When you catch yourself looking

Right up there in my blog subtitle it says "thinking out loud."  This post is one of those "thinking out loud" ones.

Last weekend I saw the exhibit Cross Country: The Power of Place in American Art 1915-1950 at the High Museum here in Atlanta.  It's a thoroughly enjoyable show for several reasons.  First of all, there's lots to see--hundreds of pieces of painting and photography.  It's organized by region rather than chronologically or by medium, so you see artists responding to the Southwest or the Midwest or wherever all together in one gallery.  I particularly enjoyed seeing photography hung next to painting rather than off in a side nook somewhere.

I enjoyed it also because, like at a party where you meet new people and are delighted to discover you have things in common--who knew?!--I discovered a few artists new to me that I really enjoyed. More about that in a minute.

And finally, and most interestingly for me, I watched myself watching, caught myself looking as it were and became curious about what was catching my eye this day.  Why was I taking these particular photos with my phone?  What was I responding to?  What clues might this give me for my own work?

Here are some of the pieces I photographed.  My hands-down favorite was this piece by Georgia O'Keeffe.

Georgia O'Keeffe, Barn with Snow, oil on canvas, 1933

I think what I love the most about this piece is the detailed pattern of the foundation stones on the right side.  The contrast of that small pattern with the broad planes of color in the rest of the piece just seems so eloquent to me.  My second favorite details are the delicate white lines of snow above and below the windows.

Hanging next to that piece is this one (apologies for being out of focus):

Arthur Dove, Landscape, oil on canvas, 1929

Again, strong, graphic, abstracted shapes dominate.  Dove made the neat trick of putting a white shape in the center that somehow manages not to look like a hole in the painting.  This painting seemed to me to be having an interesting conversation with the O'Keeffe next door.  And with this piece across the room:

Dale Nichols, When the Grass Grows Green, oil on canvas, 1939

This artist, Dale Nichols, was new to me.  I guess I might just be an unreconstructed modernist, because again I am loving the strong graphic, simplified shapes here, and (again) the bright white plane of the building.  There is a quality of stillness and silence in these paintings that I really love.

Now for something really simplified:

Harry Callahan, Weed Against Sky, Detroit, silver gelatin print, 1948 (printed later)

I love the absolute simplicity of this print.  I had to look twice--I thought it was a drawing or perhaps a relief print or etching at first.  (Please disregard the ghostly reflections in the glass--unavoidable.) I wonder, how much courage does it take to work so minimally?

The next day, I saw this on my morning walk.  I don't think I would have noticed it at all had I not seen the Callahan the day before.

Molly Elkind, tree buds

Here's another piece from the show that I mistook for a print at first glance.  Again, these strong simple shapes seem so expressive.  And a textile artist is bound to love all those perpendicular lines.

Jacob Lawrence, Firewood #55, gouache, watercolor, ink on paper, 1942

Carolyn Wyeth, Open Window, oil on canvas, 1944

I love running across women artists I hadn't known of before.  Carolyn was Andrew Wyeth's sister and obviously a thoughtful and sensitive painter in her own right. The composition, with its single wilting rose on a ledge or table in front of a window, is unusual and enigmatic.  

Charles Sheeler, The Upstairs, oil on canvas, 1938

I am sometimes surprised as I round a corner at home by the interesting compositions made by doorways, shadows and furniture.  I liked Sheeler's paintings in the Cross Country show for the same reason.  This one of Sheeler's reminded me of a photo I had taken in our house:

Molly Elkind, interior

Looking back at the pieces that struck me from this exhibit, it occurs to me it might be a useful exercise to print them out and trace over the main shapes and lines, to see the compositions without the distraction of color and texture.  I might learn something about shape, line and proportion. 

What about you?  When you see a gallery or museum show, do you find yourself noticing what you notice?  

What is "creative authenticity"?

Well, for one thing, it's the title of this book I read a while back, by Ian Roberts:  Creative Authenticity: 16 Principles to Clarify and Deepen Your Artistic Vision.  As someone who teaches about the creative and design process, I read these sorts of things when I come across them.

You can see from the number of post-its sticking out that I found much in this book to respond to.

There is lots here that I like and agree with.  Roberts acknowledges the connection between art and the spiritual.  He writes

In the face of beauty, we are silenced, because beauty expresses silence. . . .A work of art is like a visual form of prayer.  The depth of the artist's attention, the prayer, is what we respond to. . . . Our response comes from the power of the prayer that contributed to the making of the piece.  The artwork lives.  If we are left unmoved by a painting of the Virgin, it is likely because the artist was unmoved in the act of painting her.  The subject matter is mostly irrelevant; it is important only as a vehicle for the artist's feelings.  And this is the key to how much silence, consciousness or attention that the art reflects.  (pp. 29-30).

