Impossibility and believability

When I first ran across Barbara Lydecker Crane’s site, I gasped at the ethereal beauty of her work. She states that:

I hope that you will see both impossibility and believability in my art quilts. We live in a magical world, and I love capturing a bit of nature’s beauty and some hints of its mystery.

These are the kinds of words that never fail to rivet my attention: beauty, mystery, magic. Then she admits to a working style that completely endears her to me:

Each quilt is original and one-of-a-kind. Generally I both applique and quilt by hand, usually spending two to four months per piece. It is meticulous work! But it helps me find a place of stillness in myself, and to become ever more appreciative of the world around me.

I have tried to abandon the hand quilting, appliqué, and piecing that I do by hand, and employ the sewing machine in order to increase my productivity. Maybe someday I will cross that line. Perhaps there is no line, and I can happily employ BOTH. In any case, I empathize deeply with both the meticulous and meditative aspects of handwork.

Frisson

One aspect of art that fascinates me is adding personal symbols to my work. I think Lascaux–except the cave paintings are my own, and they are on cloth instead of a wall of stone. Jane Dunnewold has something inspiring to say about this:

Determining archetypes that have meaning for you is a springboard to a personal visual language. Creating work with your own visual language is the foundation for works roaming a very broad and artful terrain.

And, of course, you can explore Jane’s own website. She has rich offerings for anyone interested in art cloth, and many resources to aid you in your creative pursuits.

One of Jane’s students, Martha K. Grant, has taken symbolism to quite lofty heights in her own work:

I have created a design library of over 50 silkscreens and add to it regularly as the Spirit suggests a new theme or what I have come to see as a new dialect in the language of this interfaith dialog I am currently exploring. Later the Spirit of the fabric might suggest a particular garment that it wishes to “live” in, but at the beginning of the process the task (and the joy) is to create a piece of art on this particular length of cloth. It is similar to working on a very large canvas, for the entire surface must be integrated, decorated (even if the “decoration” is the blank quiet spaces), connected. The eye flows through the entire piece as it does across a painted canvas.

The idea of dialoguing with Spirit to create art resonates very deeply with me. I have always talked about art passing the “tingle test.” Martha expresses this much more eloquently:

I am often asked how I know which color, design, text or pattern to use, and how I know when a piece is finished. I reply that my body has become the barometer. It is a felt knowing, even a shudder.

The French have a wonderful word for it–frisson–which I have come to define as the Spirit passing through.

Don’t miss perusing Grant’s exciting body of work.

The Audacity of Hope

Barack Obama, Ilinois’s Democratic senator, has written a book by this title. In an interview on amazon.com, Obama is asked ”If readers are to come away from ‘The Audacity of Hope’ with one action item, what should it be?” And he answers: “Get involved in an issue that you’re passionate about. It almost doesn’t matter what it is–improving the school system, developing strategies to wean ourselves off foreign oil, expanding health care for kids. We give too much of our power away, to the professional politicians, to the lobbyists, to cynicism. And our democracy suffers as a result.”

So what does this have to do with art? Well, as an inhabitant of a meaningful universe, I consider just about anything that captures my attention as a conveyer of meaning. Though I have not yet read the book mentioned here, I have made decisions at various times in my life to embrace the audacity of hope, to follow my passions wherever they lead me. And art is something I am PASSIONATE about. It is one way I employ to reclaim, and display, my own power. I conduct my search for fellow artists, those who speak in a visual or written language that moves me, like a knight questing after the holy grail. I am delighted each time I discover processes and materials that further my own expression, my own grail production—which involves making or writing something that encourages hope and creativity in others. I have found this to be a dependable source for nurturing my own joy and sense of purpose. So, I’m with Obama–and anyone else who chooses hope as a strategy in any aspect of their life, be it art, politics, or the pursuit of happiness.

Silverspring Studio Blog Is Born

This blog is a gift to my mom— a very gifted and talented “maker of stuff”. She has tried just about everything in the art space, from drawing and painting, to stained glass, paper mâché, giant crochet wall hangings, fabric dyeing, and quilting. Not a day goes by where she doesn’t get up in the wee hours of the morning to sneak in a few more hours of play. This electronic art form will be new to her, but if she takes to it like she does most things creative, it will soon be filled to brimming with photographs of artwork, video tutorials of experimental techniques, and thoughts and ideas about living a creative life. I love you Mom!