Rita Valley is many things: a wage slave, a bottom feeder, a loser. She admits this.
"I don't make my living off my art. People ask me if I sell everything in my show. I say no, that's not why I do it," Valley says. "I see that look on their face, 'What a loser.' So I say fine, I'm a beautiful loser."
Valley, of Southbury, puts these phrases at the center of off-kilter tapestries. Several of her pieces are on show now at Real Art Ways in Hartford.
Her mix of materials is odd: silk with pleather, plaid with pictoral, accented by fringe, chains, streamers and other doodads.
"I like materials that are alternately beautiful and repulsive. It's beautiful but also kind of pushing you away," she says. "If they were just pretty, they wouldn't be interesting."
Her bleak phrases are not melancholy but humorously ironic. "I've never done a piece saying, 'Have a nice day.' I'm really repulsed by overly positive, knee-jerk modern philosophies," she says. "When someone says, 'Everything's just great, be happy,' I think, 'Really, come on.'"
WAGE SLAVE, DISTRACTED DRIVING and SURFACE WORK are at Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor St. in Hartford, until Sept. 11. realartways.org
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