Friendship and Inspiration

A visit from my two artist friends yesterday was such a gift in many ways. It was a huge honor to share my work with these two creative ladies, and I was humbled by their interest in the stories behind the pieces. We mused over what it might have been that brought us together; interests in words, materials, and fiber are certainly something we hold in common. But I think the bond likely extends beyond our overlapping interests to things less nameable. Both of my friends have an inspiring creative curiosity and delight in the world, and both are kind and gentle souls. It was the first time the three of us had gathered, and I was inspired and blessed by their visit and their friendship. Sadly, one of our three will soon move back to her home country after a twenty year stay here. She will be truly missed in Richmond!

Here are a few more of the pieces that I put out yesterday.

 

 

Rewind and Recharge

    

    

 

Tomorrow I will have these and other 3-dimensional mixed media and assemblage pieces out on view for a couple of artist friends who are interested to see them. The timing is good, because I need to spend some time with them too. I am looking forward to the next new thing in the studio, and I think there are clues for me here in these pieces. At the moment I am interested in working two dimensionally with mixed media and perhaps adding in some monotype and other printmaking to that. Another springboard might be the most recent mixed monotype/drawing pieces that I only began to explore in a short summer class. Here are a few of those.

 

For a stretch of time my studio work was focussed primarily on a couple of large landscape commissions, so I am happy to have some space and time to experiment, explore, and research the next thing. Revisiting past work can be a good way to recharge as I move forward.

Alternative to the Frenzy

 

 

If you are weary of the Christmas shopping frenzy or trying to avoid it, this invitation is for you. It is quiet and peaceful in the studio – a welcome alternative shopping experience if you are interested in shopping for original artwork. I am not holding an open studio, but will happily be here by appointment for anyone who wants to stop in. There are drawings (framed and unframed), paintings, collages, monotypes, 3-D pieces, and even clay whistles to have a look at. I’ll brew up some tea or share a glass of wine if you want to come and have a look! If you are interested, get in touch or contact me here and we can set something up.

 

 

Enjoy these days, every one of them and every beautiful minute!

Something Different

Beyond the representational work in the studio, there are several groups of abstract pieces. These include soft pastels, collages, and 3-D sculptures/assemblages. The soft pastels are small (3″ x 3″) and large (14″ x 14″ and 18″ x 15″), and three samples are shown below along with a couple of collages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Morning After Dreaming

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Veil

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nestle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Space Between

 

 

 

You can see this work and more by stopping in for a studio visit on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11-6:00, or by appointment. Contact me here for more information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[work]+ news

The VisArts Faculty and Staff show, [work], is up until August 11. There is much to see from many artists, so stop by and take a look. My piece is Promise, a 3-D piece. Here is a detail:

More of my 3-D work is up for only a few more days in the H. Scott November Gallery at Westminster Canterbury. It will come down on Monday, July 1.

Finally, my next class is a one day workshop – Oil Pastel Studio Day – on Saturday, July 20. You can find details at VisArts for this and for my August drawing classes. Stay cool in the studio!

In the Gallery

For the months of April, May, and June most of my 3-D sculpture and assemblage work will be up in the H. Scott November Gallery at Westminster Canterbury, 1600 Westbrook Avenue.  On May 1 at 10:00 I will give a short talk about the work. If you want to visit, just let the guard know you are there for the gallery and get a visitor’s pass.

True Stories

The project that was begun this past spring is finished at last and installed in the group show Friends at Caldwell Arts Council in Lenoir, North Carolina. The piece is Collected Stories, and this is what it looks like:

The box contains true stories generously sent to me by fifty-six friends. A recent post, “My Story” (see below), is the text of my own story in the box. It is the story of the project, and it is the only story that is available  to be read. The stories contained in the box are folded accordion-style and threaded on a metal rod in a process that I have described more thoroughly in earlier posts. It was clear to me from the beginning that the collective voice of these true stories was crucial to the piece – these fragments of lives are woven and layered together (literally and figuratively) to create a visual object that is completely dependent on its content for its image. If you are near Lenoir any time before October 1, stop in and have a look!

Rust

This is a piece of cotton organdy rusting. It is for a new piece, and I will use it with a fused glass plate. Here, the nails are stuck through the organdy into a piece of foam core and the whole bit is put in a tray of water for a day or two. The organdy is so sheer that it is difficult to see under the water in the photo. There are four pieces of fabric to rust, and although they are small pieces, the rusting takes some time. In a sense, rusting is a way to visibly record the passage of time. The process is not unlike exposing (old-fashioned wet) photography paper to light – the longer the exposure the darker the image. With the rust, the longer the fabric is left in the water, the larger and darker the spots will be. I like the notion that the rusting captures time in a way… it would be nice if it would slow time down!

