I have mentioned the Intermuseum Conservation Association in the past. They have a website entitled the Art Materials Information and Education Network (AMIEN.org) that contains a number of forums touching on the material side of things. I plan to drop in from time to time as I have questions of my own. Note: they are having what appear to be spam issues and are taking no new registrations for now. But That will surely change for the better.
Archives for Uncategorized
A Relection on Reflections
Among my recent plastic acquisitions is a substantial mirrored sheet. The grandkids like to see their fun house reflections as it is all bendy. It’s an old notion and applied to exhaustion, but I decided to see what the camera would catch reflected in it.
I’m thinking of hauling a smaller version of the sheet around with me.
New feature: tags
A new capability since our upgrade of WordPress is the tagging feature. Tags are like categories: labels to describe the post. But unlike categories, tagging is free-form; you can use any words or phrases you like, whether or not they’ve been previously used. Just as with categories, clicking on a tag label will show other posts bearing that tag. So it’s a great way to find similar content without having to search on a particular term. Searching doesn’t always work well, as a post might contain the search term without it being very characteristic of the post content.
You’ll notice in the sidebar (possibly scrolling down a bit) a list of recent tags, with their frequency indicated by intensity of blue and font size. That provides a snapshot of recent topics which can be more informative than our sometimes cryptic post titles. Clicking any of these also brings you to a list of posts so tagged.
So far, I’ve tagged just my last few posts to show how it works. We need some other tags in there! Feel free to go back and tag any old posts, and use tags if you like for future posts. On the post edit page, tags are added immediately below the compose area, right next to the category assignment list.
I hope tags will offer an easier way to find posts of interest and ones related to a post you’ve enjoyed. Let’s see if it works out that way. Meanwhile, any comments or suggestions would be appreciated!
Two From a Weekend
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.
Edges and a trash can
[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
Oldenburgian
I saw a dirty rear window adorned with the commonplace admonition: “WASH ME”. The glass had a general roundedness reminiscent of an old television screen. Such a screen, if dusty, would be adorned with “WATCH ME”.
I dislike this kind of thinking because it demands action. In this case not so bad as I have discovered the joys of plastic and could imagine something in that medium.
Finding an old television or crt and smearing it ala Robert Rauschenberg could maybe work, but the product would be an orphan without a context. Going Oldenburg might be better. Many of his signature works have involved a process of simplification that can catch the essential syntax of a design while allowing it to serve as a support for superimposed meanings. In this case I needed to find a way to say “TV” in an elementary way, allowing the message to be comfortably introduced.
My first impulse has been to create the outline of a tv screen in smoky lucite and to bend it into an affixed curvature, set against a background plaque, appropriately shaped and painted. Fortunately, the television screen is a deeply ingrained shape, and announces itself with no outside aid. The ‘cabinet’ might be a simple rectangle showing a little more at the bottom than the top, implying the presence of knobs and buttons. Another usable is the allowance given by the continuing depiction of older technology, like steam locomotives, in the media. Coors drives its cold refreshment choo-choo through town on steam, not diesel electric.