Branching out

Even as a child I was fascinated with tree branches.  Apart from being ready climbing frames, they gave me my first glimpses of various perspectives depending on which angle I was viewing from - looking up, looking down or just being level with the branch.  Even today I can't pass up a close inspection of trees or branches when  they are interpreted by different artists.

Jessica Hiemstra-van der Horst is a Canadian artist and writer  who is currently living in Melbourne, Australia.  I found her work by accident as you often do while searching some other topic on the internet.  I noticed she also showed at Cube Gallery in Ottawa where my work was in a show in the fall of 2009.  A coincidence !  I love the sparseness of her work, her breaking down the dimensionality of  branches into line and shadow.  It is the patterning of branches that appeals to me most as you can see in my Reading a Garden series on the Leyton Gallery website.

source 

Branches on Wall (2008) oil and marker on canvas 108 x 96 cm.

 

Sunlit Branches (2008) acrylic on canvas 40 x 32 in.

Sumac 3 (2008) acrylic, sumac, charcoal and oil pastel on plywood, 24 x 48 in.


Underbrush (2008) acrylic, raspberry & ink on canvas 18 x 60.5 in.

Making progress

My pattern and wallpaper obsession continues. Yesterday I completed stage one of upcoming image transfers in gel skin my new work. I have almost one hundred photocopies of wallpaper shots ready for their first coat of gloss medium when I get to my summer house tomorrow.

My fingertips are numb just thinking about rubbing off all that paper to reveal the image in the gel skin. To save my fingers, I've been experimenting with other "objects" to remove the paper. I'll write a post on what is working best when I return. Lately I've also been using direct transfer right on the surface as a beginning layer. This technique does not leave the built up edges you get from gel skin transfers. Sometimes I want that smoothness but the build up of edges makes the layers more prominent and reminiscent of the passage of time reflected in peeling wallpaper.

I have two weeks to paint to my heart's delight. I have one new work complete, one almost and one begun. I hope to come back to the city with four completed works. This series is on 16 x 16 canvas. My last two series have been on cradled panel. The texture of the canvas in the background seems right for this new work. Fabric like and pliable. All the reasons why I rejected it before. Here's a sampling of my inspirations...

Text will play a part in several of the paintings. At least that's what I think today. Who knows? All of these shots came from an old house in my summer community, Duntara which a friend of mine has since purchased and has dreams of having a small museum/ gallery there. This is a very interesting concept in a community of approximately 50 people.

It's the one in the middle next to the small red shed. I love the off center door and the blue green trim , a staple colour in the past for this community.

No contact with the internet for two week. Good bye for now.

One man: Pattern and decoration -1

While the Pattern and Decoration Movement of the 60's and 70's was female dominated there were several male presences. In particular, I am attracted to the work and beliefs of Robert Kushner . His connection to the movement was not the result of any strong beliefs that he held about feminism. He was very interested in the universality of decoration and thought its marginalization wasn't useful . Unfortunately , his decision to treat a traditionally female and non-Western art with the same respect given to male Western art at times saw Kushner perceived as a less serious artist who was playing a dangerous "game".

In a interview in EuroArt in 2008 he spoke at length about how he saw his practice fitting in to modernity. Rather than falling from grace because of his interests, he felt that

" there were few great artists who could ascend from modernity to the decorative. I truly feel that it is just as difficult to make convincing, intelligent, sustaining decoration as it is to make good art". ....... decoration can more easily delve into experiences of visual ecstasy and profound seriousness than many other art forms. By fully and openly accepting the decorative traditions of the world as a valid source book, I think that artists (not just me) can learn from the masters, both anonymous and known, and build an art that is original, modern, heart felt, intelligent and even edgy. And Modern."

Kushner's early work in the 70's blended his love of Islamic pattern, French modernism, and the art of the Far East. In the fall of 1974 he set off on a three-month trip to Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan with his friend and mentor, critic Amy Goldin. This trip was the first of many that proved to be extremely important to his development as an artist. He later travelled to India and Japan.

Aurora's Chador, 1976

Arcadia Dreaming, 1984

In the early 1980s, he moved away from using strict repeating patterns and began painting using live models. He was interested in exploring the "furthest fringes of what could be seen as decorative". While the figure remained in the province of "high art", Kushner decided to treat it ornamentally to the point where the figure became a decorative motif.

Daphne 11, 1985

In 1986 Kushner began painting on canvas developing an extended series of flower paintings that were inspired by his own garden. He discovered that flowers were multi-faceted as subject matter; they were erotic and they could evoke memento mori, an awareness of the brevity of life itself. He took a perverse pride in depicting flowers because they were generally considered debased subject matter and often relegated to the status of practice material for amateur painters. Kushner is careful in his choice of flowers and is attracted to ones for which he has a strong association either in terms of history or personal memories.

