The Altered Intersection

Public art

2008-09-27T14:43:00.009-04:00

I was supposed to go to the Ohio Gourd Show today - I used to go every year, but in 2006 they moved it from a county about 45 minutes drive from me to a county about 1.5 hours from me. Where I used to be able to just pop up there pretty much on a whim - like if I wanted to take a class on Friday, but also come back on Saturday to see the exhibits and shop, it wasn't a big deal - now the trip requires advance planning. Doubling the travel time pretty much means I would have to stay overnight - which in my mind requires more commitment to the gig than I felt. This year I decided to at least go up for the day. I took my camera, so I could do a blog post about it. See, Kat, I was thinking ahead!

Unfortunately, my car had other ideas - stopped to get gas and it wouldn't start again. We got it running, about 2 hours after we had planned to leave town, and I took that as a sign that I probably shouldn't be driving halfway across the state for an "elective" activity. Decided instead we could stop by a local art event in a nearby neighborhood that's trying to get established as a hip and upcoming area. It was fun - "Urban Scrawl" featured a bunch of young artists who, for an inexpensive entry fee, each got a big panel to work on and paint donated by Dick Blick Art Supplies and other vendors.

There were some funky creative people selling jewelry, bags, and small wall art, and the skate bowl was full of young men, largely without requisite safety gear, trying to defy gravity and not break bones in the process.

A lot of the artists jointly purchased multiple panels and worked together to make BIG paintings.

I can't wait to see this one finished.

I don't hate you, honest

2008-06-03T15:10:00.010-04:00

Things get complex sometimes. Let's just say I've been both making and talking about art, but I haven't been around *here* to tell you about it.

These two dolls are on display the High Road Gallery in Worthington, OH, which is hosting a "split show" of the doll-making group I belong to and a local quilt group. I'm not particularly happy about how they're displayed - first off, they're grouped together with other altered fashion dolls, whereas I would have preferred that they be distributed among dolls of other media; and second, they're displayed on a low, unlit shelf that was built over the bathtub in the upstairs bathroom of the old house the gallery located in (there's still a toilet and a sink in the bathroom, which were discreetly screened off during the reception on Sunday.) Every time I show my dolls to someone who's never seen them before and tell them that they started life as a fashion doll, they're always amazed, and I would like there to have been some chance for them to "compete" equally with the cloth dolls rather than being relegated off to the frigging SECOND FLOOR BACK BATHROOM. Ah, well - a part of me suspects there's some preferential positioning that has to do with how long you've been in the group, etc., but the bottom line is I'm a complete noob compared to most of these folks, and they absolutely deserve pride of place. So no big deal. I'm just excited to have them seen by a wider audience. Oh, and I sold one - neither of the two pictured above, it's the "Woodland Spirit" that I did over a year ago. It probably sold first because it was priced lower than the others - but honestly, I was just tired of looking at it and happy to have it find a new home.

I had a fourth doll to enter in the show, but I could never quite get my head around the concept I wanted to do and so I set it aside. I plan to go back to it in the next few days and work out the gnarly parts.

Art and angst

2008-03-14T14:48:00.003-04:00

Lately I've been encountering, in so many different places and from so many different starting points, a consistent thread of quotes, discussions, and ideas on the topics of art, artists, and creativity. "What is an artist? How do you decide if you *are* an artist? How do you find your own style? How do you balance the time to make art and the time to make money (either through a "day job" or through selling your creative output)?" Seems like everyone's struggling with (basically) the same questions. Is it really in the forefront of a lot of people's minds, or is it just that I'm noticing it more because I'm thinking about the same things?

