Always In Your He(art)

Three Pairs of Sisters Bridging the Distance by Practice

“It was an uncertain Spring,” wrote Virginia Woolf in the beginning of her half-century-spanning 1937 novel . On the dust jacket of the last book the British author published in her lifetime: a single black rose, three empty dinner plates, and a series of cluttered circles locked together in ink—capturing the sentiment of not only an unsteady season, but of a story that disregards scope in favor of the deepest details of family life. The cover was, like most of Woolf’s works, designed by her sister and frequent collaborator, Vanessa Bell. As a pair, the two worked in tandem: Woolf would tell her sister what she was working on and, as sisters innately do, Bell would just it. Even without reading the text, she could read the mood.

last year. While it’s since felt more like an uncertain eternity, we’re reminded that there are sisters who, despite the distance, have found a way to see each other through their art. With the exchange of advice and offers of support, through shared projects and new ideas, they have defined the distinction between keeping in touch and keeping .

Here, we asked three pairs of sisters and influential artists to offer statements on the work they’ve created together while apart, and on the specific familial bond that fuels their creative process. When every day feels like another step into the unknown, leaning on the one who knows you best will, in one way or another, always lead to home.

Nikki:Corinne:

Corinne and I come from a big family. Nearly everyone makes things in their spare time. During this year apart, we struck up the idea to collaborate on a needlepoint based on one of my paintings. This simple idea quickly became an obsession for both of us. It offered Corinne a new subject to interpret through weaving. For me, the opportunity to live out a fantasy of creating an object from my work was thrilling. I found myself imagining her, miles away, tediously stitching together the same imagery that I, alone in my studio, was “stitching” together in paint. For a moment, the distance seemed to fall away and we could be together in the act of creating.When we first had the idea, I realized that I would need Nikki’s insights and knowledge at nearly every step of the way. Initially, my angles were all wrong. Certain elements were too big, and the colors were slightly off. With every conversation on placement, color, or textures, I gained a deeper understanding and appreciation for her work. Being able to collaborate with her not only made the piece come alive but it also brought us closer together. By working together we were able to merge our normally solitary crafts into a treat we could savor together, despite the distance.

Darby:Claire:

I’m constantly painting my sisters from memory. They’re in the foreground of my large painting , which I painted in the beginning of the first lockdown. I’ve painted them so much that they have become more of a symbol of sisters and sisterhood instead of a real resemblance to them. We haven't seen each other in a year and a half now. There is a feeling of distance and anxiety in this painting that’s inspired by how my sisters and I were feeling at the time. Roads and pathways are themes in my work, and I think on one level it relates to this feeling of homesickness for them. Where I am inspired emotionally by my sisters, Claire is much more pragmatic. She often writes me asking what colors to choose for her backgrounds or how to resolve a work in progress. I’ll usually send her images of paintings by Maude Lewis or Grant Wood to inspire her. Sometimes it’s just encouraging to get a message from Claire while she’s across the country from me of a painting-in-progress picture. We motivate each other. We’ll talk about color and technique, vent when we make mistakes, and gossip about art-world drama. I miss painting next to her.Darby says being a painter can be lonely. I text her when I’m having painter’s fury. She says, “Discontentment is the beginning of change.” This is the longest we’ve been apart, I think. Staying in touch is hard, especially when you’re not in a happy place. I get the sense that our weekly painting chats function as a kind of coded sisters language. I ask Darby for advice on a background and she tells me that good painting is about losing control, throwing out your initial ideas to see what emerges out of the wreckage. I tell Darby I’m in tears after mixing bad greens all day, and she says if I had been open to it, maybe the mistake green was really the perfect green for me. This painting was the first piece I made in my new home after a big life transition. I texted Darby at every stage of this work, and she consistently told me to embrace change, accept risks, and add more flowers. I like to think her painter’s advice was also big sister’s advice.

Nadia:Laila:

In late January and fresh into 2020, I went to the Toronto Reference Library, hoping to find some inspiration on the fifth floor. I came across a book about the life and work of Louise Bourgeois. An image of a drypoint aquatint on staff paper Bourgeois had made stood out to me, and I took a photo of it on my iPhone. The print contained a childlike, storybook-looking drawing of a house, outlined in red. In it were compartments that contained the words “Who,” “Where,” “When,” “Why,” “What” in black—the title of the print. I sent the photo to Laila and didn't give it much thought for a while after.Months later, in a state of panic with a global pandemic and stay-at-home measures in place, museums and institutions were advertising their online catalogues and giving virtual tours as a way to pass the time at home. I had just finished watching the New York City Ballet’s streamed performance of the week and thought I’d see what was on at MoMA. I came across a catalogue essay Bourgeois had written in conjunction with the work I had documented in the library. Reading her words could not have come at a better time—it was as though she was writing about our current state of the world. Of course, I followed up with Laila and we both went on to create work during that time: a reflection of the circumstances and an ode to Bourgeois. It felt good to be able to concentrate on a small surface in front of me, and to make smaller paintings on whatever I could find—in this case, a roll of kitchen-towel fabric. The red border of the towels provided a sense of calm and direction.Early on in the pandemic, I felt like everything in my life was falling apart, so I started doing a lot of sewing. Mending and stitching things together calmed me. I moved on from scraps of fabric to lavash bread I had laying around my studio for an event that got canceled. Bread is my favorite food, and for me, the ultimate comfort.