The last couple of weeks I've been trying to pay more attention to the act of my making and explore deeper into my concepts. I've found that I love spontaneity when creating and discovered I was losing that aspect when quilting. There is so many “rules” and step by step planning involved. As a result I was getting burned out once again. I decided to work more spontaneously. Not planning the pattern and measurements but just grabbing fabrics that spark my interest, then cutting and sewing them together. While I’m in this process I began thinking about what memories the fabric patterns and colors remind me of. This then becomes my narrative to the piece. Moving forward, I feel that these ideas will continue to develop but I’m confident and like the direction things are going. I have found motivation once again. I am still on track to complete 3-4 quilts by midterm and can’t wait to see what the spontaneous outcomes will be within the designs. BEGINING STAGESFINAL STAGES
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THINGS...I found this article to be an interesting. Material Intelligence, the idea described in the article Few Better Things by Glenn Adamson, as,” a deep understanding of the material world around us, an ability to read that material environment, and the know- how required to give it new form.” This skill set once just a known thing in our society, now a lost art or a specialized skill. Now granted the things, the advances that our generation has come to know as our norm are great and pretty amazing, but too much of anything great can be bad or overwhelming. For instance, with the current situation happening in the world, in the beginning I was so thankful for video chat to be able to talk to “see” and talk to family and friends. However, now I’m up to what seems like 109,465 Zoom chats and oh man I am really missing that face to face interaction. That to say I think there is something to this need for the real, the tangible presence of “things.” A once foreign thought to those generations before us but one that has been brought to our attention now with the swing of the pendulum. In the article Adamson tells a story about his grandfather’s sister in the 30’s. She was hired to mind the neighbors’ 160-acre farm for a few days while they were away. During this time the farm dogs had chased the two-hundred-pound pig until it died in the heat. Knowing this was the family’s meat for the winter, the 13-year-old girl butchered the pig and canned the meat all by herself. Now I bet you couldn’t find many 13 year old’s now days that would have that knowledge and skill set. But as times change so does our need for material intelligence. It’s an interesting thought and even a sad one at that. Many skills will be lost over generations and new ones taking their place. Artist Research-Sheila Hicks Sheila Hicks studied at Yale under the famed color theorist Josef Albers was encouraged by Albers’ textile artist wife, Anni. However, Hicks plowed the way for fiber artists. Her work blurs the line boundaries between painting and sculpture with her vibrant woven textile pieces. Her forms often reflect that of wall mounted paintings but take of the 3-dimensional textural form suspension of that which is often seen sculpture as well. I chose Sheila Hicks because I find how she works with textiles on such an amazing scale, inspirational. Her instillations leave an impact on the viewer and I admire her ambition. Also, she doesn’t limit herself to one material, size or shape of work. It seems her reaches are endless, and her exploration still continues at the age of 85. I hope to be still searching out my artistic impulses when I reach her level of experience of craft and life. I feel that we both have a fascination and passion for textiles. Also, to stretch the boundaries on how people label the means at which textiles belong to. There is something familiar yet daunting about using fabric and textile in sculpture. It has such a rich history that inevitably takes on a narrative all its own. She pays attention to detail but focuses on the larger picture, what the viewer will see. She states, “The idea of its monumentality is to envelop you. You’re not thinking about the grains of the sugar—you’re in a huge lemon meringue pie." Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9PfcC1r52Y https://www.alisonjacquesgallery.com/artists/76-sheila-hicks/overview/ https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-84-sheila-hicks-making-defiant-honest-art THINGS...Things. The idea of “things” and their importance to us is a concept I find interesting to think about. What makes “things” so importance to us? Is it the very item themselves, the memories they spark, or is it the very history of the item itself? Whatever the reason, we as human’s convent and cherish things. For myself, I have always been sentimental. Items handed down from old family members, a movie stub from a good movie or bad, rocks from states I’ve been to and even leaves from my hometown. These items to others may just be things, but to me they remind me of great memories. Though it is in our nature to hold onto things, not everyone holds value in items. Though I still consider myself to be very sentimental, one event made me rethink my