The photos of “texture” on the group site were close-ups, both of quilted fabric and of objects that showed as textured. I started through my photos and quickly realized that deciding on what shows texture is not as easy as might be imagined. Here are some possibilities from my files.

The High Note, JOU, Computer images on Silk, quilted, 12 x 12″, 2008.

The upper layer (of computer-printed sheer fabric) is turned back to show under layer. Normally the sheer would fall over the entire piece, showing through as it does on the right bottom. This dropping of the sheer obscures much of the texture while at the same time, contradictorily, adds to it.

Vilhelm Hammershoi, Sunbeam (and various other titles), 1900, oil on canvas.

I was thinking of writing this post on Hammershoi, so I had lots of photos of his work easily accessible. He’s Danish, died at age 52 in 1916, was in Paris while the Impressionists were impressing people (he wasn’t, impressed, I mean), and shocked his contemporaries by not making paintings with stories, content, mytholgies, or “meaning.” Of course, we’ve added all those to his paintings since then.

Photo, Main Street in January, Portland Oregon, 2009

More often than not, we see texture, even if we know the thing we are looking at is flat, like those tree tops that look soft.

Vilhelm Hammershoi,Gentoft Lake, 1905, oil

Hammershoi’s techniques included using paint thinly, in layers, ala Vermeer. His work is near-abstract, although the images are clearly identifiable. He has been highly touted because of the flatness of his images, although his late paintings of city buildings in London have been less than positively reviewed — mostly, I suspect, because they use perspective so classically. But in the Gentoft Lake image the water has great texture, as do the doors in Sunbeam.

Charley Bierly, Little Pine Creek in Snow, photo, about 2005

JOU Little Pine in Snow, oil on board, 2008.

So texture isn’t just a matter of medium (as seen in the quilted piece, The High Note) or a kind of technique (as in my version of Little Pine Creek). It, like most art, is a matter of illusion. Even though we know the tips of the trees would lash rather than soothe and the hills are solid and stony, they still look soft.

Photo of Vilhelm Hammershoi’s parents home in Copenhagen (portrait above piano is by Hammershoi, of his sister, who is most likely the pianist, also)

Vilhelm Hammershoi, Interior with Woman at Piano, Strandgade 30, 1901

Hammershoi gives us clear texture in the table cloth, the woman’s hair, even the butter (which has more goosh to it than can be seen in this internet version).

I’m still maundering about the question of texture in photos (and, necessarily, on the internet.) Shadows, hue changes, and recognition of objects seem to be the most immediate elements that cause us to “see” texture. More often than not, we see texture in almost all representational images, even if we know the real thing (the computer screen, the photograph, the painting) to be flat or relatively thus. Only in true abstraction is texture sometimes obliterated.

Clement Greenberg and the abstract expressionists knew that flatness was an essential of painted art. Greenberg said, ” The essence of Modernism lies… in the use of the characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself… What had to be exhibited and made explicit was that which was unique and irreducible not only in art in general but also in in each particular art.” ( Modernist Painting, 1961 ) He also said, “It has been established by now, it would seem, that the irreducibility of pictorial art consists in but two constitutive conventions or norms: flatness and the delimitation of flatness (After Abstract Expressionism, 1962).

We have come a long way from the ab exes and C.G., but we also, because of media explosions, see more and more in 2-dimensional imagery in which we insert our own sense of texture.

So I still haven’t resolved in my own mind what I should be looking for when I’m thinking about photographs of art that contain “texture.” Anybody have a brilliant (or even a generally interesting) thought on the subject?

PS: For more about Vilhelm Hammershoi, see also the Ragged Cloth Cafe recent post.

The eureka moment came through the phrase used by one of the fine art critics: the phrase was “working the surface.” “Working the surface” in the traditional fine arts means adding, deleting, scraping, underpainting and overpainting, sanding, gouging — all the kinds of things one can do that either uncover and/or add to a planar surface. It seems clear to me that Jay’s process of working his boards and foamcore are fine examples of “working the surface.”

