Exploration: Sculptural Forms

 

Three-dimensional forms are my current focus – O.K, more like a fixation.  I’m working on a new series to combine wire armatures and handmade paper – using either freshly couched, wet sheets  or dipping armatures into paper pulp. The high shrinkage of 4-hour beaten abaca pulp from Carriage House Papers  lends itself to this process. The results are incredibly durable, even though they look very fragile.

 

. Jeanne Beck, Layers, 6” x9”, wire and paper sculpture mounted on hardwood covered with handmade paper, tea bag papers, gesso. I’m researching sources for a thin drop-in frame for these. Any suggestions for sources? My husband hopes you will please share them to get him off the hook for more R&D assignments!

Freshly dipped wire forms, drying on a wooden rack in my studio. The drying process takes three to four days. The moisture rusts the ungalvanized wire I use. Some pieces may be dipped, partially dried and dipped again several times to accumulate layers.

 

My resident R&D department has been helping to design stands to provide another presentation option for these small works.

 

My vision for this series – much like my current fluttering pages pieces – is to work with repetition. I visualize rows and rows of them hanging together.

I’ll  work this week to complete 11 more pieces. That will allow me to see how they look as multiples. If successful, then I’ll create 24 in this first series to hang 6 across and 6 down. If not successful, then back to the drawing board. Ideally, working with multiples will allow galleries and collectors flexibility for purchasing and presentation. More ideas for combining and hanging these together are evolving.

Special thanks to two excellent workshop teachers, Mo Kelman and Melissa Jay Craig, for providing so much excellent information and assistance in starting down this trail. Melissa is teaching 3-D papermaking again at Women’s Studio Workshop this summer, if you are interested.

Hot Tamales! The Muse Visits

Order of the day yesterday, more experimentation. Another cheapie synthetic scarf got sacrificed to the heat gun to create a strong finishing layer for this 12" x 12" piece, "Notations 9." A few touches of red and golden yellow accents completed it.

Then the day took a surprising turn. I decided to apply gold leaf to a canvas wrapped stretcher frame. You'll find this and other great finishing techniques in Jane Dunnewold's DVD, "Finish It" which you can buy from Art Cloth Studios. Just click the link.

Since finishing a frame this way was an "experiment," I grabbed an old 10" square frame that I had painted with black on the side and then for some unknown reason, an eye popping golden yellow on top.

I applied the gold leaf as per Jane's instructions. While it was drying, I decided to glue some rice paper down to the yellow area to keep it from showing through any textile I might apply over it. While working with the rice paper, I tried to lift it off the surface and reposition it and it began to rip in interesting ways. Intrigued by the ripped edges, I created some more. Rationale? They would disappear when I applied a textile over the surface, anyway, so I felt free to try anything.

Once the gold leaf and ripped rice papers dried, I brushed off the excess leaf and began working brown Setacolor paint in over the sides. As usual, my brush started to wander with a life of its own and reached the rice paper. Almost magically, the surface appeared to age. The golden yellow could be muted or allowed to glow through from beneath the rice paper.

Depth, dimension, visual interest, the appearance of age and deterioration -- lovely. I added a few more colors and some marbled foils for the blue green areas.



With the addition of a few distinct letterforms, this small work will be complete. The question that remains is, how do I want to add them? Painting, printing, collaging? More play and experimentation lie ahead.

It is my first piece totally outside the realm of textiles. Yes, I've seen mixed media works with rice paper, read books about these techniques and seen them in other people's work. I've wanted to try them (obviously, since I have three kinds of rice paper at my studio) but somehow couldn't give myself permission to take that step into another medium. Why? Who knows? When the time is right to take a new creative step, it seems to just happen. I back into discoveries -- or rear end them. Seldom do I hurtle forward in a vintage Corvette convertible at high speeds.

All I do know is that with five boxes of 12" x 12" frames sitting in my studio (5 x 6 = 30!), I'll be able to continue to experiment for quite a while!

Resetting My Compass

What happens to you once you complete a very intense, creative project? For me, there's a period when that creative place inside feels almost too eerily quiet. Almost want to call "Code Blue, Code Blue" and get the cardiac arrest team here. After a period of such focused work, NOT being engaged to that degree feels almost like flatlining.