Night Garden 2000, Acrylic, oil, gold and silver leaf , 60 x 60

Spring Scatter Summation Panel (2005)

Donald Kuspit wrote that

"no American decorative works have the visual richness of Kushner's paintings Spring Scatter Summation, 2005, and Seattle Summer Meadow, 2006. Far from being simply adornments for an environment, these works are environments in themselves. If, as Greenberg thought, "traditional Western easel painting ... subordinates decorative to dramatic effect," Kushner convincingly integrates the dramatic and the decorative, revitalizing a treatment of surface that had become stale and routine--not to say shallow--in so-called pattern painting. Each quality--drama and decoration--is given its due without the other being compromised.

"I really believe the public deserves something beautiful" - Kushner

For further reading about the Pattern and Decoration Movement and Kushner's contemporaries check out this article in Aesthetica.

Pattern and decoration

Pattern and decoration can be found in every aspect of our lives and we often overlook it because of its familiarity. Not many people realize that there was actually an art movement in the mid 70's that began as a response to the stark impersonality of Minimal and Post Minimal art. The movement also represented a defense of the idea that decorative art is a humanizing influence and should not be regarded as inferior to ‘fine’ art. Certainly nothing has really changed and this debate continues today resulting in many artists feeling apologetic when their art enters into the "decoration" domain.

As you may have predicted most of the artists involved in the P & D movement were women (it was the mid seventies and feminist concerns were rampant). Two well known female artists whose names were connected to this movement were Joyce Kozloff and Miriam Schapiro. Interestingly enough when you look at their work from the 70"s and compare it to their most current work you will see similarities.

Joyce Kozloff

Tile Wainscott

1979-81

"Pattern and Decoration, An Ideal Vision"

Hudson River Museum

Joyce Kozloff loved visually rich objects ((I totally identify with this.) and was fascinated with the elaborate patterns of Islamic art. She appreciated art of other countries that was rich and sensuous and created through careful attention to detail. Her paintings have a bold, geometrical structure with an intricate texture of line and strokes on the surface which drew viewers close to the work. Her hope was to break down the hierarchies between high and decorative arts and between primitive and sophisticated cultures.

Miriam Schapiro
American, born 1923
Kimono , 1976
Collage and acrylic on canvas, 60" x 50"
Gift of Jane Roseberry Tolleson '52

MiriamSchiparo is a painter and collage artist who trained at the State University of Iowa and was a teacher at several colleges and universities. Her early work was Abstract Expressionist, but she then turned to a hard-edged geometrical style. Her later works are large, dynamic collages that she calls ‘femmages', made up of buttons, sequins, pieces of embroidery, and other materials from the history of women's ‘covert’ art.

Several men also were involved in the Pattern and Decoration movement. My all time favourite is Robert Kushner, who has defied art trends since that time and has carved out a productive art career creating work that is strongly influenced by this movement. He deserves a post of his own!

The Pattern and Decoration Movement was merely a blip on the radar of the art world, but it did exist and the reasons why it was popular at that time, as well as how it is related to work created today interests me greatly. This style of work correlates well with the only" art training" I had. In it all I think there is an answer to my need to include decorative elements in my work and why my heart quickens when I see elaborate decorative designs.

My teenage years were spent learning the "female arts' from my mother and grandmother; I sewed, knitted, learned to crochet and embroider, I hooked rugs, I even designed clothes. I loved wallpaper, fabrics, and wrapping paper. Pattern and decoration were a huge part of my life. Many of the motifs found on decorative items are derived from the natural world and are reduced to flat two dimensional designs. I often include subtle decorative patterns in my work as a reminder of the connection between culture and nature.

Gains and Losses (2006) mixed media on canvas 12 x 22 in.

The answer

My last post left you with an artist statement to consider and attempt to imagine what the artist's work is like. Here's the artist statement:

"Through themes of childhood, sexuality and recollection (the artist's) work reveals narratives that are divined from her dreamlike world. This invented place is a fount from which (the artist) has drawn from since her childhood and which she is continually mapping and exploring. The work is a compendium of lost feelings, half dreams and landscapes that seeks to evoke a sense of intimacy, familiarity and wistfulness. Inspired in part by fairy tales by the forests and lakes near her home in Ottawa, these mixed media collages unveil a strange enchantment, one shared between nature and imagination."

And the guest artist is...

Amy A Thompson who was born in Ottawa, Canada in 1971. She studied Fine Art at York University and graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design with honours in 1995. Amy is represented in Ottawa by Dale Smith Gallery and currently has a solo exhibition there called Glint.

I've selected three of Amy's mixed media works to highlight here. I hope they fairly represent her work over the last three years. For a more complete listing of Amy's work visit her website where all the works are categorized by theme/series in the lower left corner under menu.