With quilted art, “working the surface” seems to show up in two ways. One is what is called “surface design,” which basically alters the flat plane, by dyeing it, laying rust on it, discharging (bleaching) it, monoprinting on it, and even digging into it, tearing and unraveling the threadwork. This work sometimes adds texture (especially with elements applied to the surface (applique) or taken away from it (“cutwork” or just plain gouging holes). These kinds of working of the plane are singular, patterned for the effect in a particular work, not meant to be turned into a commercial design for fabric (the original use of “surface design” had a strong commercial element.) The other part of working the surface with textiles is the work of embroidery and quilted lines that make for a frieze effect; when stitches are pushed through the two layers of fabric and the in-between batting or wadding, the stitched line makes an indentation, beside which the surface becomes raised by the pushed-aside materials.

I have never heard the phrase, “working the surface” applied to quilted art before, but when I heard that and then saw the intricacies of Jay’s working of his surfaces, I realized that the language may give me new insights into what can be done with quilted art.

At the critique, the guest “critics” (very kind observant folks) looked at two pieces I had brought, comparing them.

The first was one you’ve seen before: Mrs. Willard Waltzes with the Wisteria, 76 x 61″, 2003, hand dyed and painted cotton, embroiderie perse with computer-generated prints, and dyed overlays.

detail

This quilted piece has a strongly worked surface. The relief work of the quilted areas is combined with the hand-dyed mottled fabric and the graphically strong embroiderie perse of the appliqued/layered flowers to make a complex surface. My question for the critics was whether this was too complex an image, but they said it was very successful. What they also thought, though, was that the other piece that I showed, Mrs. Willard Dices with the Devil, lacked the very complexity of surface design that made the first successful.

Mrs. Willard Dices with the Devil, 64″ x 80″, hand-dyed and painted and quilted on cotton.

Mrs. Willard Dicing isn’t completely quilted. This incompleteness was not entirely because I didn’t have time (although that figures into the problem). The real reason that it’s incomplete is that I couldn’t figure out what I was doing with the background, except stitching it because that’s what stitchers do.

I found the foreground tombstone relatively easy to stitch:

The flat front of the stone needed a bit of surface texture against which to place the letters, and the top of the stone provides some sense of perspective, useful in this semi-flat composition.

Mrs. W. wasn’t too hard to quilt because she had to be the most solid element of the surface. Therefore I had to leave larger areas of her body unquilted to make the surface stand up between the stitches.

I even know how I will stitch Mr. Bones when I get a minute to do so — he’ll be heavily stitched in a shiny thread, silver or even clear polyester, which shimmers a bit when the light hits it. But the background –meaning the actual earth as well as the picture’s ground plane, stumped me.

However the concept of “working the surface” makes me realize that I need to add more variety in that ground; I needed to work the surface. I will probably do so in the form of added color as well as added stitching. And I might well do the stitching first and then pour on the color. Stitching before adding color means that the stiffening of the fabric won’t be such a pain when I am stitching it; and adding the color after the stitching could provide addition interest to the surface that a less complex set of values might lack. It was Jay’s gouging and then putting layers and layers of paint on his intaglio pieces that made me realize that I might be able to save the piece by doing this kind of work. With that idea, I think I can now bear to go back in and quilt more of the background, knowing that it will be further furbished with (I hope) subtle but interesting color. I also need to tone down the sky considerably, which I can do now that it’s stitched.

Which brings me to a last thought. One of the commentators on the piece said that I seem to have fallen between two modes of making art — the art which uses quilted surfaces and the art which uses painted surfaces. Actually he said it more bluntly: “June, you may have to make a choice between painting and quilting.”

This is the problem I’ve been wrestling with most of this year. Painting has a magical draw for me at the moment, but my contacts and communities are within the quilting arts. I hesitate to completely withdraw from the area that welcomed me and in which I am somewhat known. But I struggled so much with the quilting on Mrs. W. Dices that I was resigned to throwing aside the quilting art and completely immersing myself in painting. However, with the insights from various places that I’ve gained, I realize I was stuck not because I’ve been painting but because I simply didn’t know what I could do to save Mrs. Willard Dices with the Devil. Now I have an inkling of what might work.

So here’s a set of questions: do you work in a variety of media, and, if so, how do you justify the diffusion of focus that going back and forth between them can encourage? Have you made a difficult choice between media, abandoning one altogether? Is the brief essay above accurate in its views of the nature of “working the surface” as well as “surface design?” Are there other distinctions/comparisons between two different media that seem to illuminate as well as differentiate one another?

These are questions that I am mulling around as I am glaring at Mrs. W., still hanging on my design wall, waiting for me to move along. And I haven’t entirely abandoned the quilted art, although I find myself mightily reluctant to turn on the sewing machine.

