Thoughts about critique

A few weeks back I read an interesting and thought-provoking article in Jane Dunnewold's HeArtCloth Quartly titled "The Art of Critique" (Winter 2007). The general thrust of the article is posing and answering the question "What are my responsibilities when seeking or offering criticism?" Jane includes a detailed discussion of the tools of artistic critique. For example a well-rounded knowledge of color theory, design, etc. are essential to offering a productive critique. She also stresses the need for ethical, detached feedback--not getting into personal attack. I wasn't surprised by any of these points, and frankly it's nice to have a gentle reminder every so often. The point in the article that struck me most was the responsibility of the artist to be clear with themselves and others about the nature of the criticism being sought. In particular there is a clear difference between asking for feedback on a finished piece and asking for assistance in resolving issues with a work-in-progress. This has been kicking around in my head ever since I read it. I recently (i.e., 15 minutes ago) had the experiencing of asking a very open-ended question (mistake #1) at the wrong time (mistake #2) and probably from the wrong person (mistake #3). To be specific: I asked Dan his design opinion about a piece I'm working on when he was trying to eat. It seemed like a perfectly fine time to me. I mean, gosh, I'd gladly talk about art with my mouth full! I value Dan's opinion, but perhaps this particular situation might have been akin to him asking my opinion about which brand of motor oil I think he should put in the car. My answer probably would have been something like, "Oil? I thought they ran on gasoline?" An exaggeration yes, but it makes a point. It's no reflection on Dan. I keep wanting this to be his thing, but it's not.

I wish I could say this was a great learning experience, but I've made this mistake before and I still haven't learned. I'm going to take this as another good motivator for me to connect with some other local artists for this type of support.

Rainy Friday

Yesterday we woke up to a crystal clear blue sky; today it's solid gray and light rain. Dan's half way through his second book and I'm not all that far behind. Yesterday we did end of driving back up to P'town and had a nice walk out across the breakwater. We decided that with the cool temperature and breeze it might not be a good day for the beach, which was an unfortunate mistake. Once we made it through the dunes to the beach we it was an almost perfect beach day. Oh well. we had a great walk out an back. The breakwater is a line of large granite boulders stretching about a mile across the hook at the tip of the Cape, which helps protect the wetland and harbor. The walk is not only a decent workout, but also affords some great views of the town, the wetland, and the intertidal life on the rocks.

This is the view of the marsh from the breakwater looking toward the dunes. The tide was going out. I think that the best time for this walk. It takes about an hour to walk out and back. In that time you see more and more of the wetland and the rocks exposed and the color always seems to be changing.

I'm not sure why, but I never seem to tire of photographing these views or the details of the breakwater.

Part of the appeal is the quiet and the sense of open space. Another part has to be the color palette and the texture of the scenery. The marsh grass, the water, the sky, the rocks, even the human textures of harbor towns like this speak to me. I don't particularly care for how artsy and contrived that sounds, but I'm at a loss for better words.

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Steam heat

The weather channel says that DC is suffering under searing heat. Here on the Cape it's all about rain, fog, and serious humidity. Yesterday was so-so, but today was absolute yuck. However, as I write this the clouds have broken, the humidity is improving, and there's hope for a fine day tomorrow. We're talking about going to the P'town to continue our walk, pick up some lunch, and head to the beach. Last night we went to the movies at Cape Cinema and saw "Becoming Jane," which is great if you're a Jane Austen fan. If you're not, it's still a nice story, but as biographies go, I think you lose something by not knowing the back story. In this case the back story is recognizing in the persons of her parents, sisters, relatives, and acquaintances the traits of the characters who people her novels. Now, as for the theater, it's very cool. It's an original single-screen theater that dates from the early 30's, complete with a beautiful art deco mural on the ceiling. The seats are individual arm chairs with upholstered seats. I thought they were very quaint until about 60 minutes into the film with my butt started really hurting. Oh well, I guess that's just part of getting old?