The National Polymer Clay Guild's "Synergy I: Moving Forward/Looking Back" conference, which took place in February, was different from most art-related conferences in that there were no "hands-on" workshops - instead, the sessions were more about the philosophy and practice of making "fine craft", focused on three interrelated tracks: Craftsmanship, Business, and Design, and included panel discussions on "Inspiration/Originality/Infringement" and "Hallmarks of Craftsmanship." Susan Lomuto, blogging about the conference, sparked an amazing conversation about those same questions here, including this beautiful, evocative sentiment from a commenter identified only as "Jessica": "We are all artists, living, searching, creating until we find the medium that is indigenous to our heart."

Hugh MacLeod's "How to Be Creative" challenges some of the more esoteric assumptions we may make about the nature of creativity and breaks things down into a list of very pragmatic suggestions/realities about exercising your own creative spark - things like #11, "Don't try to stand out from the crowd: avoid crowds altogether" and #7, "Keep your day job", AKA "THE SEX & CASH THEORY: The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended."

Photographer Shirin Neshat seems to have had the same inspiration as MacLeod: "My only advice is to spend less time on thinking about success and put all the energy in making art itself. Otherwise your relationship to your art changes. It becomes less genuine and honest. Art should not be born from a pressure of becoming successful but something deeper. This is always a danger and the cause for mediocrity in art..."

Christine Kane says, among other things, that you have to stop trying to catch your creativity and let it catch you.

So how about you? Are you struggling with these questions? Is it an inevitable part of the artistic process to wrangle with those issues? Have you found your own answers?

I almost forgot

2008-02-24T19:38:00.002-05:00

Saturday I went to the Guilded Lilies monthly get-together-activity and made a "spirit doll", starting with one of those articulated artist's manikins. Here it is (I don't think it's either a she or a he. I think it's just an it spirit.) It's called "It's Safe to Dance."

Theamorph - the rest of the story

2008-02-24T14:04:00.007-05:00

When last we met our intrepid goddess-in-training, she looked something like this:

The next step after that is "completely covered in at least one, and in most places multiple layers of unryu" (sorry, Kat - the face had to go.)

After a base coat of metallic taupe acrylic paint mixed with some kind of coffee brown (I did have Van Dyke brown, but didn't find it until later. It would have helped), the upper part is "antiqued" with a mixture of the base coat, more water, some black paint, and some water-based varnish.

Then the fun part - starting at the top and working my way down, clothing the entire lower section in silk maple leaves, at first using Mod Podge to get them to cling closely to the body, but in the lower sections using a fast-setting glue to stick them in place more quickly (esp. since I wanted the lower parts to stick out in places. I'm happy with the outcome.)

The thing on her head is a clump of dyed-green Spanish moss, which I in turn dyed grey-brown again with some of the leftover antiquing solution, quick-dried by placing it on a weighted-down Handiwipe over the bathroom floor furnace vent (more crazy art-making at my house), and then glued onto her head to simulate a bird's nest. The hair is then rooted down *thru* the moss, which also gives it some loft.

The hair is a very soft yarn with lovely slubs in it (what KatDoc insists on calling "nubbies") that I have had on hand for quite a while waiting for the perfect recipient for dreadlocks.

And finally, the complete Demeter:

I attached a piece of parchment-y paper on the bottom with post-it glue, that said:

"Autumn time, red leaves fall
while the weeping sky looks over all
Demeter sadly walks the land,
the dying grasses in her hand*
The Goddess Demeter, grief-stricken at the abduction of her daughter Persephone, wandered in despair and neglected the earth. Leaves turned brown and fell from the trees, and the land became barren and cold." Underneath the paper it says "Demeter" and is signed and dated. She was put in the silent auction last night and I don't know yet how much she sold for. *fingers crossed*

*lyric from a round by the women's choral group Libana

I amuse myself

2008-02-18T11:15:00.006-05:00

Art-making, as I said in a recent post, can often involve as much engineering as painting. Art-making can also take you down some extremely odd paths. To wit:

This past week I had a book out from the library called 500 Handmade Dolls: Exploration of the Human Form (somewhat mis-titled, as quite a few of the included pieces can hardly be called "human") and got inspired to make some paper wings for a doll. I had a bunch of pieces of kraft paper (which in my last art-making experiment had been soaked in a bucket for varying lengths of time to discover the optimum soaking time for getting rid of sizing before the paper started to disintegrate) and they were nice and crinkly, but I wanted them to be softer, more translucent, more leathery-skin-looking. Like grease-soaked paper. I mentally reviewed my available list of oily substances: cooking oil? would get nasty and rancid. Jojoba oil would not turn, but no way was I going to waste expensive jojoba on an experiment. What I had on hand that I thought would grease up paper nicely was petroleum jelly-based skin cream.

