Rusty Nails and Inspiration

 

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.

Maya Angelou

Yes, these are indeed rusty nails, 2” with square heads, pulled from boards in a circa-1905 Victorian home. I just purchased them from an Etsy shop. God bless Google searches.

So why are rusty nails so exciting to me today? They’re a demonstration of how much inspiration fuels my work. At 4:30 AM this morning this idea woke me up. The little rusted hand-made paper and wire sculptures I’m currently constructing could hang from rusted nails instead of bent copper wires. I wasn’t even trying to find a replacement for those copper wires! Now it seems the most perfect way to hang them, so I hope it works.

I love these surprising bursts of insight and inspiration most about being a creative. Do you ever experience such flashes of new ideas when you’re engaged in a project?

Here are some of the works in this installation, now nearing the finish line. Will the rusted nails work? I love the suspense of wondering while I wait for them to arrive in the mail.

Off the Wall!: New Small Sculptural Works

 

Jeanne Raffer Beck, “Dialogue”, 4” x 4” x 13”; wrapped wire, handmade pulp & paper, poplar base.

My first small, free-standing, sculptural wire and paper piece debuted in my studio a week ago. Most people see these forms as bonelike and ancient. I’m still debating price, which led to some surprising and enjoyable conversations about what people might pay for small works like these. The poplar base and slight rusting on the hanging forms and paper-wrapped wire holder all work together well. Two more single pieces are in progress, which you can see in the picture below.

in the meantime, I’ve been creating and stockpiling organic shapes for the multiples I’m creating now. If the finished piece is successful, I’ll enter it into Memorial Art Galllery’s biennial juried exhibition.

By the time I closed shop yesterday afternoon, the whole space looked a bit like an assembly line. Yesterday was also our building wide Second Saturday at Hungerford but with storm warnings and snow, traffic stayed light. Still, I enjoyed great conversations with the people who did visit and made the most of the quiet; couching sheets of abaca paper and applying them wet over the remaining 6” x 9”  wooden panels for my 24 pieces. As the paper dries and shrinks, it will totally adhere to the wood surface.

Many thanks to my good friend Christina Laurel for sending me the darker value chai tea bag papers – a great surprise that arrived in a little package in the mail this week. Friends help take the chill away in winter!  These will join my other carefully saved papers to be collaged on their surfaces when I return to my studio this week and start to compose and collage.

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?

Slow Dancin' : More Notes from the Studio

When I left my studio after a full day on Saturday, I had two questions rumbling about in my thoughts; how to deal with adding more layers of color without losing what I love about the piece as it is now, and how to incorporate the ancient letterforms onto the surface.

Joanne sent an e-mail with her thoughts on the piece, Rosemary made a comment after my last post and Becky and I talked about it on the phone. Their concerns about the darks in the sample area at the bottom as having too much contrast with the rest of the piece reinforced my own thoughts. I don't want to lose what I have now, just enhance it. As soon as I came into my studio this morning, I ripped off the darkest area at the bottom and knew I would add both the green and the rust to other areas on the surface, but in soft, muted tones that will integrate with the rest of the piece.

That left me with choices to make about the letterforms. In my sketchbook yesterday as I was playing with these now familiar letter forms and shapes, it occurred to me that I was limiting my options by only trying to reproduce incised letters.

Since I am happy with the lines on this surface, why couldn't I play with adding the letters more ambiguously, elongating the drawn lines so they touch and interact with each other -- and the cracks -- in ways that are less obvious and more suggestive than literal? I could...so I did!

I am happy with what I've added so far. Before I paint on the soft blushes of rust and green to portions of this surface, I'll layer on additional resist letters like I currently have at the bottom of the piece.
These will be smaller letters, like in the detail above, and more like actual Etruscan writing. I'm drawing on the resist letters today, will let them dry overnight and then when I return on Thursday will add these soft colorations that are now just on the bottom to the rest of the piece.