Live from Harwich

Dan and I are in Harwich, MA on Cape Code for the week visiting with our friends Randy and Brian for a couple of days, then house sitting for them while they're at the ACC show in San Francisco. It's always a treat to be here. It's peaceful. I've yet to encounter any place that's quite like Cape Cod. Even though it's crowded this time of year, there's something clean, clear, and refreshing about the air. The guys have also made such a wonderful home for themselves. It's more like visiting a private garden and getting to stay the night in the quirky, beautiful craft museum/workshop that happens to be on the grounds. I guess that's what happens to avid creators and collectors: their homes become venues for presenting the collection; places to live with the art.

By coincidence Sunday was the day of one of their rare studio sales. Here's front entrance to the barn early in the morning as the frenzy of setup is just winding down. I assume that it was a frenzy. I slept through it.

Look at these amazing scarves. Of course the photo doesn't come anywhere near doing them justice. Spectacular weaving, color, composition, and texture aside, what blows me away about this particular image is presentation (I hate to say merchandising). This is spectacular wearable art hung from hooks next to the rough-hewn interior surface of the barn's interior walls. What you don't see in this picture is the rest of the room and the canopied back patio filled with scarves, dresses, vests, jackets, and more, all presented and lit in a way that creates a sense of unpretentious drama and wonder. At least for me it did.

So, while all this was going on, Dan and I made ourselves scarce so as not to be under foot while serious money-making business was being done. We went to church at Christ Church Episcopal in Harwich Port, which was small, lovely, and very welcoming. Because we were visiting they gave us a little loaf of cranberry bread. How cute is that?

Then we had a little nosh on our way to the big flea market at Wellfleet Drive-In. There were some really scary people there buying tube socks and XXXL irregular T shirts, but there was also a whole area for vintage/old/antique/junk stuff, which was pretty cool. We bought an old white painted cabinet with screened doors--most appropriate for a kitchen, but we're thinking it might get incorporated into the master bedroom or guest room redecorations planned for the coming year.

I also bought what I went there hoping to find: 2 really cool trivets to use as batik tools, and what I believe is a genuine wooden tjap (also for applying batik wax to fabric), although the vendor said she thought it was for block printing wallpaper. Either way I'm delighted. The tjap (shown at left below) is about 5" x 6". One of the trivets is shown on the right

We had lunch at Clem & Ursie's in P'town (fish place out on Shankpainter Road). Dan has had his lobster roll fix, although there will probably be a need for another later this week. This place is expensive for what you get, but the food is undeniably delicious. After lunch we had a little stroll down part of Commercial Street before heading back to Harwich. I love P'town and miss it, but I think I might really be missing what it used to be like.

P'town was the place where two guys or two women could hold hands walking down the street and be greeted by smiles, even an occasional lusty grin, but never a look of scorn. It used to be a sort of gay sacred ground. Now, there's a tourist trolly that runs families around for 40-minute tours, and auto traffic is restricted on Commercial for part of the day. I can only assume that's to address the problem of double-wide strollers that don't fit on the sidewalk. The place hasn't lost it's gay people, but it seems to have lost some of its edge. It's even like this at night. I know it makes me sound old, but I remember when the families fled at sundown because they were afraid their kids would see a man in a dress, some guy with his bare ass hanging out of leather chaps, or two women kissing. Assimilation may not be all it's cracked up to be.

Picking away

I'd love to say that I haven't been posting because I've been too busy dying one fabulous yard of cloth after another--no such luck. Work's been crazy, then there was the new Harry Potter book that demanded to be read immediately (and it was worth it!). I do have a couple of things in process.

Here's that same old batik piece. I got frustrated with it because it was just too high contrast with those damned white circles. I grabbed a dirty screen (and I'm talkin' drips and smears of dye that I forgot to wash out) and deconstructed it with a not-too-strong mix of Pro Chem Chino and thickener. It's way better and could now be either a background for something more or at least something to cut up. I'm kicking around some ideas.

This next one was me just wanting to play with dye and beak-in a new screen. I grabbed whatever dye I happened to have mixed up, and once again a dirty screen. I think I deconstructed the blue then added the light brown (leftover Chino) the next day. Again, I'm not sure where this one's going. For now I'm having fun looking at it. It's making me think of Caribbean beaches.