My Story

I am continuing to work on the piece that was described in the last post, and I have finally gotten around to writing the story I am contributing. It is the story of the making of the piece, and it will be the only one the viewer will be able to read. Here is my story:

THE BOX

This is the story of how this piece, Collected Stories, came to be.

One day my friend Rob offered to take me to a couple of interesting used furniture and stuff places up Route 1 heading north out of Richmond. Our first stop was “Class and Trash” which is always over-full with furniture, household goods, and assorted curiosities. We both noticed this box, because it had such an interesting shape; but neither of us could imagine what it was ever intended for. That day I bought a couple of things that had potential for use in future assemblages – but not the box. The curious piece stayed on my mind the rest of the day, so the next morning I went back to buy it.

At the time I was in the midst of working on a group of 3-dimensional pieces, so I immediately began cleaning the box up and smoothing out the rough inside. But I had no notion how I might use the box in a piece. Over time I sketched out several ideas, but none seemed quite right. As I began the work for this show at Caldwell Arts Center, I began once again to consider how I might use the box. I had just finished the piece Promise in which I had used some layered writing on Lokta paper, and I thought about the possibility of using the same kind of layered paper in the box. For this piece I wanted to fold the paper accordion-style; this was influenced by a Japanese accordion sketchbook I had recently finished (as a left-handed project) and also by an amaryllis pod which split to reveal paper-like seeds layered in the pod like some sort of gills. In the past I have used quoted poems and, in Promise, some of my own poems in the writing – whatever seemed relevant to the piece. This one called for something different: a collective voice – true stories from the people around me. I set about composing an e-mail with a request for a true short story or anecdote (NOT a creative writing piece). Within an hour of sending out the message, the first story came in, and after the first day, six stories had arrived. People have been so generous with their stories and time, and they have been very supportive of the project.

As soon as the stories began coming in, the piece became more than I had imagined it would be. I don’t know why this surprised me. One predictable aspect of making art is that each piece has a life of its own, and the maker is generally not the one in control. As soon as a piece is begun, it goes off in some unforeseen direction. The job of the artist, I believe, is to respond to what is happening – in a sort of dialogue with the work itself. With the box my focus had been on making the object. But the process of collecting and transcribing stories immediately became extremely important to the piece, and curiously so, since I am the only one who will read the stories. People have trusted me with their stories, these small fragments of their lives, and I have a responsibility to honor both that trust and the gifted story in my making. The stories themselves and the gifting of the stories change me. And, it seems, the project has also affected the participants. Many have thanked me for the invitation to write for different reasons: they were grateful for the motivation, they had been meaning to write this story, the writing was a welcome break from the daily routine, the writing brought clarity to their story, or the writing provided the opportunity to share a story that would be safe here – something that could not be shared more publicly. There is an aspect of exchange in this process that is akin to ideas expressed in Lewis Hyde’s book The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. For a gift to have value and to stay alive, it must be passed on, kept in motion, not quantified. Hyde supports his ideas by looking at the notion of the gift through time and across cultures before he begins a consideration of the creative gift. What has happened and is happening with this piece seems to fit his thesis well. Further elaboration would require an essay of its own.

Many aspects of this piece are multi-layered. In its format it is a combination of object/sculpture, assemblage, collaboration, and conceptual art. It is made from the literal (physical) layering of stories combined with more figurative sorts of layering. The contributed stories have been written and layered two sheets together. They are layered again as they are torn in strips, then glued and stitched, and finally folded into the box. There are layers within the stories themselves: layers of narrative, meaning, feeling, symbol, and characters. From story to story there are links and overlaps of subject or theme. There is a layer of the story of the box itself: the unknown story of the box’s origin and the one that is being written and continued now in the making of the piece. These layers and stories together speak of our connections to one another in ways that are elemental and quite profound. While it is unlikely that the viewer will be aware of all that I am describing, it is these things that allow a found box to be transformed into MORE.

Slow Art

As I have been working on the most recent 3-D piece the notion of “Slow Art” (akin to the Slow Food Movement) has arisen frequently in my thoughts. The current piece is extremely labor intensive. I knew before I started that it would be, but the approach seemed like the right – no, the necessary – thing to do. Somehow, I am not the one in charge here. The piece involves collecting true short stories and anecdotes from friends and relatives, copying them on lokta paper, rinsing the paper to fade the ink, layering two sheets together, tearing the pages in strips of appropriate width, stitching them together, and folding them accordion-style. That is what you see in the image above. When that long accordion is complete, it will be put in a found box by threading it on a rod. Well, that is difficult to describe, so I will post an image when it is finished. For now, I am so very grateful to all those who have entrusted me with their stories, and I love the way that the story gathering has changed the piece and given it a collective history of people and stories around the world. The project has changed me and, seemingly, made a difference to many of the participants. So, perhaps “Slow Art” is a sort of cousin to “Slow Food”…