By the Sea, By the Sea, By the Beautiful Sea

Today I feel as though I'm floating along in a sea of choices. I'd love to feel decisive and directional, but my little boat is bouncing to and fro on on waves of ideas and options. Since I've made a commitment to not rush this process and allow the work to ripen slowly, I'm sitting and waiting for that moment of feeling sure about choosing a course, and then I'll grab the oars again.

This is one of the samples that worked out best yesterday. Some experiments didn't work at all. The rich, warm rust and soft brown colors will look good against the golds and greens. The letter forms integrate well into the surface, but still add definition and interest. Tomorrow may be the day I take the leap to start painting this new layer.

This is one language reference in my sketchbook that I considered for this piece. I do like the way the whole body of text forms an interesting shape on the surface and the rich red-rust tones in the rocks.

Here's the reference that keeps drawing me back. These are incised letters on ancient Etruscan pottery fragments that have been pieced back together. I love the shapes, edges, textures -- basically just about everything about it!!

Update and Progress

Because a lot of the coppery color didn't show up when I steamed and washed this fabric out the first time, I applied another layer of texture with several shades of rust.
Hopefully this warm coloration will still be there tomorrow after the piece gets steamed and washed out again. Then, a new layer -- building a layered surface is a slow process!

In between printing and painting, I've been working in my sketchbook, playing with ideas and materials that are new to me. Working with the oil pastels (right hand page) is particularly enjoyable because they can be blended by rubbing. I created a repeating stamp pattern for the page on the left which was fun too.

One Near the Finish Line, One Still Running Laps

If you had been at my studio today, you would have seen me take a very deep breath before I silk screened the final elements on this new work. It took a while to let that breath out! Once I did, ahhhhhhhhhh...


This piece is ready for the addition of stitching. In my imagination, I'm toying with the idea of hand stitches accentuating those lovely rippling horizontal lines in some way.

Completing this one isn't a priority, though , so it's back to the other work that I'm creating (for the Australian exhibition) when I return to my studio tomorrow.


Now I have to consider how best to add the letterforms and cracks on its surface that I envision. Here's one Etruscan letter sample utilizing wax resist, which is looking a bit too clean and crisp to read as ancient. Your opinions are welcome! Tomorrow, more experiments with other techniques.

Mindfulness

"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures." Henry Ward Beecher

Eric Maisel, in "Coaching the Artist Within", urges readers to create a statement of life purpose and then hold the intention to fulfill it, remaining mindful, passionate and focused. Do you have a sense of overall purpose and direction for your life? Could you write it down into a single sentence?

In "On Becoming An Artist: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity", author and painter Ellen J. Langer writes "I have come to believe that, above all else, to be a true artist is to be mindful. Even if someone has all the skills in place, a mindlessly executed work of art is in some sense dead. If that is the case, then no matter what our level of skill, if the art is mindfully engaged, the end result should lead to a positive outcome."

What does it mean to mindfully engage in creating art? A Rainer Maria Rilke poem from "The Book of Hours" offers an insight:

"The hour is striking so close above me,
so clear and sharp,
that all my senses ring with it.
I feel it now: there's a power in me
to grasp and give shape to my world.

I know that nothing has ever been real
without my beholding it.
All becoming has needed me.
My looking ripens things
and they come toward me, to meet and be met.

Do all our senses ring with attention to the artistic stimulation that surrounds us each day? Do we grasp and give shape to our worlds with the creative power that burns so strongly inside each one of us by truly looking? There is a magnetism in seeing.

Mindfulness -- being present and attentive as I engage in creating -- increasingly occupies my thoughts. I want my "looking" to ripen what I focus my gaze upon.

As I engage in stitching this painted language sample,I find myself entering a quiet, meditative state where I feel a connection to the movement and flow of the stitching. The machine begins to feel like an extension of my hand, a drawing tool.

Finding Calm

Pages 3, 20" x 21", silkscreened, dyed silks. Reverse applique, raw edge applique, stitching.