So I took a section of paper and a wide flat brush and the tube of goo and started painting. Unfortunately, it didn't want to sink in, and I realized that it is usually helped along by the warmth of the skin, so... into the microwave, at 40%, for about 20 seconds. Then it was *too* greasy, so I folded it into another piece of brown paper and burnished the whole package with my hands. What I was left with was two pieces of flexible, slightly translucent, slightly oily brown paper. In retrospect, maybe I should have colored the paper before I greased it up. I think it may still take textile paint pretty well, which is translucent itself. Will post pics of the results later. In any case, my sister suspects I am a loon for this kind of pursuit.

Edited 9-13-08 because I finally remembered to put this pic up. I cut two pieces of copper wire the same length and folded them simultaneously into wing-ish-shapes (rather than shape one and then try to match it - never had much success that way), then covered them with the oiled paper, trimmed to shape, folded the edges over and glued them in place. Still haven't tried painting them, but one of these days one of my creations will cry out for oiled brown paper wings and I'll be ready!

The new one - the first stages

2008-02-16T23:20:00.000-05:00

The process with every project I do is different - sometimes I get an idea how I want it to look as a finished product (not that the finished product usually mirrors my original vision when I get done monkeying with it), sometimes I just get a snippet that inspires me to start (a glimpse of another artwork, some visual on TV or in a magazine, or occasionally pure inspiration.) More often it's work. Sometimes it's a blend of both. At my sister's insistence, I'm trying to more precisely document the process on this doll, which I need to finish by February 22nd. No pressure.

The doll I started with (forgot to take a "before" pic, when she had hair) did not have the typical Barbie heart-shaped face - she is a little more exotic looking; almond eyes, heavier lips. At the thrift stores I deliberately seek out dolls that look different from the usual - even if their faces will be covered with tissue and painted over, the underlying structure makes a difference.

Getting them bald is very therapeutic - I cut the hair as short as possible with scissors, then use needlenose pliers to yank the little tufts out one at a time. It's much, much easier to pull the little tufts out from the *inside* of the head, but the way the doll heads are put on these days, it's far too easy to accidentally break off the ball that holds everything in place, and it's no fun trying to get the head to stay on again without that ball, so I do it the harder-but-less-complicated way.

On occasion, working with mixed media is as much an engineering project as it is art. In this case, I wanted the skirt to be conical, so I had to figure out how to create a cone sturdy enough to hold up the figure but flexible enough not to bend and leave ugly creases in the surface that I'd have to then smooth out with paperclay. (Note: Not so successful on this part. More later.)

Step 1: The cone. I knew the shape had to start as a circle in order for me to end up with a wedge of the correct size, a straight-edged curved piece (probably some word for it, I don't know), wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, with an echoing curve along the top edge for the opening that would encase her body. Fine. How to get that? Oh, and it would need to meet precisely at the edges and be flat on the bottom so she'll stand firm. I figured this out while getting ready for work one morning, so at 7:45 a.m. I was standing in my dining room with a piece of poster board, with a flat thumbtack pushed up through the middle, and a pencil on a 14" long string with a loop at the loose end that could go around the point of the tack, so I could scribe a circle. (Posterboard is not 28" wide, by the way, which could be important in some situations but was not a deal-breaker here.) Later that night I cut out the circle, cut out a circle from the center (my roll of masking tape was the right size), slit it up tbrough one edge, and proceeded to overlap it and squinch it down until it was the right size to hold a doll. It was at this moment I realized I could have just cut out a quarter of the circle and saved myself some time and effort, but hey, I learn by doing. And the other point of this is that the posterboard was just supposed to be a template for the real material that I wanted to use for the skirt.