SOME people relax willingly. Me, I do it because my entire self goes on strike until I listen to it. So I spent the entire weekend -- amazingly -- away from both my sewing and surface design studios. Read the entire Sunday New York Times AND most of Art in America. Enjoyed a family picnic and played with my grandchildren.

When I walked back into my studio yesterday, I still wasn't ready to enter into that intensity of composing a new surface. Since "show up and do something, anything" is my motto, I played!


There are always painted samples lying about, so I grabbed a few small ones and treated them like sketchbook pages. I painted and silkscreened some details over whatever was already on the surfaces. When that dried, I added some foiling and then fused a sheer synthetic fabric to both pieces, leaving folds and ripples. A heat gun disintegrated the black sheer synthetic in interesting patterns.

To play without direction helps rekindle my passion for creating without worrying about success or failure. These are small, lively and fun. The top one will travel to the other side of the country as a "trade" with a fellow artist and the other one will go into my sketchbook for reference.

After I played, I could deal with cleaning up from the past few weeks. I washed all the containers and brushes and silkscreens and assorted squeeze bottles that had piled up. I'm turning to a fresh page, will mix new dyes for the next project and not try to recycle any of these.

But I have to confess I don't feel ready yet to really immerse in painting and printing another large surface. My inner compass is still resetting, searching once again for true north. It seems that I need to turn around and around, like a silly old dog, before I finally plop myself down in one spot. So while I'm heading back up to my studio today, I can't say for sure what I'll do once I get there.

Even just puttering in my studio makes me happy, though. And that's what living a creative life is truly all about, don't you think?

Informing the Work

Linen wrapping with Etruscan writing from the Mummy of Zagreb

When you read about an artist's work that "X's work is informed by thus-and-such" or "references such-and-such", have you ever wondered WHY artists do research and how it contributes to the development of their work?

When I took a master class with Michael James in 2007 and told him I wanted to begin to explore language imagery, he advised strongly that I research and study more about art and language to "inform" my work. I took his words to heart and have been researching and learning ever since.

What do research and exploring references do for our art work?

When I selected one language, Etruscan, two weeks ago, to explore for six months, I was a bit worried. There are few surviving samples of this written language other than funerary inscriptions of names. Because of this, experts can decipher individual names and words and phrases but don't completely understand the meanings.

One of the largest surviving Etruscan texts I've discovered is a great stimulation to my imagination. Five linen wrappings on the mummified remains of what scientists have identified as an approximately 30 year old woman from between 150 and 100 BC are covered with 1200 legible words written in ink that appear to be a sacred, religious text. They call her the Mummy of Zagreb.

The images of these mummified remains and the fragments of sacred texts and names of gods and goddesses written on the wrappings are new images in my thoughts as I practice writing Etruscan language fragments daily with a variety of tools, paints and inks. While there is no full translation of the writing on these burial cloths, my imagination creates its own stories and explanations.



Each day as my writing practice with the Etruscan alphabet evolves through the assignments in my correspondence class with Laurie Doctor, I feel the act of writing more. I am becoming more attentive to the movement of my whole body in the act of writing, how similar it is to drawing and how the marks I make reveal much about my state of mind each day, whether I am present and relaxed, tense or distracted.

Slowing down and feeling the instrument in my hand, relaxing the grip and giving my full attention to the process are helping me connect more deeply with the gestural act of writing. Even while I don't know what impact this practice will have on my new work, I can sense a shift in my approach to working.

Exciting New Venue for My Work

Photo from SOFA Chicago exhibition in 2006; this is a shot of the Jane Sauer Gallery booth

Works from my Parables series will be on display at SOFA Chicago (Sculptural Objects and Functional Art) beginning November 6-8,2009, represented by Maria Elena Kravetz Gallery. Maria contacted me in November; we've finalized arrangements and it's official.

SOFA is a "field of dreams" for fine craft lovers and collectors; patrons come to purchase new works to add to their private, corporate or museum collections. On view are some of the most beautiful contemporary craft pieces in every medium that I've ever seen.

And my work will be there among them.

