Jo Blogg installing her Pins & Needles exhibition at the Hastings City Art Gallery. Photo / Glenn Taylor
One person's trash can be another's treasure and Jo Blogg has spent many an hour in second-hand shops and auction houses looking for such treasures.
The Napier artist's latest solo show, Pins and Needles, is the result of almost a year's work and highlights her penchant for labour-intensive work, repetition
and complex themes, a combination of exploring femininity, humour and the passing of time. She has recycled forgotten or overlooked objects into works of art, from boxes of dressmakers' pins to knitting needles, to 10-pin bowling skittles converted to French knitters, or knitting nancys.
There's a whole wall of cross-stitched and woven wonders, some of them Blogg's own handiwork, plus one that she worked on with family when she was younger. Some woven pictures become collectibles for people going for the shabby chic look, but most do not and wind up dusty and forgotten in op shops. "I'm intrigued by them and I feel a bit sorry for them."
The part of the exhibition which may draw the most attention is the wall of glass rolling pins, which Blogg bought at auction and has decorated with some choice words, all things women at one time or another may have been called - some nice, some funny, some nasty. "I think overall it's a look into women's world, what women do, what they use but also what women put up with. I hope it's going to start a conversation."
Pins and Needles, Hastings City Art Gallery.