Step 2: The real material. The previous figure was framed in a kind of cardboard, about the weight of the back of a legal pad, which I salvaged from the office and which cut cleanly and held up very well. Terrific, I thought, I'll just cut the "skirt" out of that. Nice try. It doesn't flex enough. (Even when put into the microwave for about 30 seconds. Hey, did you know cardboard will scorch in the microwave?) Bottom line is, it's too stiff to form into a cone, so we're back to the poster board, which turns out to be not quite right either, but at this point I can either tear off the whole thing and start fresh, or put up with the poster board's limitations (like I can't put a lot of paperclay over it, because it absorbs the water and the posterboard collapses a little, leaving me with bit divots to try to fill in. Fortunately, the unryu [mulberry tissue] I cover it with will disguise a multitude of ills.)

Step 3: The bottom is just a circle of the heavier cardboard, taped into place with masking tape. All of this will be covered with multiple layers of unryu and glue and then painted. The unryu and glue also make the whole thing stronger than the posterboard by itself. Oh, and I stuff the space around her legs with polyfill so she doesn't move around. Also helps with the structural integrity.

I'll post more later about how she got to this point. Enough pics already.

Found Art

2008-02-14T23:18:00.005-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled over a website for a terrific idea that I think needs better promotion: Found Art. I love their mission statement:

Found Art! strives to make the world a better place right now by empowering people across to globe to share on a soul level. We believe in the power of art to communicate and heal. We believe all people are creative and that the expression of that creativity opens the heart of both the creator and the receiver. Open hearts communicate at a deeper level, are naturally more compassionate, and are more aware and concerned about our global family.

How gorgeous is that? The idea is to leave little pieces of art -- uplifting, positive, life-affirming art, not that there's anything wrong with dark, brooding, acid-tinged art, it's just not a Random Acts of Kindness kind of thing, which is what these folks are aiming for -- in public places for people to find.

Anyway, a while back I started prettying up a laminate sample from the Big Box Hardware Store That Shall Remain Nameless But Uses a Lot of Orange in Their Decorating Scheme. Got it to a point where I liked it (copper surfacer, patinated, stamped with pale green chalk ink in a paisley pattern, edged in copper marker), but had no idea what to do with it from there. Along comes Found Art! and I'm inspired. These little tags are perfect for making little art pieces and leaving them for strangers to find. And before you report me to the Orange Big Box people, I only took a couple, and now a friend has given me her whole string of laminate samples (she's a decorator and had an extra) so I have plenty to work on without depleting the stock that's properly supposed to go to people who are actually contemplating having their kitchen counters redone.

So tonight I came home to find my order of Found Art cards from Vista Print (250 cards printed with the mission statement, free except for shipping) and decided to make my first piece of art to give away to complete strangers. The image is out of my box of magazine cutouts - originally an ad for a CD called "The Prayer Cycle", which came out probably 10-15 years ago. I've been waiting for a special purpose for it. I think this is perfect. I'm going to hang it on the bulletin board at my favorite coffee house this weekend.

2008-02-06T20:03:00.000-05:00

This is some of the stuff I played around with at Sunday's Shiva PaintStiks class:

Two tries using the same rubber stamp behind plain black cotton fabric - on the blue side, I took a gold paintstik and just brushed it over a few spots to highlight. The teacher liked it and picked it up to show the other folks in class - there was a lot of that, showing people what ideas others had and how they turned out.

This was fun - a piece of pre-printed fabric, white on white, that the teacher handed out samples of so we could see how different surfaces respond differently. When I applied the paintstik, smudging it over the surface, the white pattern and the white background each took the paint in different ways. Used another spiral texture as a rubbing plate behind the fabric (you may notice a pattern here. I have spirals all over the place.) - LOVE how this turned out.