Armed with focus, determination and an impressive plan for my artwork this year, I envisioned producing the next group of pieces in the Parables series in high gear.

Normally, when I start creating a new piece,I go to sleep with a question and wake up with an inner image in my mind of where to begin. That idea either works or leads me to one that does.

This time, however, the Mt. Everest of ideas surrounding language imagery felt like a tangled mess. My mind kept racing, ideas kept piling up and competing -- no clarity, no focus, no "seeing" a clear idea to begin the new work. Just more and more ideas competing for attention.

Clearly,a curious and troubling situation, but only in that one direction.

Work with the Seeds pieces bubbles with excitement, focus and productivity. The small work above, completed this weekend, investigated a number of new options.

Here were the "what ifs" it explored: What would colored threadwork look like on the black and white printed surface? What if I layered two fabrics on top of one another and cut through some of the seed shapes to reveal the fabric underneath? What will a strong golden yellow look like as a contrasting color? How would it work to add a single french knot at the center of each seed shape?

This small work excites me with even more new options. So it isn't my creativity that's suffering, it's something else that's going on with the language imagery.

Eventually I recognized yesterday I needed to take all that unpleasant and distracting burble of ideas in my head and spill it out on paper.

As I wrote, my inner churning and chattering began to quiet.I began returning to that inner balance point that is so crucial for me. I need calm.

I think I revved up my inner engines to take on 2009 and create new language pieces like a racer in the Indy 500. But all I started doing was spinning my wheels and overheating in the pit.

I'm throwing out the whole idea of speed and action. Instead, I'll visualize a quietly flowing stream and me moving along with it. If new Parables pieces aren't ready to emerge, I'll give them the time they need.

We all talk about trusting our process. Right now I have to live it.

Anchors and Sails

The idea of anchors and sails popped into my head this morning in relation to my artistic process. What makes these images a good metaphor for artists?

Anchors are those artistic practices we engage in daily. Whether we journal, draw, stitch, carve or throw pots on a wheel, practice builds an instinctual connection with our tools and subject. Draw a tree over and over; with each enounter the eye will see more clearly and the hand will respond more intuitively.

Our awareness grows through attention and repetition.

This year I'm making a commitment to a six-month correspondence course with Laurie Doctor to help refine my own work with language imagery. One of the anchors for this study is choosing one language to work with over the next six months. I chose Etruscan and learning about this language is an added bonus (more about that another time):


Each day I prop up a sample of Etruscan writing in front of me, open a sketchbook and take a pencil in hand. Then, without looking at the page, I draw the letters onto it.


Although I've only been doing this exercise for three days, I am noticing that every day the practice evolves and I engage in it more mindfully. The act of drawing blind opens me to feel my movements, see each individual shape and consider the relationships in spacing and lines.

Shutting off one sense intensifies others amazingly quickly. In this case it particularly increases my awareness of my movements (flowing or constricted,spontaneous or deliberate,calm or impatient). Even after engaging in this practice for only three days, my senses and concentration on the forms and shapes are heightening, much as I grow more aware of an object in a blind contour drawing exercise.

An intuitive urging led me to contact Laurie about working with her; some part of me sensed a need for a structure to my investigations that I hadn't been able to create for myself. Laurie's immediate response with a very limited set of variables and daily practices is informing me in new ways. It fills me with excitement and anticipation for how this study is going to translate to my body of work.

Even as I anchor myself to repeating this practice each day, I feel sails unfurling and billowing.

What holds us steady in one place is intricately connected to what propels us forward.


"Seeds of Change",42"w x 44"h, silk habotai, monoprinted, layered, stitched.

This piece, almost complete, relates well to my growing understanding of the merits of repetition. The elements repeat -- and yet they are also unique and individual.

What used to repel me about repetition -- the idea of sameness -- now engages me, because the smallest variations stand out and draw the eye.