I have felt for a long time that the works of art that move me most are those that possess a strong sense of necessity, an inherent right to exist, a lack of contrivance or arbitrariness, a direct emotional appeal--and this comes from the artist's complete commitment, even surrender, to the piece.  Do not be put off by Roberts' use of the word prayer in this context; what he really means is a quality of deep, heartfelt attention.

As someone who has been working with imagery of the Virgin Mary lately, this particular passage hit home.  I do worry that I am mining a tapped-out vein; that imagery of Mary is completely irrelevant today, a relic of a musty religious past that most people no longer feel connected to or moved by.

detail, 6th century icon of Mary, Santa Maria Francesca church, Rome; inspiration for my Mary series of tapestries

Later in the book Roberts writes:

We cannot appropriate the power of past images by using them today.  We can't assume that because they had a primal and elemental power when they were created that they will convey that power to a viewer now if we include them in our artwork.  Such a work would become an artwork "about" a symbol.  We aren't making art about someone else's symbol nor can we invest it with original power.  That's why so much postmodernist art is so detached.  (p. 158)

Well.

It's true that it is lazy and artistically bankrupt to appropriate an image from another work of art wholesale, plop it into one's own work, and expect it to convey "original" meaning and emotion. That's just plagiarism.  But it is also true, as Roberts elsewhere acknowledges, that artists have been inspired by other art for millennia.  Presumably artists return again and again to the same symbols, subjects and stories because they feel they have something new to say about them, that they are engaging with them in a fresh, personal, contemporary way.  Symbols remain symbols because they speak so deeply to human experience.  Artwork can be "about a symbol" if that symbol is one that is meaningful to the artist.  It can be invested with new, not just borrowed, power.  You don't have to be a practicing Christian to find that images of Mary speak to notions of what it means to be a woman, a mother, and a daughter, even in the 21st century.  Mary's shadow is very long.

I was heartened to see this wall text in the Vik Muniz show recently at Atlanta's High Museum (for more about that exhibit, click HERE) :

Yes, appropriation is a postmodern practice, and yes, it is done with eyes wide open, fully aware, even self-consciously so, of the weight and power of all of art history.  In my view one hallmark of a serious contemporary artist is that he or she is aware, but not constrained, by that history.  As Muniz' work demonstrates, art that employs appropriation can be witty, clever, insightful, and moving all at once.

What do you think about appropriation?  Have you ever consciously borrowed from other artists in your own work?

PS.  Social media update:  You can now follow me on Instagram @mpelkind and Like my Facebook page, Molly Elkind Handwovens.  Hope to see you there!

Innovate innovate innovate

I've had the good fortune lately to see several exhibits that have impressed me with contemporary artists' sheer inventiveness.  I saw it in three fiber exhibits at Convergence in Milwaukee (read about them here, here, and here).  I also viewed the recent Vik Muniz show at the High Museum in Atlanta, and recently I had the privilege of jurying a fiber guild show as well.  In each instance I was reminded that in a world saturated with images, innovation in art is essential to engage and hold our attention. The now-old modernist motto "Make it New" still holds.

The casual viewer at the Muniz show might identify his use of peanut butter and jelly to re-create the Mona Lisa, or black beans to reproduce the iconic image of Che Guevara, to be the extent of Muniz' innovation.  "Gee, I never would have thought to make art out of that.   What will those crazy contemporary artists think of next?"

Vik Muniz, Che (Black Beans) from the After Warhol series, Chromagenic print, 2000. 

But I think Muniz is deeper and more thoughtful than that. Unpacking the wall label information in the caption above is one way to start.  Che Guevara, the Marxist champion of the poor in Cuba and elsewhere, is rendered in the common food of the people he fought for.  The image is instantly recognizable because the Alberto Korda photo on which it is based has been reproduced endlessly and become a cultural icon.  Muniz's piece is part of a series called After Warhol, placing it explicitly in the lineage of Andy Warhol's famous silkscreened images of celebrities.  And the piece in the show at the High is a photograph, not the actual work made of black beans.  Muniz is playing with layered notions of what constitutes art--its materials, its sources, its "originality," its preciousness and permanence.  He is also reclaiming an icon, an image that has become a cliche, by using a novel material, black beans, to invest it with new meaning.