desire, my need, to hold onto things. Hurricane Harvey hit south Texas in 2017 and destroyed my home and most of my cherished items along with it. Going back to see the remains of our house and things left behind, changed my perspective on our need for “things”. In the podcast Radiolab, Things episode, husband and wife Robert and Tamar go to Explorers Club in Manhattan and view collected items of somewhat historical significance. Tamar doesn’t feel the shock and awe others may normally experience when coming in contact with such cherished items. I wonder if something possibly happened to her that changed her perspective on the importance of things like myself, or if she just desires to leave the past in the past and move forward in every type of form. I admire that desire to some extent. Not to dwell on the past, even through the memory of object, can be sort of freeing, I think. When it comes to “things” and art, I rely heavily on the memories that items evoke in my own work. I use fabrics old and new to help mark times from my past. Similarly, artist Doris Salcedo Video uses items in her work to tell the story. Often exposing the narrative of tragedies that others have experienced, like her piece title"Atrabiliarios" seen in the image... These items have now adopted the stories of the broken. I admire her use of objects to bring to light devastation and injustice. With that being said, I think objects and how we feel about them is different for everyone and should be we each have our own unique experiences and “tings” were inevitably involved in those experiences. Proposal...Some of my earliest memories of creation involve sitting at a sewing machine surrounded by my grandmother and aunts who were teaching me the art of meticulous measurement, intentional color choices, and precise stitching of fabric to create masterpieces that might being lying in someone’s chest for generations to come. Quilting was, in fact, my earliest exposure to the arts. It has remained my place of confidence, comfort and a space to be most fully present yet I never made the connection to my work as an artist until recent. I love working with color and dimension and fabric and have decided that this is the craft I feel most creative in my practice as of yet.
Over the summer break I began digging deeper into the “whys” of my making. Questions like, what are things that fascinate me behind this process? As a result, I found as I was working, making connections with color and pattern to memories of my past. Colors paired next to one another brought me back to times late at night eating sherbet with my grandfather. Or the repetition of shape and color bringing back memories of sitting on our tree swing in the front yard, watching leaf after leaf fall to the ground. Bundled up in my brunt orange and red scarf. As we get older, inevitably these memories flee. I hope to use these quilts as markers for memories and spark ones in the viewer as well. For my BFA thesis show, I proposed 7 finished quilts, but not limited to. My goal is to try and complete as many as I can so that I have room to choose the best 7 from there. My goal is to have 3 if not 4 completed by midterm (roughly 1 quilt every other week) and the remaining quilts and possible stands, completed by the show’s opening. For my last sculpture class of my undergrad, I have 3 main goals. First, I would like to work on coming full circle with my narrative I would like to bring forth to my audience for my BFA show. Additionally, I’m looking forward to working out how to best convey my “message” to the viewer. How working with relational color choices, have sparked memories from my past and present. Lastly, I would like to push my craft to reach my goal and have a finished body of work for my final BFA show in December. Debbie Smyth is a textile artist, best known for her large-scale thread drawings. I fell in love with her work, process and backstory and can relate to her work and inspirations. In an interview she states,” My artworks are often inspired by memories. I love searching out imagery and recording events, be it by drawing or photographing situations, to bring this memory back to life in a piece of art. I like to give a new lease of life to oft-ignored aspects of our lives.” Another artist that I’ve found influential in my work is Harry Roseman. He is a sculptor, photographer among other mediums and is a professor of art at Vassar College, where he currently chairs the Department of Art. I have been inspired by his wood sculptures seen here… I love how he uses form to create the look of folded drapery using hard woods. Being that I will be graduating in the fall with my BFA in Sculpture, I have taken many 3D courses. This is my 3rdtime taking Advanced Sculpture and I’ve taken Advanced Ceramics 3 times as well among other 3D courses. I am familiar with fabric sewing, weaving and sculpting, welding, woodworking, mold making, metal casting both aluminum and cast iron and various clay works, etc. I haven’t had the opportunity to work in lost wax casting firsthand and would, if possibly like to learn this semester. As this is my last semester here at TAMUCC, it is a bittersweet time, but I am looking forward to what this semester holds and what new things I can create. |