This was a Roylco rubbing plate of ginkgo leaves - hard to keep the paint right where the outline was, because I was working blind. You really have to feel your way. I could see doing this as a repeat all over a piece of fabric.

This is one unmounted rubber stamp, and I taped it to the table to I could use different colors without losing the alignment of the design. The leaves were a learning experience: on the first one (at right), I had folded the fabric under so it would be out of the way, but the multiple layers made the design muddy. The green one in the middle and the gold one on the left are both done with the fabric stretched out in a single layer.

Tomorrow is the 5th day after the class - you have to let the paint cure completely before heat-setting it. You can iron each piece, or toss them all in the dryer on high for 30 minutes. Guess which option I'm choosing.

2008 is supposed to be my year

2008-02-04T16:25:00.001-05:00

I've decided to take as many mini-classes as possible this year, to expand on and enhance my skills. My sister says this sounds suspiciously like the taking on new media and its attendant spendiness, what with books and supplies and tools, that I usually claim to be trying to avoid. Yesterday I took a 3-hour class (more like guided play) on using Shiva PaintStiks on fabric. These are irridescent oil paints in a wax binder that allows them to be used like big soft crayons - drawing directly on the material, applying them to a piece of fabric and rubbing the paint into a stencil, putting a texture mat/rubbing plate/bold rubber stamp under the fabric and dragging the stick over the surface to pick up the design - lots of different applications. I have a piece of beautiful sable brown crushed taffeta that I want to highlight with gold paintstik and use for a ceremonial robe for one of the Theamorphs (this will probably involve sewing, which anyone who knows me will find hilarious. Just shush.)

In March one of my new acquaintances from the Guilded Lilies is teaching a class at Byzantium, our first-and-best local bead store, on bead embroidery. I've done some of that already, but if I let too much time lapse between attempts I forget how to do it and have to start over from scratch, so I think I'll let a pro help me out. She makes awesome beaded dolls, which is where my interest lies.

In April there's a 3-day class by a member of the GL on needlesculpting cloth doll faces and bodies - not positive I'll take it, as it's not really my thing, but it promises to be amazingly inexpensive and probably would be useful in the long run.

In June there's a Soldering 101 class at European Papers/the Columbus Center for Paper and Book Arts (CCPBA) that I desperately want to take. I have a soldering iron, lead-free solder, 1/4" copper tape, even a box of 1.5" x 1.5" Memory Glass - and haven't done a freaking thing with it. Mostly because I'm afraid of hopelessly screwing it up, even though I know that part of the learning process of pretty much everything is the process of screwing things up. Hopelessly.

So I have my monthly continued ed pretty well sussed out - we'll see what the rest of the year brings!

Another one flies the nest

2008-02-03T08:42:00.001-05:00

My "Testimony" doll was raffled off Thursday night, and she was won by one of my co-workers, who was so excited about getting her - she said she comes from an artsy family and that they would all be jealous of her new acquisition. I'm just happy she found a new home with someone who will appreciate her.

So now I need to get to work on another, for the silent auction at our sister affiliate in another city, to take place February 23rd.

Top 10 Signs You Need an Artist's Retreat Day

2008-01-29T08:42:00.001-05:00

Borrowed from the Mad About Molds newsletter:

Here are the top 10 signs YOU might need an Artist Retreat Day.
1. You feel resentful about the success that other artists are enjoying.
2. You can't remember the last time you created something new.
3. You're bubbling over with new ideas and haven't had the time to develop any of them.
4. You've been staring at the same unfinished piece for longer than you can remember or care to admit.
5. You want to learn or improve a specific skill.
6. You have an approaching deadline for a contest entry, gallery submission or festival application.
7. You made a New Year's resolution about making more time for your creative work.
8. You feel like your flow of creativity is blocked.
9. You start to work on your creative projects but end up distracted by everyday life.
10. You always put yourself and your creativity LAST on the to do list.