Simmer and Stir Often

January's creative soup is simmering nicely on the front burner, a tasty blend of exhibiting, creating new work and chopping up MARKETING into small, bite-sized pieces.

Pat Pauly, a gifted artist whose work has been juried into the prestigious Quilt National exhibition, led the installation of RAFA's (Rochester Area Fiber Artists) newest exhibit at the Arts and Cultural Council on Monday. Forty-three artists' works are on display from January 6-30, 2009 in "New Year, New Directions," at the Council Gallery.


The space is wonderful. If you live in the area, please come to the opening reception on Friday, January 16, 5 - 8 PM. The gallery will also be open all day on Saturday, January 17, 10-4.


On the creating front, I'm completing the second "Seeds" piece, now titled "Seeds of Change." As this detail shot of it in process shows,I'm adding more color as well as choosing more saturated colors to accent the grayscale ground. Most of these seed shapes are just pinned on; next I will stitch them down and complete the piece.

I'm also beginning a concentrated expansion of language imagery and techniques for incorporating letterforms in my work; more to come about that soon.

Another ingredient that I'm stirring into the soup pot is marketing. Webmaster Holly Knott just completed adding current and upcoming exhibitions and several new pieces to my website. Next task will be creating a database for mailing lists to mail out postcards for future exhibitions.

The soup pot is also getting lots of spice from the inspiring coaches and motivational books that I've been gathering. Numerous coaches and websites offer newsletters and tidbits of valuable information; all of them help me stay positive, focused and action-oriented. Step by step, action by action, I am actively engaged in moving my artistic life forward.

Yesterday's mail brought three books to read: Ellen Langer's On Becoming An Artist, Visioning by Lucia Capacchione, Ph.D and Coaching the Artist Within by Eric Maisel. I'll let you know how they stack up once I read them. For some years I was very critical of self-help books, but now I see them as tools to help me stay upbeat and charged with positivity. That positivity imbues the seeds of confidence that are growing inside me; I now truly appreciate those individuals who choose to dedicate their lives and their energy to helping others actualize their dreams and desires.

All these various activities and actions all go into the pot -- the ideas, the e-mailed tips and newsletter updates, the affirmations, the appreciation lists, the visualizations -- and the day to day showing up in the studio to do the work. What an aroma to inhale, and what pleasure to be cooking up something wonderful through these wintry January days.

Choosing a Word for 2009

Statue in Siena, Tuscany of Romulus and Remus being fed by a she-wolf

We can thank Christine Kane for spurring thousands of us who read her wonderful blog posts to set aside making New Year's Resolutions and instead choose a theme word for attracting desired outcomes in the New Year.

In 2008, I chose the word "fruition" and the images it generated were excellent tools to help me focus and identify specific desires. As the year ended, I listed my accomplishments and am proud of them.

With new opportunities already presenting themselves for 2009, I wanted to choose a theme word that encompasses my clearest intentions.

Confidence is one choice, the desire to feel at my very core that I am worthy and wonderful. Feeling confident about the quality and merit of my work will shine through my applications for new exhibition opportunities. Being confident and self-assured will assist me in meeting new people and networking professionally.

Being confident will increase my commitment to taking care of myself with exercise and healthy, nourishing foods. Possessing confidence will erase the fears that surface when a new work isn't going well that my work isn't "good enough."

In the past I've been able to move forward with bravado and tons of hard work, but now I desire genuine self-esteem to help attract wonderful outcomes. So "confidence" is indeed an important quality, one I wish to make an integral part of my being in 2009.

However, confidence alone doesn't seem quite encompassing enough for what I desire for 2009. Being confident is an attitude, an emotional preparation and mindset but not an outcome. Alone, it doesn't generate images of my desired results.

So I am also choosing a second word to pair with it -- "flourish". The dictionary descriptions of this word are heady and exactly what I desire to actualize in the coming year --"a luxuriant growth or profusion" ..."to reach a height of development or influence"..."to achieve success." The two words bridge my inner and outer worlds; they're a perfect fit, like a pair of comfortable new walking shoes.