Artists never know how or when an opportunity will arise or what it will ultimately mean for their work. Whatever outcome there may be in exhibiting my work in this venue, the opportunity provides a strong focus for my intentions for this year.

Because of this commitment, I took teaching off my website. Although I'm honoring my existing workshops for this year, I'm not taking on any new ones. I'm also not taking on any new writing projects. This allows me to focus on the vision and new work for this series.

Since I made this decision, I've experienced a gamut of emotions -- from panic and fear of totally failing to an incredible confidence that I'm ready and equal to the opportunity.

None of us can do more than greet any new life opportunity by giving it our absolute best. That's what I intend to do for exhibiting my work at SOFA.

This New Year is unfolding filled with hope and concerns for us as a nation. My anxieties may spike, I may have times of doubt and elation, but I also trust that the universe has brought this to me because I'm ready. I have a strong inner compass; it says this is right for me.

I've always been willing to try and fail in any artistic endeavor. Now it's time to be equally gracious about accepting visibility and the potential for collectors investing in my work. Whatever this may lead to for my career, I already possess a love of creating and joy in being a maker. That is my touchstone.

The Writings of Agnes Martin

"Martin, Agnes, "I Love The Whole World," 1999. Acrylic and graphite on canvas.

On Friday, I finally picked up the books I ordered through inter-library loan at our local college. Agnes Martin: Paintings and Writings, a catalogue published in 2000 by the prestigious Pace-Wildenstein gallery in New York City, combines ideas about artmaking that Agnes put into writing with 15 paintings completed in 1999. All the works are acrylic and graphite on canvas, all are 60" x60" and have titles like "Happiness-Glee", "I Love Love", "Innocent Love" and "Lovely Life." Agnes always painted in a square format -- in her younger years she worked in a 80" x 80" format, but as she aged the larger canvases became too difficult for her to manage and she shifted to the 60" x 60" size.

At the time this exhibition and catalogue were produced, Agnes was 87 years old. In the final years of her life, she lived in a retirement home in Taos, NM, but still drove to her studio every day to work. The paintings in this exhibition are different in coloration from Agnes' earlier works, which were mainly shades of gray and white with her characteristic hand drawn graphite lines. These later works introduce muted pastel washes of earth red and sky blue, greens and yellows. Nancy Doyle's profile of the artist at www.ndoylefineart.com/martin.html suggests that these colors may be Agnes' response to the white desert light and the colors of the earth in the southwest.

Even as I started reading the essays interspersed between the images of the paintings, I noticed Martin's writing is as spare and condensed as her painting. Like her art, her writing seems to contain a wealth of insight distilled from experience into each statement. In the essay, "What We Do Not See If We Do Not See," Agnes declares that she wanted to "live a true life." Living this true life meant seeing the joyfulness in reality, maintaining an awareness of beauty, innocence and happiness because without them she believed one could not make works of art.

In the essay "What is Real?", written in 1976, Agnes wrote, " Works of art have successfully represented our response to reality from the beginning. The artist tries to live in a way that will make greater awareness of the sublimity of reality possible. Reality, the truth about life and the mystery of beauty are all the same and they are the first concern of everyone."

Agnes concludes, "There is a purpose in our lives and it is in operation every minute. When we are right on the track we are rewarded with joy. We can know the whole truth with a request to our minds. If we are completely without direction we can withdraw and our minds will tell us the next step to take." I remembered a similar comment Agnes made in the interview with her in the New Art City DVD. Agnes found that connection to an inner voice that revealed insights to her and answers to questions as she worked.

It is that very connection that I depend on more and more with each new piece of work; that inner voice increasingly guides and shuts out the chatter and clutter of marketing, promotion, sales. The making of the work is now central, the connection to that center within fuels and guides the exploration.

It is possible to track Agnes' artistic evolution from her early days in New York City as part of the Abstract Expressionist era of the 1940's and 50's through her seven year sojourn from doing any painting at all followed by her choice to live and paint alone in an isolated part of the northern New Mexican desert. Studying the unfolding of an artist's life and work can be a rich source of inspiration. Alone with her work and a quiet contemplation of nature, I find great inspiration in Martin's leanings towards Asian philosophy and her connections with nature. How fortunate we are to have access to so many artists through the enormous documentation in both books and film of their work and ideas and inspirations.

