Last month, I completed my Bachelor of Fine Arts. Four years ago, and with a full-time job, I began my studies with the helping hands of technicians, professors, support staff and fellow students. I signed up for a disciplined approach to the study and practice of art, and to gain a deeper understanding of its historical, theoretical and contemporary underpinnings. Mission accomplished, and the next bend on the road includes some making and a new artist website.
This session's drawing class is about the figurative, and it begins with ink and the beauty of single-cell animals. As a medium, ink can have some glorious effects, often because we aren't in full control. The bale of hay (that just happens to be in the studio), allows for further serendipity — it's those strands of straw applied and then removed that give the drawing its burnt quality. Fragments from some of my other ink drawings are introduced with thread, and furthered into the work using my sewing machine's free motion foot.
At the moment, I am thinking about Robert Rauschenberg, and his 1955 work, Bed. It's on display at the MoMA in NYC, and is 75” x 31”. Rauschenberg used discarded materials and mundane objects, a pillow, sheet and old quilt. Splattered with paint and scribbled with pencil, Bed is beautiful. Mostly, I notice the quilt, with its bold colours, pattern, and subtle moments of asymmetry. It's hand stitched, and required significant skill and time to make, though here it feels like a throwaway. So, I cut up some discarded paintings, sew them together, and stretch the completed patchwork onto a frame. At play here are centuries-old quilt-making techniques, including piecing, assemblage and appliqué. Also made evident, are those pictorial tropes associated with painting, including the abstract and figurative forms. Astonishingly, my intrepid sewing machine survives the process, despite the constant tugs of gummy, heavy canvas and wads of chewed up paint under the needle plate.
Over twenty years ago, with the birth of my first son, I start making quilts, drawn by their beauty and usefulness and the quiet time found in the making. I use only found materials, and often hear this is part of the quilt making tradition. That's only partly true; the Victoria and Albert Museum first collected quilts primarily for their luscious velvets and silks. Later, they showcased quilts for their industrial cottons, complex designs, or story-telling motifs that are biblical, personal, and historical — challenging the enduring association of quilts with thrift. Today though, there's an overabundance of used material out there, exquisite and ordinary — and the surprise of those materials is opportunity for visual serendipity. Here, the colour-soaked pieces suggest a topographical map of fields of land, consecrated to the making of unimaginable quantities of textiles.
If serendipity occurs when events develop by chance, then that's what I am doing with some cotton and wool yarns, and a few other bits of fibrous stuff. This summer, I am making time for embroidered work. Sure, I have had my hand at embroidery, and at age 14, designed my own petit-point of a gregarious hippopotamus, (a compulsory requirement from our "sciences domestiques" class). This time there's no plan, except to see how things develop. Once again, found and recycled materials are used, and the foundation pieces are raw scraps of painting canvas, and a fragment of vintage raw silk found at a church piazza sale from our recent trip to the Venice Biennale.
I piece together a quilt top using found materials. The truth is, textile industries pollute, and cloth so pervasive and disposable, it's invisible. When a painting is made, there’s always the squeeze of pigment from a tube, choices about composition, colour, form. Here, materials become conspicuous as scraps are considered for combinations that duel and bounce around. Motifs speak to the idea of life-forms, landscapes, florals, water, air, humans, beasts as well as microscopic single-celled animals. When quilts are celebrated as Art, it's often for the two-dimensional quality of their surface, and where flatness mimics the painted canvas. All the same, quilts have their own history, language and hierarchy. To make one, thread is used to bring together layers of materials. The stitches bring stability, build form, dimension, depth, and individual marks are brought to the surface. When finished, this stitched object is 90" X 80" in size.
With the use of a sewing machine and free motion foot (and by hand with a sewing needle), sometimes I use thread for my daily drawings. Yarn offers texture, colour and dimension—and as a medium, it has its own personality. Here, stitchery is the drawing, and the three-panel composition suggests a visual narrative — it's presented as a triptych, and the viewer sees a quilt (interesting to look at, and can be pulled down from the wall for comfort and warmth).
The middle panel is the largest, flanked by two smaller ones with colourfully patterned polygon shapes. Drawn and connected with thread, are some circle shapes and clusters of curved and straight lines. The appliquéd hand-knit pieces are sculptural, and the textural elements include bundles of cut thread and an embroidered swatch of Toile de Jouy fabric (with a playful poke at its bucolic setting and the art historical). The thread lines seen on the back of the quilt, show the improvised quality of the stitched marks, and reveal more about the process of making it. We're back in studio, and this time the drawing is of the expressive kind. Figurative pictures are not encouraged. Instead, our marks are more free. There is method here, and our purpose is clear — through our daily drawings we discover those drawing habits we sometimes fall back on. I use a variety of materials; charcoal, ink, graphite, conté, pencil, clay, paper, thread, yarn, other textiles, and even some shoe polish. Techniques include, line drawing, collage, wet transfer, frottage, and of course, some knitting and sewing.