So I am entering 2009 holding "confidence" and "flourish" in my heart; like Romulus and Remus,the legendary twins who founded Rome, I envision these two words growing up to build a shining new city for my artistic life in 2009 (minus all the slewing and slaying that go along with Roman myths, of course!).

Interestingly, one of the definitions of "flourish" also is "an ornamental stroke in writing or printing", so the word even relates to my body of work that is evolving through my fascination with letterforms and language imagery.

I love the layers of meaning and intention in choosing these two words, in linking them visually with the twins Romulus and Remus being suckled by a she-wolf (my wild woman self?!)and how strong and powerful the images are that these two words generate together inside me. The New Year is underway; may the power of "confidence" and "flourish" manifest in wonderful ways as 2009 unfolds!

Fabrications Retreat and Studio Progress

I ended up NOT making any changes to "Seeds of Compassion," other than altering the shapes of a few of the colored slivers within the cocoon shapes. It is totally and completely DONE, which gives me closure. Now I can switch my focus to teaching.

Since my last studio day on Thursday, I've been preparing for my drive to Michigan to teach a class called "It's All About the Stitch" at the Fabrications Retreat: http://www.fabricationsretreat.com/

Here's a class sample showing a few of the stitch and thread combinations that can be combined to build textural surfaces. The variables in freemotion embroidery techniques are the types and weights of the threads used and adjustments to the top and bottom sewing machine tensions.

Some stitches are worked on the back of the fabric using heavier threads in the bobbin, which builds up texture and pattern on the front. Varying the speed of stitching, types and colors of threads and machine tensions all provide different effects that can be combined to create fascinating surfaces that invite the eye to linger and explore.

Rich texture can also be created just by using straight stitch variations, shown in the detail of another class sample, above. Combining colors and building the surface with layered stitches is a fascinating process that lends itself well to small works, where the smaller scale creates a more intimate interaction. It is fascinating to learn and I enjoy helping other artists to expand their textile "vocabularies"-- back to that language theme again.

There's a pleasant undertone to teaching and traveling knowing that three new works in progress are waiting for me when I return. For these large scale pieces I'll be revisiting the palette that was in my piece "Translations", with a few new additions. I need to include some touches like the marvelous saffron gold in these Sri Lankan monks' robes to this neutral, earth-tone palette.

Here's a detail of the original Translations piece, so you can see how this new work is beginning to expand the palette. This piece started with a rusted fabric ground, so I also rusted new fabrics in my studio on Thursday for when I return.

Can you see the subtle Phoenician alphabet letters applied with wax resist before rusting on this piece? The results are very promising and I am envisioning doing more for future works. This will be a wonderful ground fabric to work with as a starting point for another new piece.

For one of the new pieces I've cut out numerous letter forms in a variety of scales -- some will be resists to create negative space letter images and others will be patterns to cut out other fabrics as positive shapes to layer onto the surface. I haven't decided how to place them. I did move the pattern shapes around and considered the areas of positive and negative space. Lots more work ahead on that but this is a good starting point.

I'm trusting that I'll have wireless Internet at the resort where the retreat will be held and will send images of the class and the beautiful Northern Michigan landscape. Two years ago it snowed while we were there -- I'm hoping that's not the case this year!

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.

Same Trail, New Twist

Letter production continued all day yesterday, although not in a neat and orderly factory line manner. Quality engineers everywhere would have nightmares about MY production methods.

