“Shifting the fear level” Interview Jill Trappler

I) What comes to mind when you hear the expression “crossing the threshold”?

One thing which comes immediately in mind, is a painting that I did in1991 and it is called “Stoep”1. It is a color-field-painting. In many homes there is a Stoep that goes around a house. It is usually covered and quite wide. It is also called a veranda. The chairs are comfortable and allow for relaxation and conversation. Or there are benches especially placed for conversation. It is a place to breathe. From the interior of the house we walk through a door and across the stoep to the garden or the yard. We can look into the house and we can look out from the house, across the stoep, a threshold. We have to cross this stoep, visually and physically and we have to breathe. (essential to life) On most days in these homes a domestic worker would go down on her/his knees and after sweeping and washing, the smooth surface would be polished to shine. The yard outside the home is also swept until it looks polished. That surface holds memories of conversations embedded into these thresholds; worker’s, visitors and residents cross over one another’s narratives daily. The area protects the home from all weather, it absorbs the storms and sun shine. The big painting of mine is about that transitional space, crossing that space and being in the space. This stoep is metaphorically a threshold that I cross most days. As I wake from sleep or drift into sleep, for example. I stop to breathe as I cross these thresholds.