In another series, Muniz used garbage to create giant portraits of people who survive as garbage pickers in Brazil.  Dust and debris are arranged in huge arrays on the floor of a warehouse and photographed from above.  The arrangements compose images in the manner of classical works of art history.   They prompt us to examine the mental categories to which we in the first world might too often consign the poor.  Muniz reminds us in part of his title, "(Suellen)" that these are not generic poor people, this is not a cliche peasant madonna noble in her suffering, but an actual woman with a name. 

Vik Muniz, Mother and Children (Suellen) from the Pictures of Garbage series, 2008, Chromagenic print printed 2011.

Here's one more.  In the Pictures of Magazines series, Muniz re-created classic works of art as collages of paper torn from magazines.  From a distance the work appears to be an accurate reproduction of an oft-reproduced painting.  Up close, you can see deliciously witty and ironic details of advertisements and images torn from our contemporary culture.  Perhaps this image of a barmaid facing her patrons who are reflected in the mirror behind her is not so dated after all.  And perhaps Muniz is also commenting on the commodification of now-beloved Impressionist works that were once disruptive and controversial. 

Vik Muniz, A Bar at the Folies Bergere, after Edouard Manet,
 from the Pictures of Magazines 2 series, 2012, Chromagenic print. 

Novelty purely for novelty's sake is ultimately dissatisfying.  It prompts us to ask, So what?   The photographer-artist I live with, my husband Sam, derides such work as "rim-shots," one-liners that can feel like a slap across the face, a throw-away line that leads nowhere.  The old "shock the bourgeoisie" strategy must now reach further and further into formerly taboo subjects, materials and performances to grab our attention.  When it does there is, it must be admitted, too often nothing there.  

In my view the novel approach should arise organically from a new idea, an emotion expressed in a fresh way.  As with Muniz and other innovative contemporary artists, if we pause, look, look again, keep an open mind, and allow our thoughts to play over all that we see and glean from the label, we may begin to understand what the artist might be up to.  We must slow down and simply look, first of all.

When I was composing this post, this landed in my inbox:

The most difficult thing in the world is to listen, to see. We don’t want to see. Do you think a capitalist wants to see what is good in the communist system? Do you think a communist wants to see what is good and healthy in the capitalist system? Do you think a rich man wants to look at poor people? We don’t want to look, because if we do, we may change. We don’t want to look. If you look you lose control of the life that you are so precariously holding together. And so in order to wake up, the one thing you need the most is not energy, or strength, or youthfulness, or even great intelligence. The one thing you need most of all is the readiness to learn something new.

Anthony de Mello
Source: Awareness

The hardest thing for many of us is simply to slow down and look, to suspend judgment, drop our defenses, and allow ourselves to be taught.

What does this mean for my work and that of other tapestry and fiber artists?  Many of us are attracted to our medium in part because of its traditions and history.  Yet if we want to be anything other than antiquarians shoved to the margins of the contemporary scene we need to push our work to be conceptually rigorous as well as technically good.  We need to push our medium to behave in fresh ways and to say something to contemporary people at large as well as to our specific fiber tribe. 

 A tall order.  But as Sam likes to remind me, If it was easy you wouldn't be interested.

PS.  I'm experimenting with a larger font for this post.  Let me know in the comments what you think.

Wisdom from Walker Evans

I loved this quotation, on the wall at the exhibit of Walker Evans photographs currently on view at Atlanta's High Museum.

The show is up through September 11 and well worth a look.

Amateurs and pros, part 2

Last week I wrote about THIS article in American Craft magazine, considering the distinctions between hobbyists and professional craft artists.  I described how art historian Carolyn Fowler proposes that the key distinction revolves around whether the craftsperson "engage[s] questions in their work that interest the world of art and craft."  Fowler goes on to say that hobbyists may engage different, but equally valid and interesting questions. 

What does it mean to "engage questions in [craft] work that interest the world of art and craft" though?  That is truly the issue, I believe, and perhaps the clearest distinction between those who can be called serious craftspeople and those who may simply enjoy keeping their hands busy while they watch TV.