As Nancy Doyle writes in her profile of Agnes, "Her work was influenced greatly by nature, however not in the sense of replicating nature - rather, she wanted the viewer to experience the same feelings they have when in front of nature. Some of her titles allude to nature - to leaves, rivers, flowers, etc., but her work has more to do with expressing positive inner states of existence. She has been associated with the Minimalist movement, but her work is less rigid, less cerebral - more spiritual in inspiration than Minimalist. She shared with her friend, the artist Richard Tuttle, certain attitudes about art and life, which stem from their interest in eastern philosophy - the ideas of ego-lessness, humility, and the Tao - in life and in art."

Many of us are drawn to art that attempts to express these "positive inner states of existence." Increasing numbers of western artists have been drawn to Asian philosophy. The works of those artists whose true inner selves seem to radiate through their imagery, marks and concepts are those that currently inspire and encourage me in my own artistic journey.

Let me close with this last quote from Martin's writing. because the advice it contains is vital for all of us:

"Make happiness your goal. The way to discover the truth about this life is to discover yourself."

Working in a Series: More Thoughts

There's a lot to think about when we begin to develop a framework for the investigation and exploration that goes into a series. Most of what we need to consider are the ideas we wish to express and explore ways to communicate them visually. When we take a photograph of a bird, it is usually because we admire its beauty, the coloration of its feathers, the differences in this particular bird from other birds, its uniqueness. We can take thousands of beautiful photographs of birds because we love them and respond to them. However, when we decide to incorporate a bird or birds in our art, we enter into some additional considerations. We are not only looking at the structure and patterns and form of the bird, we are also considering what thoughts or ideas that bird may represent.

One of the first ways to approach the subject of "bird" would be to explore it scientifically. We could study the bone structure and physiology of birds, familiarize ourselves with their habits and history and record the similarities and differences in their infinite variety of sizes, shapes and colors. We could learn about their migratory patterns, their reproductive cycles, the challenges they face for survival as a species.

In addition, the artist could begin to research how images or birds have been incorporated into various human cultures. Native American pictographs and Egyptian hieroglyphs include bird images. Myths and legends involving birds abound in ancient cultures -- people turning into birds, birds that can take human form, birds that immolate and then are reborn from their own ashes are just a few examples.

An additional inquiry about birds might be how artists have used the bird as a visual symbol. Dead game birds were often included in 19th century still life paintings. Picasso's dove paintings are universally recognized. Poets and writers have often used the bird symbolically -- consider Poe's raven as an example. Then consider what the bird represents to you and how you might communicate that feeling as a visual image. Would it be a realistic or abstracted bird, the complete image or just the suggestion of "birdness" with a wing or feather?

As one gathers knowledge and information, the potential for exploring this subject becomes increasingly vast and complex and can seem overwhelming. But allow yourself to feel overwhelmed for a bit. Out of the Mt. Everest of information, some images and ideas will begin to fire your imagination and move to the forefront of your thoughts. Those are the ones you seize on and begin to flesh out in your sketch or notebook.

Just writing the above, my imagination is most charged by the idea of stripping away the colors and patterns of various birds and working with the tiny skeletal structures. To me, stripping away is an appealing concept at the moment because it seems to echo my desire to get beyond the surface and reveal the bones or structure within a subject.

So the process begins with gathering information, opening ourselves to a vast array of ideas from various directions and sources and then sifting and sorting though them to the ones that excite us the most. This enables us to begin to narrow our inquiry and select specific attributes of our subject that we wish to explore visually.

That also means our exploration and discovery are ongoing and we will begin to notice references to and information about birds everywhere. Our radar will be attuned to the subject and our reference base will continue to widen. We'll find ourselves noticing how birds appear in places like advertisements, in children's books and stories, in old movies, in novels, etc. etc.

Clearly "bird" is a vast subject, but as we explore it we will also sort and define, sort again and redefine. Eventually we will make a choice to start with certain elements of "bird" as a design theme and by making that choice, we will move quietly to a more inward investigation and move away from ceaseless research and references. The huge river will branch into more navigable streams. The first step is to place a toe in the water and begin creating. Ripples will move outward from that first action and attract a response; action initiates the process of expressing an artistic response to "bird" as a subject for artistic enquiry.

