Skirt #6, 2011, Clare Strand — *Skirt #6*, 2011, Clare Strand

Interviewed by Shibei Xu

How do you come up with this idea about using skirt to decorate table? Does “Skirt” this product have some specific relationship with your personal experience?

I think its always good to take note of what you enjoy looking at . For a long while I had been drawn to table skirting, and then I identified that it might be a good idea to make a work about them. I think we all have had an experience with a table skirt - perhaps at a conference, a wedding, a fair, a school, a prize giving , a buffet.

I really love the “cinema” feeling that contained in this series. I wondered know why do you only choose black, white and grey skirt to decorate on the table? Also, I want to know your idea about combining different tables with different colors skirt.

In still life painting and photography the table and the covering are rarely given top billing. It is always what is placed upon them that solicit attention - flowers, food or awards. For Skirts the empty table and its covering have top priority.

Funnily enough, all the 10 skirts are different colours - there is indeed a black and a white but the other 8 are all different hues ranging from pink to blue, orange to red. It is only the black and white camera film that renders them monochromatic. But, if you look, the tonal qualities are all slightly different. I like the perversity of a work that is so suited to colour reproduction being rendered monotone by the process.

It was important for me to have 10 different tables ( all hired from a catering company as were the Skirts) - each table having a personality, which I intuitively dressed with a particular skirt colour.

I saw in your statement, you pointed out the importance of photography in your series. “all things that photography is very efficient in,” and “photography has been most useful for.” I wonder know more about that idea in this series.

Skirting around tables is usually used to hide the basic construct in order to embellish and make ‘pretty’. They are also used to hide legs and feet - so there is an element of modesty to them. In both cases the ‘Skirting’ is hiding a reality - which in a clear sense photography and this project do also.