I was particularly taken with the series: Lost Albums II , Fortune Birds, Have a Good Time and Smut. As viewers we respond to work based on our own experiences and interests, I know Amy's work speaks to me because of its delicacy and references to childhood and imagination. It plays directly into my past experiences as a primary teacher. Her use of patterned backgrounds , mostly in subtle hues, adds safeness, predictability and a child like innocence to the scenes . At times this innocence is juxtaposed with more serious, adult content as in Smut which is an interesting treatment of sexuality. I thought is represented this adult world and a child's discovery of it very well. These pieces brought back memories of my first introduction to 'the birds and bees" at age 9 when another child provided very descriptive images of exactly what went on in the bedroom. But my understanding of it was still influenced by my innocent life up to that point. The works in Smut brought me back to that time in my life.

In Fortune Birds, Amy integrates fortune cookie sayings into bird collage portraits. I love the lyrical line work that represents bird song. I was fascinated with this execution because I am working on a painting in my Reading a Garden series where I wanted to represent birdsong, I'm still thinking about that and now nothing will be good enough because I loved what Amy did. I also collect fortune cookie wisdom but up to this point I've never done anything with it.

Old Shool 1, 2009, mixed media on board 18 x 18.5 in.


Moonchild, 2008, mixed media on paper , 35.25 x 28.5 in.

Haunt- Ladies Night Out, 2007 , mixed media on paper, 23.5 x 14.5

All three images found on Dale Smith Gallery , used with artist's permission.

Did your impressions from reading Amy's artist statement and her work match?

I would love to hear my readers responses to this work which made a mark with me.

Thoughts on beauty

"All artwork is about beauty: all positive work represents it and celebrates it. All negative art protests the lack of beauty in our lives." (Agnes Martin , 1989)

"When I think of art, I think of beauty," she wrote. "Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye, it is in the mind." Agnes Marin

"I think that our minds respond to things beyond this world. Take beauty: it's a very mysterious thing, isn't it? I think it's a response in our minds to perfection. It's too bad, people not realizing that their minds expand beyond this world." Agnes Martin

The art, life and musings of Agnes Martin gave artists much to think about. When I want to rebut anyone who questions the role of beauty in art, Agnes Martin is one of the artists I depend on to help me in the debate. Her life and her art were one and she spoke bluntly and often about the role of beauty in art and life.

Born in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada, she was a contemporary of Georgia O' Keeffe, and a strong woman who lived her life and created art her way. She was never swayed by current trends in art. Matt Schudel, Washington Post wrote in her obituary.

"Ms. Martin was admired for the purity of her artistic vision and was considered a symbol of integrity in the materialistic, sometimes venal world of modern art. In addition to her deceptively simple, gridlike paintings, she also wrote and spoke of the deep spiritual purpose of the artistic life, saying that an artist's goal is not to make political statements but to create lasting beauty ...... She also disavowed politics and any connection with the feminist movement. In 1967, when she was honored by Harper's Bazaar as one of 100 "Women of Achievement," she came to the luncheon wearing moccasins and an unironed skirt and blouse."

Hilton Kramer, critic and editor of the New Criterion, described Martin's work as "like a religious utterance, almost a form of prayer."

It seems Agnes Martin found her artistic voice and continued to produce in a very minimalist style until she died. I find her work strongly patterned in a structured, austere way and it gives me the same sense of peace that I spoke about in previous posts about art that uses pattern. You become one with the work by focusing on the repeating elements; calmness pervades the experience. It is beautiful in a profound way.

You will find these letters written by Joanne Hunt in response to Agnes Martin's work and life" teachings" very interesting I think. They are posted on Red Revine blog.

See more of Agnes Martin's work, a bio and a critique here.

You may also want to check out Katharine Cartwright's blog post on The Role of Beauty in Art . We have been having an interesting discussion back and forth about the role of beauty in art. Where do you weigh in?

More thoughts on pattern

I am always drawn to pattern in textiles, paper, and the natural world. Pattern is usually present in my work. Sometimes it is subtle, as in much of my floral work, and other times it is quite obvious, as in my Remnants series. I'm trying to find my voice in encaustic and patterning is on my mind constantly these days. Thus all the thinking and writing about pattern.

There is a long art history that negates frivolous content for art creation. For many years, beauty, or any connected adjective, is not a word most artists wanted connected with their work if they wanted to be taken seriously. I know that in the last ten years beauty as a concern is moving into the mainstream of art again. Then there is that arbitrary line between art and craft that is often viciously debated. Kim Salerno's art production dares to enter this debate.

Kim is an American artist who has a masters in architecture and studied painting at the Art Institute of Chicago. She teaches at the University of Rhode Island.