Not that there's anything wrong with that!  Lest you think I am an anti-hobbyist snob, let me point out that the bed quilt I am currently making is reserved for stitching on in front of the TV.  While I designed it myself (not in front of the TV!), I have adapted the motifs from other sources (Turkish tiles), and it follows all the rules of a conventional quilt:  made to be used on a bed, comprised of three layers stitched together, made of commercially produced printed cottons and constructed by conventional applique and piecing.  It is not innovative; there is nothing at all about it that would "interest the world of art and craft" but this project offers pleasure in the making, personal meaning and utility for me. And for this project, that is enough.

sketch for Iznik tile-inspired bed quilt

And yet I consider myself a serious, professional crafts maker as well.  I was flabbergasted that I sold nearly all of my fall/winter inventory of handwoven wearables this year!   Perhaps a person can be both a hobbyist, on certain occasions or for certain projects,  and a professional craft artist, in other contexts or mediums, at the same time?  Perhaps one distinction between hobby work and professional work is that the aim of the former is personal pleasure, utility, and meaning, while the aim of the latter may incorporate all those but also seek to engage a wider audience.  For the hobbyist, the point is to experience the joy of working with one's hands, with materials one enjoys, to hone one's skills and to make something useful and meaningful for one's home or for gifts for friends and family--all valid and satisfying intentions.  The professional does all those things but is making work designed for a wider audience, in full awareness of other work, past and present, that has been done in her medium.

When I weave scarves, shawls and wraps for sale, I am thinking not of my own favorite colors, but of colors that are current, popular, and versatile with most women's wardrobes.  I am thinking of designs that women of varied body shapes and sizes can wear in daily life.  I am thinking of how my pieces can be unique, special luxury items that are nonetheless affordable.  I am thinking of what I can accomplish on my loom, with my skills, using materials that I can  easily obtain.  But this work still does not "engage questions that interest the world of art and craft," because it is responding to what is rather than what could be.  It is essentially practical, traditional and market-based.

tencel infinity wrap

Two weeks ago I visited the  Iris van Herpen exhibit currently at the High Museum.   It is a mind-boggling show of what is possible in fashion for someone who not only thinks outside the box, but doesn't seem to have ever encountered the box to begin with!  Iris van Herpen, a young Dutch designer, addresses the supreme question that engages the contemporary world of art and craft--how to make it new.  She makes work using materials, structures, and processes that to my knowledge have never been used in fashion before.  Her designs are inspired by new information gleaned from science and technology.  In my view her designs are sculptures that happen to hang on a woman's body, rather than clothes a woman can wear in daily life.  This is craft raised to the level of art because it engages a very old question--how to cover the body--in startlingly original ways that acknowledge the contemporary world of ideas.  Van Herpen's work makes fashion truly new.

Chemical Crows, Skirt, Collar, January 2008; Ribs of children's umbrella, industrial boat filament yarns, cow leather, and metal eyelets.  Image courtesy of High Museum website.

In my own studio, I do attempt to engage questions of interest to the wider world of art and craft when I design and weave tapestry.  I am attempting to make it new, not by innovations in tapestry technique or materials (yet), but by exploring very old themes and subject matter in a contemporary context.  One question I am engaging is "Can anything  meaningful to contemporary viewers possibly be said about the Virgin Mary in the medium of tapestry?"  It is too soon to say.   For me now, the attempt is utterly absorbing.

The important thing, I think, is to be aware of what you are about, what your intentions are, when you engage in making.  Whether you consider yourself a hobbyist or a professional, what questions are you engaging?  Do you see yourself moving fluidly between categories, or firmly in one camp or the other? How is your approach to your work influenced by how you define yourself?  Deep questions!  Feel free to share in the comments below. 

Amateurs and Pros, part 1

There was an interesting article in the October/November issue of American Craft, entitled "Who's Afraid of Amateurs?"  You can read the article HERE.   Writer Monica Moses interviews Cynthia Fowler, an art historian who chairs the art department at Emmanuel College in Boston and has been researching craft hobbyists.  Fowler had some thought-provoking observations for those of us interested in craft, whether we are professionals or hobbyists or something in-between.  It turns out I have so much to say in response to this article that I have split this post into two parts. 

Fowler considers whether training is what distinguishes professionals from amateurs, or the ability to sell one's work consistently, but she notes that many successful professional craft artists are self-taught, while formally trained ones may be unable to sell their work.  So formal training and the ability to sell one's work are not really helpful in making distinctions.

Fowler points out that professional studio craft artists (such as those featured in American Craft magazine or at the highly regarded ACC shows) are leery of being lumped together with hobbyists.  Fiber artists are particularly leery, given the ways in which their medium has long been marginalized by a critical and scholarly establishment that privileges art by (white, male, Western) painters and sculptors. Fowler invites us to question "what interests are being served by maintaining a highly regulated boundary between the two categories" of professional and hobbyist craft, and who is excluded when one category is considered worthy of art-world attention and the other is not.  This is an excellent point, closely related to the old debate about where to draw the line between art and craft, and while it's an important question, it's not what I'm most interested in today. 