(c)Linda Dessau 2005
Check out Linda's site here!

Sound familiar?

A couple of years ago I was scheduled to go to a weekend polymer clay retreat with the guild I belong to, but my car went on the fritz at the very last minute. At first I was just devastated, because I'd so been looking forward to the experience, but then I decided there was no reason why I couldn't just do the same thing at home. So for 3 days I mostly hung around in my jammies playing in clay, learning new things and polishing existing skills. It was a terrific weekend, and I have no excuse why I have not regularly repeated it. Come to think of it, I think that's what I'm going to do right now: sit down with my calendar and schedule some retreat time.

Ack! Or, the moment of indecision

2008-01-23T23:53:00.001-05:00

My worst moment in any art project is always the point of the "am I done/have I gone too far."

All she is at this point, really, is a primed canvas. She is structurally complete and nice to look at and if I wanted to, I could stop here, although that wouldn't really say much.

So now, here she is in all her freaky glory. Is it too much? Is it just wrong? I'm the worst possible judge.

At worst I can still take the hair out (not glued in, YET) and re-cover her head and leave her bald. Help! Tell me I'm not insane.

ETA: Never mind. I love her. Somehow all it took was putting her up for the world to see, especially contrasted with the last set of pics, and DAMN she looks good. I'm really happy with how she turned out. Maybe a little *more* hair. And then all I have to do is paint and seal the bottom.

My sister made me do it.

2008-01-16T08:09:00.000-05:00

My sister, the illustrious KatDoc, periodically abuses me because I do not post more pictures. She asserts that this is the point of The Blog. I tell her "different strokes for different folks" but she kind of has a point.

To wit:

This is the latest in my Theapoesis "series" (this makes me laugh. It's an inside joke, don't worry if you don't get it.) It's a piece I'm making because I've been asked to donate something to the silent auction for Freedom of Choice Ohio's annual Roe vs. Wade commemorative event. Unfortunately, I'm at the point where I have to decide what direction to take her, and I'm sort of stuck. Either rustic-y/ancient-y, sleek and modern, or dark and odd. Or some combination of the above. Oh, and by the way, the event's on the 31st. :}

She started her life as some sort of fashion doll, not a Barbie but I couldn't tell you who she was (nice strong square face instead of the usual Barbie heart-shaped one, which is what drew me to her.)

Her "skirt"/obelisk base is cardboard overlaid with paperclay, which will in turn (probably) be covered with unryu (mulberry tissue).

PMC class results

2008-01-11T14:47:00.001-05:00

Here's my most excellent first creations in precious metal clay (click on picture for a slightly better view*):

The nautilus at the top is the best, IMHO. I forgot to put a hole in the other shell before it was fired, so if I want to use it as a pendant I'll have to drill it with my Dremel. The round, heavily textured piece doesn't show up too well, but is very pretty. The other two little ones are faces - the one on the left was too thick, didn't get completely dried out before I fired it, and "popped" when the little speck of water boiled (it doesn't show up well on the scan because it's being propped up by the little exploded place on the back.) It's still going to be cool for some project. The second face came out sort of rough, because the clay had gotten a little too dry to work with, so I dampened my hands to give some more moisture to the clay, and when it was fired the surface was sort of pitted. Oh, well, it looks pretty cool anyway.

Yay! It was fun, I got to play in mud *and* set things on fire!

*OH! HAY! If you click on the picture, then click again, then click AGAIN with the little magnifying glass, you get a pretty good look at them!

It's a new year

2008-01-03T10:23:00.000-05:00

Ugh. So much for my intention to regularly post here about my art endeavors. Oh, well, we can only go forward, n'est-ce pas?