Basically every surface of my sewing area filled and spilled over with letter patterns, cut out letters, fabrics and scraps by the end of the day. I had decided yesterday was the day to fix the Pages 3 piece, draped over the ironing board on the right. I fused down crisp, fresh letters over the ones that had gotten a bit distorted from washing and they complete the piece wonderfully. All I need to do today is put on the hanging sleeve. My husband has come up with a prototype for acrylic hangers for these pieces so they will hang about 6-7 inches away from the wall -- that way they will cast shadows through the openings and the piece will move whenever there's a breeze. But all the time I've been working on the latest wallhangings and this piece, my mind has been playing with my long list of ideas and variations to choose what I want to explore next. So here's the bones of one possibility that I put together while I cut and fused.

I stapled fabric to 18" x18" stretcher bar frames, drew a 12" frame as a size guide and decided to play with hand embroidery and overlaying sheer letters on top of each other. While these are leftover letter forms from the latest Parables pieces, I could just as easily arrange a variety of letter form shapes into compositions.

I find the shapes created where the pieces intersect and overlap a rich area to consider and develop in future works. For this first sample, however, my idea is to investigate hand stitching the surrounding surfaces, then mounting it to a canvas wrapped frame. I already have purchased thirty 12" x12" canvas wrapped frames to develop multiples that can all be hung together as one large work or in small groupings, and this sample will help me play with and work through some initial ideas.

I'm finding that one of the most challenging things for me to do with this series is to honor the idea in each piece and not immediately leap ahead to the next ones and start spilling out a jumble of ideas onto one surface. I envision a series where each work leads to the next variation, a progression that records my creative process -- a map that shows how one idea leads to the next...and the next. When the body of work hangs together at my exhibition in May, I'm hoping this evolutionary trail or map will become apparent and as interesting as each individual work.

My mind is still chewing over the ideas behind the language theme.One occurred to me yesterday when I was talking about my work with a friend after she asked me why I had chosen to work with just one letter shape on these two Parable pieces ( a good critique question, by the way!). One immediate response was that I wanted to design a form that looked interesting no matter which way I oriented it, but that didn't seem to get at the heart of my intention. So I contemplated the Parables pieces as I worked on cutting and fusing letters to the Pages piece yesterday. Then I realized that I want the letter forms on these two surfaces to actually "read" like SOUNDS, to have movement and resonance. The phrase popped into my head, "Sounding it Out." I like the ambiguity of this -- isn't language a metaphor for culture and our attempts to "translate" our world?

If we were to attempt to translate the sounds of language visually, would the results become a kind of visual melody? Evidently I see patterns of movement in written language that trigger associations with dance-- but now it seems I am also aware of the patterns of spoken language and the wonderful cadence of the human voice. Can hand stitches on this new small work capture some of that rhythm?? Lots of juicy, intriguing questions and thoughts accompany these "factory work" days!

Say Goodnight Gracie

By about 8 PM last night I had tried numerous variations of hues and combinations on this new piece, which as yet remains unnamed. Obviously, I had created a very strong grid as a ground with the black and white squares. I decided that while the red letter forms would break through the grid lines, it might also be interesting to include squares within squares as another layer of pattern. The first thing I did was to cut out 1-1/2" squares of silk dupioni in turquoise, violet, gold and orange with fusibles adhered to them and played with placement within the larger light and/or dark squares. The violet was the least intrusive. I also tried breaking up the groups of the red letters with letter forms in a black and white commercial print. This image is probably the fourth variation, by which time I decided that I didn't like the small dots of color on each square and started to take them off.

Late in the afternoon, I cut large and small squares of my own silk screened fabrics and placed them on the checkerboard ground. I like the way cutting the script into small pieces puts the focus that much more on the gestural marks and swoops of the handwriting. While I was absorbed in this, the phone rang and arts writer Stuart Low from Rochester's daily newspaper, the Democrat and Chronicle asked if I could talk to him about my language piece that is part of the MAGnificent Inspirations exhibition.

What amazes me about talking to someone about textile art who isn't familiar with the medium is how much most of them want to understand it better. Stuart didn't approach our conversation with a preconceived agenda or biases, he seemed to really be listening, trying to elicit my ideas rather than imposing his. His interest and good questions made for a very worthwhile conversation. Probably only one or two lines of our dialogue will make it into the final article, but I hope his interest in textiles as art will continue to grow because of the Wild by Design, Michael James and MAGnificent Art Quilts exhibitions.