In the American Craft article, Fowler goes on to point out that professionals and amateurs actually have a great deal in common, starting with a deep respect for their materials and processes and a desire to grow in their own creative skills.  Indeed, many (most?) craft professionals likely started as hobbyists.  I made quilts as a hobby for a few years before I decided to take the next step and go to graduate school for formal training--and I found out about that grad school program at my local guild meeting of "amateur" quilters!  My current guilds, the Chattahoochee Handweavers Guild, Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance (SEFAA), and Tapestry Weavers South are a lively mix of professionals and amateurs, and we all are constantly learning from each other and supporting each others' efforts. Any line that might exist between hobbyists and professionals is a pretty porous one in the fellowship of these groups.

In fact, the classes I am currently offering through these guilds and, I'm excited to report, at next summer's national weaving conference, Convergence, are aimed at those makers who may straddle the line between hobbyist and professional.  My students are fiber crafters who want to go beyond simply acquiring new techniques to understand more fully and control more effectively the fundamental elements of the design process.  If you are a fiber artist who is hungry to learn concepts and approaches to design that you can apply to whatever medium or technique you may be exploring, look HERE for descriptions of my current classes and HERE for my 2016 schedule. 

So, to return to the article, if both hobbyists and professionals are committed to honing their skills and growing in their creative abilities, perhaps this distinction between hobbyist and serious craft artist is simply an academic issue after all?  A manufactured divide?  Fowler stopped me in my tracks, though, when she said this:

"Craftspeople who achieve the status of [Lino] Tagliapietra ['often called the world's greatest glassblower'] do so in part because they engage questions in their work that interest the world of art and craft."

Hmmm.  What does it mean exactly to "engage questions in [one's] work that interest the world of art and craft"? This is where I'd like to pick up the discussion next week.  If this topic interests you, go ahead and read the two-page article HERE.

Haunting Sound Installation at the High Museum

Yes, this blog is titled "talking textiles"--so why is this post about a sound installation?  Stay with me here and I'll explain. 

The Forty Part Motet by Janet Cardiff, on view in the contemporary galleries at the High Museum in Atlanta, has had its run extended to Feb. 15.  You owe it to yourself to visit this amazing sound installation if you are near Atlanta anytime in the next few weeks.  And if you're not, you may want to find a CD of Tallis' music. 
The museum's website describes it as a

mesmerizing reworking of a 40-part choral piece by Tudor composer Thomas Tallis (ca. 1505-1585). The installation features the voices of 59 singers (adults and children) performing Tallis' Spem in Alium Nunquam Habui (1556), which translates to In No Other is My Hope and is perhaps Tallis' most famous composition. Each voice was recorded separately, and all voices are played back in unison via 40 individual loudspeakers on tripods (one speaker for each choral part). The audio component features a 14-minute loop – 11 minutes of singing and three minutes of intermission.

Photo courtesy of High Museum website.

For me the piece was magical in several ways.  First,  Tallis' music is haunting, ethereal, soothing and meditative.  The voices are pure and profoundly moving, to this listener at least.  You don't have to understand Latin, or subscribe to the religious feeling that inspired this music, to find it moving. 

Then too, it is wonderful to watch museum visitors enter the space and fall under the spell of the music.  As visitors work out how the sound is connected to the speakers--each speaker emits only one voice, so some are silent while others are playing--they begin to walk slowly around the room, listening to each speaker and each individual voice.  The familiar museum shuffle that visitors do around the perimeter of a gallery, peering at each piece on the wall, here becomes a shuffle of listening within the circle formed by the speakers.   The speakers are placed at the height of an average adult's head, so one encounters the voices as one might meet fellow humans.  After making the full circuit, some visitors pause in the center and allow the music to wash over them for a few seconds, or minutes.  The secular white cube of the contemporary gallery becomes a sacred place of awe, wonder and joy as a very old piece of music is made new.  

I think it is the very juxtaposition of the old and the new, the sacred and the secular, that makes this installation so effective.  This principle of juxtaposing contrasting and unexpected elements together, of cutting and pasting, is the basis for collage, assemblage, and much other contemporary art.  It is also currently my preferred method of design for tapestry.  I am using a very ancient technique, weft-faced pictorial weaving, to try to convey something meaningful, even sacred, to a contemporary audience.  I am inspired, as Janet Cardiff was, by an ancient piece of art, (see this post), and I am reworking the image from my contemporary perspective.  Actually, artists are always responding to and reworking the art from decades, or centuries, before our own.  I am excited to have discovered Tallis' music, thanks to Janet Cardiff, and enjoying listening to it as I work in my studio.