So, this weekend I'm flying to Providence, RI to meet Dan, who's currently in CT on business, then we're driving out to stay with friends on the Cape. They're both artists so it makes for great conversations. I'm going back and forth with myself about whether to take recent work to show then. On one hand they're both role models (working, well regarded craftspeople whose work I respect and admire); on the other they're intimidating, at least in this regard.

I love the Cape. I'm taking a sketch book, a novel, a camera, a couple changes of cloths, and not much else.

The end of a busy weekend

What an amazing weekend it's been in DC. The weather's been unseasonably pleasant: comfortably warm, dry, and low humidity. Yes, the lawns are all brown from so little rain, but the pleasure of being outside in mid-July without feeling like the shower you took this morning was a waste of time, ah such a treat. It's about 9:45 on Sunday night. I'm sitting at the dining room table near the open window and there's a slight cool breeze that carries with it the promise of great sleeping.

And speaking of great sleep. I finally finished the quilt that I started last September to use up some nervous energy while Dan and I were preparing for our commitment ceremony. It doesn't normally take me a year to complete a quilt, but this one got a little out of hand and there were a few distractions--like a wedding.

I designed it thinking about the traditional wedding ring design. The central motif is the closest thing to that basic concept. The things around it are rings that don't conform to the traditional pattern. The other "rings" in the quilt all vary in size and have offset centers. They were assembled as raw-edge applique on white squares, which were then overdyed brown and lightly discharged to given them some age, some weather. The other squares are an assortment of shibori patterns, dyed and overdyed. Some of these blocks were quartered, mixed up with each other, then reassembled and overdyed. All of this was intended to create a sense of the offbeat, the free spirit, and the willingness to embrace what is different, vibrant, and colorful.

It's pretty densely quilted. The blocks with the circles are stippled and the other blocks are filled with a meandering sort of spiral. I did all of the free-motion quilting on a Bernina Aurora 440 with a stitch regulator. I still find it challenging the quilt large pieces like this, but I have to say that once I got used to the regulator it really did make a difference. Now if I could just manage to relax a little more when I quilt. I swear I tense up so much it feels like I've just about raised my shoulders over my head.

Well, that's enough for now. It's Dan's turn with the new Harry Potter. We're taking turns reading chapters. It's pretty good so far. Since I can't read it's probably a good time to go to bed.

Christmas came early

OK, I knon that title's semi-blasphemous, but it's a cultural reference that captures the last few days fairly well. That sewing machine I was selling on eBay...it sold for twice as much as I was hoping to get for it! If I can get a decent price for my embroidery machine it should just about cover the cost of my new Aurora 440. (Let's not talk about the embroidery module that I recently added to it, or for that matter, the software that I'm about to buy).

If that wasn't enough, I came home on Wednesday to find the front step covered in packages from Dick Blick and Pro Chem. I won't be so happy when the Visa bill comes, but for now it's fun. A lot of the purchases were for things that I tried and loved in Kerr's workshop, like the Caran d'Ache water-based crayons that you can use to hand color a screen and release with fabric paint medium (ProFab). Very cool.

I'm still contemplating the unfinished batik that I posted earlier this week. I agree with Rayna's comment that it's nice yardage, but not a finished composition unto itself. I also think that cutting it and starting to combine it with other cloth might be the next step. However, contemplating that next step has made me realize how much I hate cutting large pieces of hand dyed fabric. I have no problem slicing and dicing commercial fabric. The exception to that is of course really expensive or beautiful stuff that needs to be fondled, loved, and admired for a while before taking out the rotary cutter.

Last night I sat in the back yard with a Scotch staring at the cloth hanging on the clothes line trying to listen to what it's saying. I know just how "new age" that sounds, but I do think that if I can step back far enough from something I've made, I can see/hear something. Of course, what I hear might not be anything profound; it could be static, but even in that there's an element of revelation. So far this piece is saying something about circles, cycles, spirals, little cycles within larger ones, perhaps independent cycles that are isolated from each other (that's kind of sad). These circles/spheres/planets(?) need to be connected, unified, related to one another and to a larger cycle.

...Or I could just cut the whole thing up. I need to let this stew a little more.

As I reread what I just wrote I'm reminded just how much the language and practice of surface design overlap with spiritual direction, contemplative prayer, meditation, and psychotherapy. Isn't it great when things start to connect?