Well, my goal to finish a quilt this summer is accomplished. The top, batting and backing are now assembled and quilted. To keep things interesting, it's made with fabrics from another time, and with colours and textures that are uncomfortable choices, (for me). Square and rectangle shapes are pieced haphazardly, with flimsy whites, garish yellows, fluorescent oranges, insipid blues, and faded greens. The backing is an old bed sheet (a bright lemon-green floral, no less), and the binding is made from old suiting material. Well, I am known to say the best puns are so bad, they become good again, and that's true for this quilt.
I am thinking about the wonderful quilts made by the women who live in the remote community of Gee’s Bend in Alabama. They have been making their quilts since the time of the American Civil War. "Discovered" just a few decades ago, their works became gallery darlings, touted as assured, modern and abstract art. We see how Gee's Bend women made bold and artful choices about colour, form, and composition long before the modernists. The composition is considered and improvised, the workmanship sometimes raw, and always made with used materials. At some point during the 1970s, they use remnants from a local Sears factory in lush, brilliantly-coloured corduroy quilts. Their work is always gorgeous and broadens our sense of what art can be. I sit down with my lovely sewing machine, some thread and a white sheet of paper (yes, paper), and draw the rough outline of a face. From there, shapes are furthered using different coloured threads for contour and depth. I spend most of my time sketching the face with other parts left untouched — the shape of the head and neck are loosely rendered and remain unfinished.
It's the end of the winter session, and critique time for the digital photography studio class. We now use Photoshop instead of chemicals to develop our photos. So, a few more quilts are brought to "life" (with another shout out to Will and Jack). I pay attention to the composition and lighting, so that much of the work is done inside the camera. The photos are printed, and it's over to the sewing machine to draw on them using the free-motion foot and different coloured threads. This is needle on paper, and gaping holes are not my intention. Using thread, I respond differently to each of the figures.
Mom gave me these lovely needles when she and dad packed up their house and moved to the condo. They are remnants from her own mom's sewing kit, and now I put them to good and constant use, to sew up knitted pieces, quilt and appliqué, sew a button or two, and to darn the occasional pair of socks.
Watercolour (this is a first for me). Once again, I am compelled to consider a medium I would never (ever) contemplate using. Watercolour is for kids don't you know. Only it's not. Pigment mixed with water has a mind of its own — it wanders all over the paper to pool, bleed, and scurry its way into every corner. On it's way there, it leaves a big-blotted blight of a mess. I dive in (it is water, after all) with a portrait, instead of the usual flower and foliage we (I) sometimes associate with watercolour. I learn a way to control the paint — first, a select area is painted with a wash of water, and then, while still wet, pigment is applied. The pigment only flows to those areas painted with the water (yes, this works). Also, white paint is not used — anything white or highlighted is unpainted. Watercolour is a surprisingly slow process, and this is a work in progress.
Well, I am now onto the 3rd (of a 4 year) Bachelor of Fine Arts. Its a part time gig, so I will be at this for another couple of years. I do find we move with speed to satisfy the curriculum. The classes are mostly studio work with on-going and formal critiques, where our work and minds are open to the perspective of others. Part of what makes those tactile and creative processes so joyous, are the many challenges and frustrations I encounter along the way. The results aren’t always the ones I set out to achieve (and just like in real life), it’s those side-roads and wrong turns that uncover new and interesting things. I make considered choices and am encouraged to take risks, and sometimes look for ways to make use of different materials like fabric and thread. I am also delighted by how much fun I have with the young folk. Despite our significant age difference (you might say), we stand as peers and get along famously. I am a newcomer to the formal practice of art, but I bring to the game some real life experience. So, whether things I make comply with a lesser or greater language matters less than understanding where those definitions come from and who benefits from those distinctions. The codes and conventions that come with the practice of art are of real interest to me, though in a practical sense, I understand them as part of a system that is open to inquiry. At this point, I only bring a mind curious and open to learn about all things Art and the will to hone my skills through practice, practice, practice. Today in studio, we paint Alla Prima -- and it means painting "at once". Unlike the grisaille method, (where the painting is done in stages with wet glazes applied over dry paint), this time, we apply the paint in one application without any retouching. First, I mix paint colours and assemble a range of flesh tones on my palette. The paint is thick and I apply it directly using a big brush, attentive to shadow and colour shapes. Making a painting does take time, and this is the result from our morning studio class.
