Comic Abstraction: Image-Breaking, Image-Making

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Blossom

Polly Apfelbaum. Blossom. 2000

Synthetic velvet and fabric dye, approximately 18' (548.6 cm) in diameter. Gift of Donald L. Bryant, Jr., Barbara Foshay, Ricki Conway, Susan Jacoby, Jo Carole Lauder, Steven M. Bernstein, and Brook Berlind. © 2018 Polly Apfelbaum

Artist, Polly Apfelbaum: I use a squeeze bottle, and I squeeze first the middle color, and then what I do is take the other squeeze bottle, which has the red, and dab it. And where I dab, it makes a mark. And if you look closely at the piece, there's like double dots in it. So that's where I've touched the fabric.

Then I cut out everything, and leave that quarter inch border. Because it really gives it a sharper edge, and that helps in the flying, (Laughs), in the levitating.

I hand install the piece, and each time it's different. But basically the piece is from light to dark, and it's a spiral of color. One of the parts of the work that I love is the kind of coming in and making it in a space. It's kind of reinventing the piece.