Is this finished?

Following up on July 16 post about about the batik piece that I began at PV. Here it is with some black detail added with thickened dye in a dental syringe (fiber artists use some weird tools).

Better? Definately--especially up close.

But is it done? My intention is to quilt this as a whole piece. Right now I think it has a problem with scale and focus. It's an interesting overall pattern, but when I look at it my eye has no place to land; nothing to contemplate. I'm thinking that my next step might be to take the pattern of the batiked circle, enlarge it, perhaps distort it a bid, and render it on the surface in a dark color. For example, I might paint the pattern into an empty screen with thickened dye then release it several times with clear alginate and let the pattern deconstruct. I invite your thoughts if you care to offer them.

Changing tastes

The sun has set. I've washed out a yard of cotton that I batiked last night. (After an hour and a half with the tjanting I have confirmed that there is not an ounce of Indonesian blood in my veins. It was fun enough, but I don't know that I could do yard after yard). I had a little dinner "devant le TV". I even made a quick run to Joanne Fabric for embroidery supplies. It really makes me grateful for Internet shopping--you the product you're looking for and none of the squalor).

Now I'm sitting on the back porch and occasionally glancing over at a chair across the room that's slipcovered in a comfortable cotton in a muted green, tan, and brown leaf and flower pattern. The slipcover is an artifact from my "floral period," when I thought that chintz is what they wore in the Garden of Eden and that there was no such thing as too much floral fabric or even too much variety of it in any given room. Mercifully for my eyes and those of my family and friends I grew out of that phase. This vestigial chair is OK, and it sort of fits in the with the relaxed, shabby chic thing going on in this room. (I should digress here and say that this is an enclosed porch with sliding glass windows and air conditioning. I am NOT discussing a piece of fully-upholstered furniture on an outdoor porch!)

Where am I going with this? Tastes change. Despite the fact that I can't seem to put anythings away--especially books and fabric--I'm really into clean lines and simpler patterns right now. I don't know what this is about? Is is just getting older or am I an undiagnosed fashion victim? The clean, simple, spa thing seems very in. I swear I was there first! Clutter, too much visual noise, and poor lighting all drive me absolutely crazy right now. I think it might also be the stress and pace of the rest of my life that's making me crave retreat and tranquility at home.

The strange thing is that this tranquility and simplicity does not always seem to be present in the art I'm making. I don't think that I have a particularly jarring color palette or a taste for chaos or in-your-face design; just the opposite. And, maybe that's OK. From my perspective I'd rather look at a beautiful painting, textile, or piece of pottery in a room than a loud chair that's screaming, "Pay no attention to the art! Look at me!"

La vie continue

La vie continue - life goes on.
Despite the fact that I went to bed feeling sorry for myself and sad, I did in fact wake up this morning and life went on. Dan's in California on business (crash test at some lab out in the middle of the desert). We talked on the phone a couple of times. Work was hectic, but I came home and had time to water the garden, eat a quick dinner, and...drum roll please...take my new print table for its maiden voyage. I started working some black line detail back into a batik piece that I brought back from PV. I'm feeling too lazy to load pictures right now. I'll batch it tomorrow, and it if washes out well we can have before and after shots tomorrow.

Oh, wait. I do have a before shot. Here it is hanging on the clothes line in the back yard.

The circles & swirls ($5 trivet from Target, thank you very much) are a little bit high contract in this photo. I don't think they read as strong in person. Up close, it actually looks like it needs a little more punch and a bit more spontaneity. Whenever I feel that way it's usually a hint that it needs some black. From Kerr I learned about the magic dental syringe. Trying to draw/write with the curved tip of a good-sized syringe held in a way that you would never hold a pencil or brush is somehow liberating to me. Once you start squeezing you've got to move or you'll just make a big blob of thickened dye. The need to move, to think quickly--better still, to not think so much, but rather to act--is good for my brain. We'll see what the result looks like tomorrow.

In other news, I'm selling one of my sewing machines on eBay: my Bernina 153QE. After 3 1/2 days of people looking at it I'm finally getting bids. I'm happy to say that at this point I've probably gotten enough to consider the sale a tentative success. Fingers crossed it will end smoothly.