Last summer and fall I read a book about David Hockney, True to Life:  Twenty-Five Years of Conversations with David Hockney, by Lawrence Weschler.  It was a wonderful read (and yes, I’ve mentioned it before.)  I thought it might be fun to do a series of brief posts with quotes from the book that resonated with me for whatever reason. The book is arranged in chronological fashion, so you can see how Hockney evolves. These quotations come from the 1983 chapter, when Hockney was working with photography (remember those polaroid collages?).

“All you can do with most ordinary photographs is stare at them–they stare back, blankly–and presently your concentration begins to fade.  They stare you down.  I mean, photoraphy is all right if you don’t mind looking at teh world from the point of view of a paralyzed cyclops–for a split second [emphasis in book].  But that’s not what it’s like to live in the world, or to convey the experience of the living world.

  “During the last several months I’ve come to realize that it has something to do with the amount of time that’s been put into the image.  I mean, Rembrandt spent days, weeks, painting a portrait. …”  (p. 6-7)

This hit home for me, because look at how long it takes to make an art quilt.  A painting, by contrast, can be done in days… even the briefest of textile sketches takes that long, let alone a major work (or even a medium one!).

And then, later on (p. 10), discussing the use of multiple photographs in one composition:

Indeed, that’s what this collage finally looked most like—the very experience of looking as it transpires across. time.

…”From that first day, ” Hockney recalls, “I was exhilarated.  First of all, I immediately realized I’d conquered my problem with time in photography.  It takes time to see these pictures—you can look at them for a long time, they invite that sort of looking.  But more importantly, I realized that this sort of picture came closer to how we actually see, which is to say, not all at once but rather in discrete, separate glimpses, which we then build up into our continuous experience of the world.” [emphasis added by Sarah]

I’ll be back with more of these gems every now and then.  In the meantime, On my reading list:  Weschler’s book “Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees:  A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin.”  Until reading the book on Hockney I had never heard of Irwin, though he is apparently the contemporary of Hockney and of the same (ethereal, or at least exalted) stature in art circles.  It was, according to the inside cover blurb on True to Life,  Hockney’s reaction to that book that caused Hockney to telephone Weschler to “say that while he disagreed with virtually everything in it, he couldn’t get it out of his mind.”  Well, given how much I’ve enjoyed Hockney (as revealed through True to Life) I thought it would be useful to read that with which he agreed.  For now, I’ll pop in now and then with quotes from this book while I’m reading the other one (don’t hold your breath… it will take months–these are books to be read while alert and awake, not my usual evening condition when I have time to read).  Stay tuned!

Late last summer and last fall I took two online classes with Jane LaFazio at Joggles.com.  For one of the lessons, I chose a milkweed pod that I had found by the roadside.

One of the pods releasing its seeds, ready to sketch

My friend Kathy laughed…. I didn’t know what these were, but was enchanted with their prehistoric look–she called them the bane of her gardening existence!   It would appear they are quite common not just in Maine, but I didn’t have a clue (what else is new, right?  Laugh along with me!).  Anyway, that class exercise fed the flames of my passion for these amazing products of nature! I swear they look as if they belong in the Cretaceous with the dinosaurs!

After looking closely at the silks/seeds I realized that something I had glued into my sketchbook in Fall 2010 before at a soccer practice–a wisp found in the grass–was in fact one of the seeds and silks!  Then when popping in at my friend Kate’s house, I found a lovely huge stand and twisted off a bunch of the stems to take home.  The ones with fewer silks are now in a vase as a dried arrangement in my studio (I told you I’m besotted!), the others were for sketching.  There is ABSOLUTELY a quilt, if not several, in these things!

So for the end of 2011 and the start of 2012 I decided I needed to sketch the ones with the silks–which had been fluffing the kitchen for far too long.

My first sketch... just the line drawing for now, no color until I make photocopies to use to make some screens. These are drawn on 9x12 paper, so larger than life-size.

The pods outlined

I had this bright idea to do the drawing in two phases:  the pods on the page, the seeds and silks on an overlay, so that I could make two screens (without having to re-draw them!):  one of the pods, on for just the silks, then I could screenprint with two colors.  Well…despite the cover of the package of Vellum saying it was suitable for ink, pencil, paint, etc., my *permanent* Pitt India-Ink/waterproof pen SMEARS.  Grumble.  Will have to muck around –maybe a Sharpie won’t smear?  And I’ve waited 36+ hours and the ink still smears.  If I try to erase the pencil guidelines, it takes the ink and smears it all over.  Bleah. Good idea, materials need refining. Ahem.

The pods, with the seeds/silks on a vellum overlay

And here is just the overlay:

Just the seeds/silks thingies on the vellum...lovely eh?

Another pod...yes, I am obsessed

And yet another that shows how the seeds cluster inside the pod. Mother Nature is really so clever...these little puffs float on the lightest whiff of air and then cling with the silky tentacles--to EVERYthing in the kitchen!

I can totally see making some screens, with the drawings in different sizes, to do some printing on cloth as well as rendering these in fused applique…. now, I just need to make the quilt for the Dinner@8 challenge for this year (a juried invitational quilt exhibit…see here for more info on past exhibits), then I’ll dive into this one!  It feels so good to be energized and excited about making art!  It has been a rough several years, and I think we really are moving into a less drama-filled life…this is GOOD!

What a concept… blogging about art on a blog named Art and Quilting in Camden (and now Hope, Maine, too!)….

Last year, I found myself with unaccustomed time on Christmas day and did a collage that soothed my soul and fed my need to create.  This year, I hoped to do the same but was instead happily busy with family and food and joy!  So I decided to make and keep some time on New Year’s Day for art… I think this is something that needs to turn into a tradition!