Things I am doing in 2008 for my artistic health:

1) Taking my first PMC class next Weds. Several months ago I was at a bead store's customer sale (where customers set up to sell their unwanted beads/supplies) and scored a PMC hot pot kit and a gob of supplies for $25! (I know! it made me squeal like a teenager!) The same store also offers classes, so rather than start fooling around with the stuff and making a hash of it I'm going to FIRST take a class. And my friend MC is coming with, which is always fun. I know, I know, I always swear I don't need YET ANOTHER MEDIUM TO GET INVOLVED IN because there are always more supplies and tools and ways to spend my money, but hey, many of the tools and supplies and skills I already have from polymer clay and other media will transfer nicely, thank you very much, and besides, $25 freaking dollars, people! That's about 1/4 of what the kit and supplies are worth retail.

See?! I can rationalize with the best of them.

2) Going to my first meeting of (and possibly joining) the local art dolls group. I had previously thought that they were only a fabric doll group (which is not my thing a-tall), but after corresponding with the person who runs their website it seems they do lots of different things. The activity after the meeting this month is image transfer, which I have done in a couple of different ways but it's always good to practice and learn more approaches. My only concern is that the meeting starts at 10:30 a.m. and the activity starts at 1:00 p.m. - PLEASE don't tell me that their meetings are 2.5 hours long?!?!?! Maybe they take a lunch break before the activity. Maybe I should email Cyndi and ask her :).

3) Taking a class on using Shiva PaintStiks on fabric - stenciling, using rubbing plates, etc. I want to start using more fabric in my work and any time I can take plain inexpensive fabric and customize it that's a good thing.

4) Reading and working through Sark's Make Your Creative Dreams REAL: A Plan for Procrastinators, Perfectionists, Busy People, Avoiders, and People Who Would Rather Sleep All Day. I have discovered that much of my procrastination/avoidance is perfectionism gone awry. I get so overwhelmed by the prospect of having to do everything right - and right the first time - that I do nothing. Which means the things that aren't getting done pile up, which makes me more overwhelmed... None of this is conscious, of course, but the fact that I'm unaware I'm doing it doesn't make it less of a problem. SARK may be a little too cheesy/magical thinking/New Agey for a lot of people, but she's walking her talk, and her books are a joy for me to read. If you can read one of SARK's books without a big smile on your face through most of it, I would suspect you need a heart transplant. Or a big ol' squooshy hug.

On a less resolution-y note, I got Jane Wynn's Altered Curiosities for Xmas and am nearly giddy over it. I have gotten to the point where I HATE project books, because so much of the time they tend to gloss over the process in favor of the outcome, and I'd much rather learn new techniques and then apply them to my own stuff. Jane has achieved a lovely balance - starting with a raft of diverse techniques (resin, metalworking, reworking little plastic doo-dads) and then applying them to a handful of projects that are easily adaptable to your own choices. The best part, IMHO, is the section where she talks about the process of working out *your own personal symbology* and how important that is to making art that is truly yours. I've had the book out of the library for a couple of months already, so getting my own copy was an excellent score. Of course there were a few questions I had, so I looked up her website and emailed her - got an awesomely gracious note in return and answers to my questions. I'm finding that people are extraordinarily generous with their knowledge and experience - hopefully some day I'll be able to return the favor.

2007-06-14T11:02:00.000-04:00

Gwen Diehn's The Decorated Page is one of the most useful books I've encountered on the topic of art journaling, and I've found its lessons (like to buy good quality materials and tools even though they're more expensive, because you'll be happier with the results) follow through to other work. The concept that has really stuck with me is that of neutral vs. determined materials, which is really applicable to collage, assemblage, etc. - anywhere you repurpose materials or images.

