, it can catch us all.

I weave and make art because I have to. I feel I have been called upon to challenge systems of dominance and my voice is that of the artist. "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream". I challenge systems of dominance with my art to seek justice.Beware of the co-option, it can catch us all.

I weave together dissimilarities reclaiming them for my own. These dissimilarities can be people and they are woven into community.  The idea of radical community or community as a form of radicalism is a new narrative for me.  Communities can create their own systems.  Valiant, strong and empowered, communities can challenge the status quo; they can create their own reality; and they can change the way a world functions.  In my exhibition, Metempsychosis, I am exploring community in multiple ways.  Welcoming the audience as a new community, working for an old community, and the giving of gifts as an act for community.  Community is antagonistic to our consumerist western culture. Beware of the co-option, it can catch us all.

I weave together dissimilarities reclaiming them for my own.  I weave theory, contextualizing, reinvigorating and reclaiming them from words to existence as art.  The ideologies of Georg Simmel inform much of my work. Unlike his peers, he speaks to the importance of small groups or community. “When one inquires about the products of the specifically modern aspects of contemporary life with reference to their inner meaning — when, so to speak, one examines the body of culture with reference to the soul, as I am to do concerning the metropolis today — the answer will require the investigation of the relationship which such social structures promotes between the individual aspects of life and those which transcend the existence of single individuals.”  Simmel also speaks of how capitalism reduces the individual into numbers.“Money is concerned only with what is common to all, i.e. with the exchange value which reduces all quality and individuality to a purely quantitative level.”  Beware of the co-option, it can catch us all. 

I weave together dissimilarities reclaiming them for my own.  For me my loose organic style and detailed method is also a methodology. As Simmel states “To the extent that money, with its colourlessness and its indifferent quality, can become a common denominator of all values, it becomes the frightful leveler — it hollows out the core of things, their peculiarities, their specific values and their uniqueness and incomparability in a way which is beyond repair”.  “This results in the individual’s summoning the utmost in uniqueness and particularization, in order to preserve his most personal core. He has to exaggerate this personal element in order to remain audible even to himself [herself]. ” I use the individual. I use the hand of the artist. Seeking to overcome our consumeristic culture, I create what it cannot. Uniqueness, detail and chaos cannot be mass produced. Beware of the co-option, it can catch us all.

 Britta Fluevog, Marriage-detail (20113)
This detail depicts the unique style, detail and chaos of the work

I weave together dissimilarities reclaiming them for my own. My theorists are not all high culture dead white male theorists. I take the theories of Georg Simmel and weave them into low culture, internet based, woman of colour and low standing that I find on Black Girl Dangerous.  The articles largely by ladies of colour teach me how to reassess the way I view the world. My theory is also woven from people I know, who are publishing on a variety of topics. Harsha Walia informs my work by teaching of colonialism, migrant justice, and the privileges of white settler society in her book: UndoingBorder Imperialism. Jean Swanson speaks about social justice in Poor-Bashing: The Politics of Exclusion. Laurel Dykstra deals with a theme death, that is not a current pursuit in my work, but has been in the past in Bury the Dead: Stories of Death and Dying, Resistance and Discipleship. What these cultural theorists and writers teach me most about is the practical application and living out of these ideologies.Beware of the co-option, it can catch us all.

I weave together dissimilarities reclaiming them for my own. I believe in truth. I believe in beauty.  I believe that connection to materials and to the artist can alter the way art sits in the world. There is a conversion/ connection that happens between the audience and the artist. Who the artist is as a person, what happened prior to the art, what the materials encompass, the journey the artist went on, how the art was created, are all transmitted in conscious and unconscious ways to the audience. Beware of the co-option, it can catch us all.

I weave together dissimilarities reclaiming them for my own. Take the medium of 1970’s artists like Tadek Beutlich, Sheila Hicks, Ritzi & Peter Jacobi and Debra Rapoprt and meld them into the issues of artists like Ai Wei Wei, Christine Meisner and Barbra Kruger. To see how issues facing today, and art practices facing today’s world can be reborn into mediums and modes of the past. What does it look like to reinvigorate textiles? Beware of the co-option, it can catch us all.

 Sheila Hicks, Bamian (1968/2001)

 Ai Wei Wei, Bang (2013)

I weave together dissimilarities reclaiming them for my own. I want to be able to reach beyond my own work to capture and weave into my work the brilliance of other artists. I want to be able to capture the way Anne Hamilton uses beauty, awe, play and encompasses space in her piece The Event of a Thread (2012-2013)to transport her viewers into another reality.  There are traces of beauty and play in my work Searching for Square (2005). In Occupy Loom (2013), I am looking at incorporating that use of space.

the event of a thread from Paul Octavious on Vimeo.

Britta Fluevog, Searching for Square (2005)              Britta Fluevog, Occupy Loom (2013)



I want to weave with the unease, craftsmanship and fairytale narrative from Sha Sha Higby’s work. The unease and craftsmanship can be seen in Woman with Two Vices (2011). Whereas Spiky Teacup (2013) depicts the fairytale combined with craftsmanship.

Sha Sha Higby performing at the New School at Commonweal from Sha Sha Higby on Vimeo.

 Britta Fluevog, Woman with Two Vices (2011)                           Britta Fluevog, Spiky Teacup (2013)

And I also want to capture the spontaneity, gesture and presence of Rebecca Warren.  

 Rebecca Warren, She (2003)                                                Britta Fluevog, Easter Tree (2011)

There is obvious ties in my work to Tatiana Blass’ Penelope. Both works are installations using chaotic read wrap with the loom featured. We have re-imagined the art tool into being apart of the art itself; taking an orderly quiet process and creating a loud chaos. Beware of the co-option, it can catch us all.

Tatiana Blass, Penelope (2011)                                                          Britta Fluevog ,2 looms, Life Cycle & Rebirth ,

Entangled into Industrial Detritus (2013)     

I weave together dissimilarities reclaiming them for my own. The grown-ups’ response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic and grammar. That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two.” Beware of the co-option, it can catch us all.

I weave together dissimilarities. I weave together. I weave.