This year’s collage got a jump-start when I popped into Camden National Bank in mid-December and they had give-away calendars…those little ones that make a triangle stand on your desk and have photos.  The theme for 2012 was “Images of Maine.”  Perfect!   The 2012 collage turned into one about Home in Maine for me….

My January 1, 2012 collage

From time to time I also troll through magazines that are headed to recycling and cut out words and tear out pages with pictures I might like.  So this time I found this catalog (Title 9) where they use REAL (very athletic, on the young side, ages early 20s to 40 ish, trim and fit…sigh) where one of the models was Sarah…  for each one they had asked them to fill in (or their creative catalog person got REALLY creative) questions, including “Most At Home”–her reply, “in Maine.”  And her friends call *her* the Energizer Bunny, too!   Too fun…so of course I tore that out and modified a couple answers.  I used the Jan. 1 date from the calendar, and seven of the photos, plus others from my stash.

The big photo on the left page is of downtown Camden — our local “hub” which is a town of under 6,000 — decked out for Christmas.  I love the torn edges, but also liked the perforated bits so kept some of those.

My collage from Christmas 2010 is in here, and it was interesting to compare… that one has words like Back from the Brink, Coming up for Air, Jo ahead….Jump,  Saga, Family, It’s all a balancing act.  Certainly tells the story of where I was.

2010 year-end collage

I used aquarelle pencils an small squares (1 inch) of color cut from magazines, and it is more colorful–I was trying to brighten up my life and my pages.  This year’s is much more peaceful… the chaos has, I think, finally ended.  It’s all about “home in Maine.”   Anyway, after looking at that one I then thought The “Winter’s End” page that I added to this year’s might be metaphorical as well as literal…..It’s time to begin anew, to create and to revel in life!

It’s nice to have time and folks with whom to share!  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

A while back I mentioned I had taken a class (then another) with Jane LaFazio at Joggles.com.  And I fully intended (hah!  My road to hell just got better paved) to blog about it as I did the lessons.  Sigh.  But better late than never?  An early autumn lesson (well, it was early Autumn in Maine) from late August/early September, was to sketch in a park or the great out of doors–after all, the class was about sketching “on location.”  Since Maine is rural, I chose our garden, starting with the St. Francis statue we inherited from my late father-in-law.  I discovered in high school that the Feast of St. Francis is the same day as my birthday, so I have considered him “mine” ever since.

St. Francis birdbath

Using the Tombow water-soluble ink pen

I added the rose hips and goldenrod, but my leg were getting seriously bug-munched sitting on the grass wearing a sundress, so I’m afraid I rushed a bit at the end (plus I had to go fix dinner). Here’s the “first” finished:

I thought I was done....but I wasn't

After some very helpful feedback from Jane, I went back and filled in more on the goldenrod, mo bettah!

As always, Jane's eye is spot-on and adding more detail to the Goldenrod really improved this composition

I wanted to do another bit–these small sketches are done on 5×7 watercolor stock, and I have to say having GOOD quality paper makes all the difference in the world!   The large trees (there are actually two) just to the right of the arbor that connects the upper meadow to the larger lower meadow were just starting to turn color in the first week of September:

Early September and the leaves were already starting to turn. That tree is now bare bare bare and has been snow-clad a few times!

A memory of a late-summer, early-fall day. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this! Tho now that I see this in blog format, I notice that the angle of the "rafters" of the arbor are off from the photo. Not sure if that is because I took the photo from a different spot or not....they definitely look like they are tilting up too much in my sketch.

Still, Still, Still is a carol the middle school chorus sang last year. I journaled the lyrics around this print of the stag. I first printed the reindeer directly on the page, but the print didn't work so well. So I printed onto tissue, then glued the tissue over the somewhat not-crisp original print onto the page. This made a sort of "echo" in the image. The background was done in Jane LaFazio's Mixed Media journals online class at Joggles.com.

For once, I actually thought ahead a bit.  Last spring, I did a presentation for my local quilt group, the Coastal Quilters, because they had been kind enough to award me a $50 scholarship to help pay for a class.  I took two online classes, one of which was lino-cutting with Dijanne Cevaal.  Last Christmas I had gotten this idea to make an ornament for my Frayed Edges friends for this year, so I noodled around Google Images to find pictures of stags and reindeer and prepared a drawing to use for a new lino-cut that is really a hybrid of about 20 pictures.  Then I finished the carving as part of my demonstration.

The resting reindeer, on tissue, on cloth, and in my sketchbook

In Fall, I finally got around to printing what I needed to make some ornaments.  At Thanksgiving time, I decided that I needed to make a few more, as it was time to give thanks, especially to some very special teachers at Camden-Rockport Middle School who have been wonderful to both of our kids.  Our younger son is in 8th grade, so this was our last chance to say a special thank you.

I made a run of 14 ornaments for family, friends and teachers.

The block is 6 inches, with the design carved on point.  I trimmed the prints on cloth to this “onion dome” (like you see in Russian churches) shape.  They are printed with Speedball Printing Ink, which I discovered the hard way last year is NOT water-fast.  Like a drop from the iron will make a blotch.  Erg.  So after printing these I sprayed with with Krylon Spray Fixative, which I hope will help.  The prints are fused to Peltex, a stiffener used in fabric postcards, and quilted with Superior Threads Glitter thread (the pearl color).  Unusually, I satin-stitched around the edge instead of using a yarn…nothing I had looked as good as a nice tight satin stitch.

A closer view of one with a more dense coating of ink that some of the others... I like it both ways.

I decided the ornaments needed a special card, so I used the stag I drew (see my earlier post this month) and photocopied onto a heavy card stock and made the note cards. Finding big envelopes was a challenge! You can see the back of the ornament at the top left, so you can see the quilting.

May tomorrow find you with those you love, with a moment of calm and joy and art and beauty.