Note: I won't be posting for the next week; we're hosting a big family reunion. Close to 30 of my husband's Nebraska cousins and spouses are arriving tonight and we'll be taking them on a whirlwind tour of upstate New York, starting with Niagara Falls and ending up on the St. Lawrence River and the Thousand Islands. But of course my mind will still be gathering impressions, sorting and sifting ideas -- so even when we are not actually MAKING art, we are in the process!

Desire, Contrast and Tension

In a variation of the Midas touch, without the ironic twist that you could never touch another human being (or possibly scratch an itch!), suppose that every creative idea you attempted to express worked out flawlessly? That your every effort was met with critical acclaim? That it required no real effort on your part to succeed beyond your wildest dreams?

I wonder how long I would stay committed to my visual art if I had this power? Or would I seek one new challenge and stimulation after another? Over the next year I might sculpt a new David, paint a new Mona Lisa, beat Tiger Woods at golf, dance with Alvin Ailey and then saunter off to Hollywood to write, produce, direct and star in my own Oscar winning film. Top it off with a Pulitzer prize-winning novel. Effortless, limitless creating. I admit it, it's tantalizing.

But is it just making everything we touch gold that we are really seeking? Or do we also fall in love with the practice and process of Getting There (wherever that may be)?

In visual art, contrast and tension are vital elements of good design. There's contrast and tension in the creative process as well. Try watching children really absorbed in play. They are seldom laid back and relaxed. Rather, they're active, bodies and minds engaged and in a state of high energy.

My creative times are filled with tension at well, not unpleasant, more like the tension that builds when an aerialist is somersaulting from one trapeze to another, when the gun fires and the gate opens in a horse race, when a figure skater leaps into the air to attempt a triple axle. It is a tension that comes from knowing there is a bridge to build between intention and actualization. At times the body, mind and spirit work together so effortlessly, so beautifully -- and the results of that focus, intention and action all come together to create stunning results. At other times, the horse stumbles and loses its stride, the figure skater falls, the aerialist misses the catch and drops into the net, but the repetition of these efforts over and over and over leads ultimately to accomplishment.

Artists may be less aware physically than figure skaters and acrobats of how much work and preparation go into accomplishment How many times do athletes fall as they practice, how many repetitions and refinements does it take to have the movements become so integral that they can appear to happen effortlessly?

When we watch a dance troupe and consider the incredible disciplined practice that goes into training a dancer's body, observe the nuance and gestural quality of the simplest movement, I think we can begin to appreciate how long it takes to develop a similar expertise in art making.

And yet I also believe that our desires and intentions do manifest. We can touch a surface and create gold. All we need to do is engage in that process of practice, commitment and setting our intentions. We can create anything that we are willing to work to manifest. And I believe that our eventual successes will give rise to new desires, new intentions and a new cycle of practice, work and growth. It's a delightful prospect to look at my daily efforts as preparation for my own Olympic Gold Medal moments, to feel a growing confidence and pleasure in my practiced techniques and recognize that I am ever more skilled at and knowledgeable about surface design and composition and creative process.

I can enjoy my never-ending curiosity that always leads me to my mischievous "what ifs" and mutter over the frequent failures that often ensue, but I'm more comfortable with failing now that I know it's just a part of getting to success.

A July 08 Reader's Digest article related the story of entrepreneur Sheri Schmelzer and how she developed Jibbitz, decorative accessories that fit into the holes in Croc shoes. Over a period of several years, Sheri worked through trial and error and a variety of challenges to create over 300 designs and built a retail customer base of more than 4,000 stores. In December 2006, Croc bought Jibbitz for $20 million, hiring both Sheri and her husband Rich to come on board and manage the product line. Please note that Sheri and Rich didn't retire to live on a Costa Rican beach. Sheri is the chief design officer of what is now a global business and seems to be thriving on the creative challenge of designing new products in the Jibbitz line. She turned a simple idea into gold -- and the gold seems to be secondary to her love of creating more new ideas!

