Recent Posts
Recent Comments
Monthly Archives: April 2006
Back to our regularly scheduled program
The Dredger was juried into Fabricate. YAY!
Even though I was in two minds about submitting my art for public exhibition, I am pleased that the jury selected my work, and not only because my $35 will not be wasted.
I am interested to see how the quilt will look hanging in a gallery and I am excited that others who have an interest and a passion for contemporary textile art will get to see my art and I’ll get to see other textile art as well.
So, I’m not going to bore you with excessive detail about my holidays (very, very good: see above photo), the sickness (Me:cold, Riscy:gastro, big time!), the renovations (our house resembles a weird half hovel, half bomb site – we have no kitchen), or how annoying it is to be back at work… Instead I will launch straight back into art, which seems more sane than anything else at the moment.
I’m interested in layers. The Dredger was devoid of any layering of imagery. I had all sorts of visions of the quilting providing richness of detail to foil against the harshness and to provide depth. But I could not
achive that, the quilting lines were just too insignificant against the monumental dredger
I am looking for something more, a way of really incorporating layers and detail into my work, AND I have some ideas to work with too… what more could you ask LOL
You may be wondering about The Impeller, a design I showed here a while ago. I am oscillating between making it and hating it so I’ve decided to leave it for a while. I have some smaller projects to keep me occupied while I contemplate LAYERS. For starters I need a new hand bag… and I promised one to a friend over a year ago so perhaps two handbags are in the works.
Posted in Misc
7 Comments
On Creativity and Art
I used to have this idea that artists should be able to create with ease, remember Mr Squiggle who could draw with his pencil nose a few seconds, a few lines and ‘upside down Miss Jane’ and wow a picture was revealed.
Pro Hart, smearing spagetti and mustard all over the carpet, sloshing, smattering food and in the space of a TV advertisement he had created ‘art’.
And the quilt artists, all that fusing and splattering dye around, slashing at quilts… Tyvek, angelina fibre, beads, embellishers, fancy machine stitches, dyed silk cocoons… it should be easy.
So I tried improvisation, I’d just start sewing, cutting, painting… no plan of couse the ideas are meant to just ‘come out’ spontaneously, right?
I rarely finished anything though, never sure where I was headed, never in love with my work.
But one day I was playing around with some of my photos and I happened upon a fragment of an image that took my breath away. I printed it out and took it to a workshop I was doing, I showed all the printouts to another participant and she said ‘this one is great!’ and out of my mouth popped… "I’m going to make this into a quilt"
And I did. And it was worthwhile.
Melody Johnson wrote a post the other day titled Design and Improvisation. It got my brain churning.
I am now thinking that whilst improvisation and experimentation is very valuable for skill development, for developing new ‘effects’, for developing ideas…. I should not see the product of this experimentation as art, unless I really develop a piece fully past that stage.
My experience with The Dredger has exposed a wonderful, fulfilling way of working. Get the idea first, think on it, develop it out then start working on the piece. Six months ago this would have been unthinkable for me, but now, it is the only way forward.
Posted in Misc
Leave a comment