a multi-disciplinary dialog
Last weekend I accompanied family members on a picnic along the waterfront and a trip to an apple orchard.
The skyline is plainly visible from the west bank of the river and I took a stock photograph of it. I then Photo Shopped this treatment. Makes me think of a mineral specimen. I’m feeling the itch to do another foam painting and this, or something similar, may serve as the source image.
[Note: This post also appears on my personal blog, southeast main. Jay has persuaded me to cross-post as an efficiency matter. I find it changes my thinking to do it this way, which is a different, but also interesting, topic. Hi all — I’m glad to be back.]
I’m thinking about edges. I have a theory — or rather a “notion,” (which is a theory that is so diffuse it has no edges) — but anyway…..
My theory is that a lot of textile art maintains its textilishness via its edges. And this is in spite of the hand-dyed fabrics, surface design with fuzzy results, sheer fabrics, and other fuzzying techniques of contemporary textile artists. The edges of quilted art are often delineated by the quilting ; sometimes they are even more clearly portrayed with zigzag applique. Applique by itself lends itself to clean edges, as do commercial fabrics. Piecing fabric together gives a seam line, which makes an edge, even when the fabrics are close in color and value.
The clarity of edges in textiles tends to pull the textile toward something I think of as “good design” such as can be seen in magazine ads and hard-edged abstract art. This clarity has a certain appeal –it’s clean, not mushy, not sentimental. Clarity has a sureness of feel about it (which is probably why it’s so popular in advertisements). It’s also good for a certain kind of whimsicality, of child-like sensibility. The “faux representational” look in textile art often derives from its clear, often hard, edges.
Arabesque, 40″ x 40″, hand-dyed cottons and silk hanks, appliqued and machine quilted
Complex #4 (detail), Nelleke Beltjens
There was a fascinating exhibit in Bozeman of drawings by three young European women–Nelleke Beltjens, Hedwig Brouckaert, and Jorinde Voigt–curated by independent art historian/critic/curator Peter Lodermeyer. Titled re/pro/ducing complexity, the multiple readings of which are all applicable, it consists of recent work that is varied, visually appealing, and intellectually stimulating.
Title: Sorrow
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 100×60 cm
Just a few miles along the Newfoundland coast from the kelp of last week is the Cape St. Mary’s Ecological Reserve, a haven for sea birds of nearly a dozen main species. Most were gone by mid-September, but there were still many thousands of northern gannets, graceful birds with gold-dusted heads and necks, and a nearly six-foot wingspan.