Tinting paper is the fastest and least expensive ways to ‘make’ paper. One begins with a ready-made sheet, but then makes it one’s own.

A tinted sheet is interesting to look at because the tint is never perfectly even. Each sheet is a simple painting in its own right, before it is used for drawing.

By changing a white sheet into a brown or blue one, it becomes possible to draw or paint with both white and black, to develop both lights and shadows, and let the paper act as the middle tone.

I made these tinted papers using a paint made from hide glue and pigment: chalk for white, plus earth pigments and black, or natural indigo. The chalk gives the tint some opacity. I applied the tint in two or more thin layers to make it even. The paper is fairly smooth watercolor paper. In the close-up details you can see how the tint interacts with the texture of the paper, making a bit of sparkle. Any water based paint could be used for tinting.

A controversial sculpture by “book artist” and Cornell University Art Department head Buzz Spector. The C-shaped structure is made up of over 800 books, all of them authored by Cornell faculty, students or alumni. The piece was originally installed in downtown Manhattan (pictured above); recently, it was reconstructed here in Ithaca, New York. More information, pictures, and an installation video can be found here.

Any thoughts?

These snaps—sorry I’m not a real photographer—depict the fourth and final section of Visualizing for Bunita Marcus, a site-specific drawing-painting project by Syau-Cheng Lai. I wrote the following about the piece on my blog (where you can also find more pictures):

Made up of four long sheets of unframed Rives BFK paper pinned to the walls, it covers nearly the entire perimeter of the gallery (minus windows and doors). It contains a rich variety of abstract markings in ink, pencil, pastel, and (oil and acrylic) paint. She uses strong colors—red, orange, gold, bright pink—with considerable restraint. The piece unfolds in a temporal sequence and employs pauses and empty space. I was delighted.

The installation accompanies Lai’s recent performance of composer Morton Feldman’s quiet, subtle, spacious solo piano piece For Bunita Marcus.

To this I would add only that neither photographs nor words can capture the subtle texture and sense of depth present in the piece. In particular, her use of iridescent pigments—reflecting the surrounding colors—was remarkable.

She has the following to say about her work:

This project is a departure point for me in making art.

I am a pianist. All I need to make music is a piano and sheets of music, which do not take a lot of space. I am a painter as well. Yet over the years I started to get overwhelmed with how many framed works, big and small, accumulated in various corners of my house. Not to long ago, I started to think about alternative ways to make art.

I found that using a roll of paper solves this problem. I like its textile sensuality. I can experiment, developing and expanding my ideas on something relatively big in scale. Then, when I am ready, I can simply roll it up and put my work away.

Spreading my elbows, knees, and ankles on the floor and moving my body back and forth to paint and draw retrieved memories from my childhood when I was living in my grandparent’s house in southern Taiwan. In that house, which was converted from a Japanese temple, people worked, ate, and rested on the tatami floor. I like the grounded feeling while working on the floor.

The work itself, now installed in the Tjaden Gallery, was originally inspired by a solo piano music masterpiece entitled For Bunita Marcus (1985) by the American composer Morton Feldman (1926-1987). Approximately 75 minutes in length, this piece of music is characterized as exquisitely spare, quiet, glacially paced, sensual, and full of intricate sound patterns. I would like my work in paper to communicate some of the same sensual and ephermeral aesthetics. I wanted to find out what it means to be at ease, how far to push an idea, and when to let go. The work itself is a journey. Please walk around and enjoy.

This strikes me an excellent artist’s statement. It addresses the relationship between art and music, which is especially useful for those (like myself) who know little of the latter. It delves into the physical and psychological motivations for making art, and it connects these to autobiography in a way that isn’t overbearing.

To push this hodge-podge into the flow of ideas here at A&P, I’ll draw your attention to the discussion following my post last week. Syau-Cheng’s art and writing answer questions raised by Karl and June better than I could.

A lot of drawings of old masters have an immense value nowadays but looking at contemporary artists drawings, are they such important?

Why don’t contemporary artists exhibit mostly their drawings and experiments, just their final masterpieces?

Scrying – pencil and chalk, quick drawing on paper

Drawing from imagination, pencil on paper

Spiritual, Mixed media on paper

I first came upon Dorman’s work in a show at New York’s CUE Foundation and was thrilled. More work and information here.