"Kim’s work mixes interests in decoration and design with fine arts. Large paper wall hangings combine decorative patterned shapes with domestic imagery, while panel paintings draw from garden imagery and traditional patterning. Three-dimensional works build on similar themes of patterning and decoration, blurring distinctions between art and design. The work draws from a variety of sources including miniature painting, decorative arts and crafts, and contemporary architecture."

The Bride of the Wind (2004)
mixed materials, 28 x 30

Check out Kim's website here.

Doug Norris, Art New England notes that:
…(Salerno) is bold and inventive with color, making sculptures and paintings that often subvert scenes of domesticity and romantic stereotypes. Some work as twisted fairy tales… And there are signs of the housewife unleashed to confront her archetypes in many of the skillfully composed narrative designs…” This is a good description of her collage work on her website.

One of my favourites of Kim' s work is Installation #2 . I love the overall presence of delicate white forms hovering. I see visual references to sea animals and other plant and life forms.

Whelk Egg Case #2 (2009 )
paper, pins, thread, 52 in. x 14 x 14

Youcan read an artist statement and see more of Kim's work on the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens website here.

Pattern

From my earliest memory pattern has always attracted my attention. There is something safe and calming about pattern. The repetition draws you in and your eyes are ordered to follow the routes laid out by another party; it is a mindless activity when you give over to the rhythms created. Even the most complicated patterns provide this calmness for me if I allow myself time to see the components. I see pattern everywhere in nature and the created world. It creeps into aspects of my artwork and daily life. My daughter has admonished me for my attraction to pattern when choosing clothing; she is a neutral lover.

While we stayed with our friends, Pauline and Chris, in Devon this summer, I admired their wonderful garden which is terraced and works its way up a steep incline behind her house. It was an intricate world of twists and intersections when you looked up and through. My friends were astounded to see what images interested me. It connects right back to lying in the meadow as a child and seeing the blades of grass and stems of buttercups. I am attracted to the parts just as much as the whole. How do you see the world?

Torn

When I want inspiration, ideas for natural compositions or just plain old visual "eye candy", I go to my period wallpaper collections gathered from various old homes under renovation on the Bonavista Peninsula, Newfoundland. I have hundreds if not thousands of shots. I sort and resort them in various ways. I imagine the lives and stories that these remnants store. Each is a perfect composition in its own right. Here are my selections for today.

And then there are floors...

Once a monotype

"Never throw anything you create away, not matter how dismal it appears at the time." One of my first instructors drilled this advice into our heads. I didn't know what I would do with all my rejects in my reject drawers, I just kept saving. Now eight years later I'm so glad I blindly followed her advice. Your "rejects" are your learning experiences, they chart in a concrete way how you moved through your development just as much as those works you consider successful. They often mark a crossroads in your development, places where you branched off for awhile or took completely alternate paths. They provide opportunities for journal entries about your practice or they become the journal entries of the "what not to do's" or the ideas about new places to go.

Now that I work mostly in mixed media, I go to the reject drawer constantly and find precious bits of work that I collage directly or colour copy and create image transfers. I also take whole works and rework them in another medium.

Movement of Life, 8 x 10, mixed media

I showed this image before but didn't discuss how it came to be. I took several months to explore using plant matter to create monotypes. It's very simple. You cover your plate (plexiglas in my case) with a background colour (oil or oil inks) and then place leaves, grasses or petals onto the plate in a pleasing composition. Place your soaked and blotted watercolour paper on top of the plate and roll out with a roller or run through a printing press. My roller, made my a machinist friend, is 85 pounds and does a great job. I have been just as successful leaning into my wooden pastry roller to get good transfers. If I'm using plant material, the only change I made with the pastry roller is using thinner paper (rice paper or less than 140 lb. watercolour paper).

When I pull the print, where the plant material was, is white negative space. The fern leaf above was a failed monotype I created in 2004 using this process, that I cut in three pieces and collaged into this new composition. The next image began in the same way but had additions.


You can see the white areas where the leaves were. I then took the leaves (which had all the oil paint from the background) and laid them on top of the negative space to to create a hint of their presence.

Growth, 2007, 8 x 8, mixed media

The background of this mixed media work was a monotype I created by placing the inked images of the leaves from the previous experiment on top of the original plate (oil side up) and added a new light weight sheet of cold press watercolour paper . When rolled I got a hazy background from the original plate and nice crisp leaves because they still had lots of paint on them. To finish Growth (also referring to my growth as an artist) I reinforced sections with acrylic paint and applied fiberous papers to finish it off.

You might enjoy seeing this video by Mary Margaret Briggs who uses a similar process. I live the organic shapes and simplicity of her work. I found this artist this year when I was researching artists who use gardens as inspiration in their art work.