After that pleasant interruption, I returned to my work. I decided to remove the busy commercial print letter forms. I cut and placed larger squares in the dark blocks and smaller ones in the light ones. I may play with altering the sizes of these more randomly. I may tea dye all the black and white fabrics to give the appearance of age. But even with these small changes I get the sense that I'm coming home again to what I'm trying to say, that using my own fabrics is putting my voice back into the work. Another concept to deliberate as I create these pieces. So while the forms are becoming simpler in this piece, the connections and ideas behind the choices are deepening.

By 7:30 PM, my feet were aching from standing in new shoes all day so I worked for another half an hour and suddenly remembered George Burns saying, "Say goodnight Gracie!" at the end of each television show-- and knew it was time to call it a day before I made punchy choices that would just have to get undone. Definitely time for pjs and the couch!

Today I'm going to have another interesting experience, thanks again to the Memorial Art Gallery quilt exhibition. I'm taking three groups of area teachers through the MAGnificent Inspirations exhibit of small art quilts this afternoon to talk about "seeing and responding". We'll consider what these quilt artists may have seen and responded to when they looked at other artist's works. I have no idea how it will go but I can't imagine it could be anything but interesting to hear educator's thoughts and questions about the pieces. In the meantime, off to work on this piece.

First Inning, New Game

When I get a design idea, it seems to form almost piecemeal in my imagination. I try to do some rough sketching and a few samples to flesh out into some basic structure of an idea, but the only way I can really work through an idea is just to work with it, starting with a seed and letting that evolve and grow.

After finishing Parables 2, I decided to try creating a grid, playing with it a bit by adding on some small squares (possibly of varying sizes and hues and values) within the larger squares and then breaking through the grid with the dancing letter forms in both advancing and receding colors. Believe it or not, I, the whole cloth layering fanatic, actually cut out 5 1/2" squares and SEWED them together to start this piece!! (In my defense, my philosophy has always been to choose the technique to match the concept, and in this case, piecing seemed the way to go.)I now have a 35 1/2" square checkerboard of white squares with thin stripes (yes I am also actually using commercial fabrics, which I haven't used in years but I have a little selection left of black and white prints that I like a lot) offset by plain black ones. I tend to prefer grids that are looser than this one, but I do think as I apply the elements on this surface, the grid will begin to vibrate more.

Now that the ground is pieced and ready, I am currently pinning letter form patterns, same ones I used on Parables 2, onto a variety of fused fabric surfaces and cutting them out. My goal, eventually, will be to have a nice pile with a variety of hues and values, so some of the letter forms will pop when you look at them (like this wonderful red dupioni silk) and some will recede into the ground (a variety of greyscale prints). In the photo above, I am playing with the first cut pieces on the surface because seeing them on the ground will help me determine what other fabrics to fuse and cut to add to these. I know I'll cut a lot more fabrics than I'll actually use, but need to have them ready when I get to the composing stage. Here they are just stuck on wherever and I've moved them around a few times to see how they interact with each other.

I am tempted to tea dye this piece, but am holding myself back at the moment. There is a crispness to these contrasts that I will lose if I do, although the tea dyeing will give me that aged, weathered look that I love.
What I've learned after all these years is to respect these pushes and pulls inside but to let the conversation continue for a bit before I leap into action. At the beginning stages of playing with an idea, it's better to move a bit more slowly than to sit in a glum heap of regret for blindly acting on an impulse. I may not like this idea further down the road at all, the work on this may just end up getting pitched for a totally different composition, but engaging in the deliberation and decision making is the hook that keeps me so passionate about being a maker. I love beginnings, there is always an edge of excitement about not quite knowing where a new adventure will take me but knowing that I'm up at bat and ready to swing.