Idea Catchers

Have you seen a Native American dream catcher?? It's a wrapped hoop with a woven "web" at its center, decorated with streamers, beads and feathers. The story goes that if you have one hanging where you sleep it will "catch" all the bad dreams in its web and only allow the pleasant ones to pass through.

I learned a while back that ideas need "catching" as well. Creative people seem to get periods where ideas flow faster than streams during a spring thaw -- and other times when the stream quiets down to a soft trickle. Hopefully you have a way to catch these treasures when your own inspirational stream starts flowing. I keep a variety of journals and sketchbooks -- yes simultaneously, although I didn't plan for it to happen that way. They allow me to get ideas down on paper as they arrive, whether en mass or just one at a time.

I started my creative life as a writer, so I kept composition notebooks at my side for journaling and wrote morning pages in them daily for over ten years. When I started learning visual art, some of the ideas I'd describe in words would make no sense to me when I returned to them later, so I bought a spiral bound sketchbook and started to draw out my ideas with some added notes. However, I was still too emotionally attached to my composition notebooks to give them up, so I kept writing and eventually drawing in them while also drawing and writing in my sketchbooks. The two seem to go with me everywhere in my tote -- I don't feel right if they aren't wherever I happen to be, so I carry them to and from my studio, my home office and sewing room. When I go on vacation anywhere, they go too.

However, neither the composition notebook nor spiral bound sketch book fit neatly into my purse for times when I didn't want to carry a tote bag. A three pack of thin moleskin sketchbooks at Borders were precisely the right size and weight to tuck into my purse.

If you're keeping count, that's now three places where I store ideas, but it doesn't stop there.

To create a log and practice journal for my language marks, I found a wonderful spiral bound drawing pad with a hard, black cover. Several times a week (although my good intentions were to do this daily), I experiment with letter forms and tools and record the marks. I want to create a whole library of marks as this idea of my own personal "language" develops. But this doesn't mean that I don't also record language marks in both my spiral bound notebook and sketchbooks.

Since I also collect inspiration from other artists and do research on the Internet, I have a big three ring binder and numerous file folders with magazine clippings, downloaded and printed articles and art references. Some of these get stapled or glued into a sketchbook, some just get placed in folders. And just for fun I keep another larger spiral sketchbook where I periodically clip and paste art works that trigger ideas in me for color combinations, texture, pattern or design ideas. This one has been ignored lately, but it's great fun to rip apart magazines and it entertains me when I don't feel like going to my studio and working!

It seems that I am curiously and very strongly emotionally attached to this eclectic assemblage of idea-capturing materials. Part of me longs for long rows of neatly organized sketch books, journals and reference materials on shelves that will precisely detail the progression of my work and development as an artist. In reality, I scribble and scrawl rather than draw or write attractively and jump around between the journal and sketchbooks. I will favor one for a while, then suddenly be drawn to record most of my ideas in another one for a bit -- hither and yon, in no particular linear order. What seems to be important is that they stay NEAR me -- I get almost frantic when I am separated from them for any length of time.

Now that I'm confessing, I also must confess that each time I go back through the pages of my sketchbooks or journals, I am AMAZED at the quantity of ideas, quotes, drawings, records that these small volumes contain -- most of which would make little to no sense to anyone but me. They are personal and sometimes totally unrelated. Sometimes they include notes from lectures I've attended, books I want to check out, website addresses-- sometimes I write appointments or phone numbers or personal affirmations in them as well. It's an amazing time capsule of my creative life and I find it fascinating to go back through them -- they've captured so many details that I would have totally forgotten if I hadn't taken the time to record them. Even if I don't keep ideas in just one place, the subjects and themes are so constant that moving back and forth between them isn't difficonfusing. Quite the opposite, it helps me see how all these bits and pieces intersect or connect.

When I reach the last page of one sketchbook or journal, I feel a little twinge of sadness, like reading the final page of a great book, but that turns into excitement again when I open a brand new one. It has the same tantalizing sensation of new beginnings that I feel every New Year's Eve.

As you may be well aware of by now, I am an advocate for EVERY creative person having some sort of system to record and store ideas. I'd love to hear what tools and methods work for you and whether you manage to have some sort of organization for this part of your artistic process.