We are invited to create a series of images that represent our social landscape. I am on a weekend trip to Montréal with my three sisters that corresponds with our Dad's birthday. It's a pilgrimage of sorts, and Mom is supposed to be with us, but she stays at home to nurse a winter cold. These photos are taken from the train while looking out on the things we see along the way. I am taken with the constant flow of graffiti that we see in hard-to-get-to places. It's animated by a trail of melted snowdrops on the window, and the blurred view as we move down the tracks. There isn't time to observe everything carefully — though despite the fleeting gaze, I do notice things — and the perishable views from the train are both ephemeral and lasting.
One way to make an oil painting is to first create the grisaille. This is an underpainting, where we use only white and black paint (that I make using yellow, red and blue pigments). We create a monochromatic picture with different values of grey (from white to black) - and it becomes the foundation for future layers of colour glazes that are applied once the underpainting is dry. Thank you to my lovely niece, Sarah, for sitting in for this work.
We begin our new year with an old friend. The camera. There is no film or darkroom — our realm is now digital. Gone for now, is that chemical cocktail of developer, stop-bath, fixer and hypo clear - because now there's Photoshop. Our task is to create a series of portraits that include photos where the face is shown, and others where it is not. For some of the photos, I bring my quilts to "life". For others I wrap a length of finger-knitted yarn around a small pose-able wire mannequin. Interestingly, invisible and bundled inside my quilts are my sons — it’s their male presence that gives those feminized objects their human form. The pose-able mannequin is a simple metal-wire armature presented on a sheet of white-gessoed paper. It becomes activated with the use of dramatic lighting, the addition of some knitted yarn, and shots from different points-of-view. Once again, thank you Will and Jack for help with these "shoots". I also introduce some text to "narrate" individual stories for these quilt figures. Those stories are borrowed from old historical reference books that describe the lives of quilt-makers. Trapped inside nostalgic blanket works, the descriptions of their feminine lives are read as suffocating. Their words speak to how social rules and codes are often assigned and accepted, and over time rejected.
Today, we use collage to create an imagined landscape. Also, we are asked to make a line drawing using white ink on black paper. For the collage, I imagine an aerial view of an urban landscape. First, I prime a large length of canvas with gesso and apply a light wash of ink. Then I attach with thread some transferred photos of outdoor things like cobble-stone. Scraps from my stash of textiles are added to the mix. With the sewing machine warmed up, I move on to the line drawing, and meander across black paper leaving a trail of white stitches along the way. For both drawings, I experiment with different materials; including canvas cloth, paper, transfer paper, gel medium, textiles, thread, ink, coloured pencils, and wax crayons.
Drawing a portrait of one's own self is sometimes a struggle, but I chip away and attempt to render something of myself that I can recognize. It's a work in progress, and I still need to render those lovely wrinkles, dips, droops and dabbles that over time came to pay a visit, and decide to stay.
In our drawing class, we are getting ready to make larger-than-life scale self portraits. I am not yet ready to jump in. Thanksgiving weekend is here don't you know, the weather is beautiful and there are plenty of other things to do. Instead, I decide to sketch a quick self-portrait using conté, another material that is new to me. Conté crayons are made from clay, natural pigments and graphite — the colours are opaque and vivid with less dust debris on the paper than the familiar pastel crayons. For this quick sketch, I use the grey, yellow and white colours to mark shadows, midtowns and highlights.
The end of summer is close, and I am happy to finish another quilt made with scraps of fabrics and ribbon that I find here and there, and cuttings from discarded material. I know it will be put to good use this coming winter, when it keeps us warm and cosy and its colours remind us of the warm sun.
We are invited to make some gestural drawings — and for today's quick sketches we have some live models. We are given a few minutes for each pose and the idea is not to focus on the details of the figures (and there really isn't any time for that).
It's the start of another school year, and we are back in class to paint. This time our power of observation is focused on the art of figure painting. The oil medium is new to me, and the texture and colours are rich and luminous. We start the class with some quick brush sketches to work out the cobwebs and loosen up before we start.
For our final essay in Art History, we choose a work of art that is created anytime following the Renaissance period. So much to choose from — and I decide on a 1926 woven wallhanging made by Anni Albers. Albers (1899 -1994) is best known as a textile designer and weaver, and is part of the German Bauhaus School. Today, she's considered a pioneer (there's a Tate Modern retrospective exhibit planned). Her weaving makes us consider textiles from a fresh perspective, and at a time when it's seen primarily as woman’s work and for household use. Her work Black-White-Red is composed of six horizontal rows, each with twelve rectangles, eight of which have twelve stripes. There is repetition in the pattern, but Albers departs from any simple use of symmetry and no two rows are the same, and for this particular work, the choice of colours corresponds nicely with its given name. The colour grey is also a deliberate choice, and further activates the interaction of the black, white and red. Informed by modern ideas about art and production — her work is textured, bold and inviting, and she blurs those lines that are sometimes drawn between craft, art and design.
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