Determined materials are those that come with their own identity - patterns and colors that suggest a particular meaning, readily recognizable images, images that carry with them a historical interpretation. Neutral materials are those that have no inherent "meaning" of their own and can be used in any way one would care to. In Ms. Diehn's own words:

"Art materials can be described as falling along a continuum from neutral materials (those that don't have any meaning or much connotation of their own) to strongly determined materials (those that carry meaning and connotations of their own.) Neutral materials would include plain white sheets of paper, standard colors of paint, uncarved rubber stamp-making material, ordinary black ink, colored and graphite pencils, or any other materials that, rather than assert themselves, become transparent once they've been incorporated into artwork. Because these materials don't carry any meaning of their own, they won't interfere or conflict with the ideas that you're trying to express.

"Strongly determined materials, at the other end of the continuum, already carry messages... it tends to dominate and weaken any artwork in which it's used unless it's changed in some way or used very deliberately, relating to the content and concept of the piece.

...

"When gathering materials, things about the meaning and connotation of the particular material, especially if it's strongly determined. Decide whether or not it can be used to express the ideas and feelings you want to get across in your work. If you decide to use some strongly determined materials, be sure that the meaning of the material contributes to the expression of your own meaning, and that it doesn't leap out and overwhelm your work. You can also use a strongly determined material ironically."

The most obvious examples I can think of involve the extensive use of public domain images in altered arts - etchings from 19th century books, Victorian greeting cards, mid-20th century magazines, even those handy Dover books of clip art. They can be extremely useful, especially if you're looking to sell your work and trying to avoid copyright infringement, but there's a wealth of underlying meaning to those images. If you believe what they're telling you, children are always clean and well-behaved, women are graceful and impeccably dressed in sweeping floor-length gowns or "day dresses" complete with a string of pearls, men are strong, businesslike, lantern-jawed. All very nice if you're trying to be ironic, but the tone doesn't work for every project.

I'm not saying don't use those materials, but be aware that you're telegraphing an idea to the viewer that you may not intend.

Artist Spotlight: Chris Malone

2007-03-30T11:41:00.000-04:00

Chris Malone recently joined an online art dolls discussion group I belong to, and I LOVE his work. He was born and raised not far from where I live, altho' he currently lives in D.C. (Funny how many artists came from Ohio but don't live here any more...)

His work reminds me somewhat of Jim Henson's more complicated puppets - whimsical, stylized faces and funny, more cartoony bodies and legs. They're SO colorful and the movement of the dolls (even when stationary!) is so much fun - another source of inspiration!

Teaching a old dog new tricks

2007-03-30T08:56:00.000-04:00

I have a bad habit of buying "workbooks" - books where you are given certain assignments to complete while following the text - with good intentions, fully planning to complete them and thereby acquire a new skill or personal insight or whatever, but somehow I never actually do the work. The best example I can thing of is Sam Keen's Your Mythic Journey, which is a really terrific book about using autobiography and journaling to identify the myths that underpin your worldview, the "truths" about how the world works that you were raised with and that color the way you interact with the world. Great book. Wonderful exercises to help you figure out your authentic self and "re-write" the stories you tell yourself about your life (another way in which people get "stuck".) Did I ever *do* the work? No. I still have the book, and periodically I think it would be really valuable to follow thru with it, but I never have.

So right now I'm reading and *doing the work* of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Betty Edwards' classic manual on learning to see differently in order to improve one's drawing skills. I've previously said that I draw on a grade-school level (I may even have said kindergarten), and it turns out that a lot of people really do stop developing the skills needed to draw well when they're young - due to a combination of negative reinforcement from self and others (I mean, who would continue to pursue an activity when people make fun of your results?), and the hardening of certain representations (a house looks like this, a person looks like that) in one's drawing. Edwards teaches you to see differently - to stop trying to make, for instance, a nose that looks like a nose, and instead to draw the shadows and light, positive and negative space, that end up representing that nose, that chair, etc. The before and after illustrations of student work - the first exercises are done before reading any of her instruction, so the student has a baseline to look back on and see how far they've come - are really astonishing in some cases. So I'm hopeful, and I'm having fun, and I'm really feeling like I'm going to complete this one. Keep your fingers crossed for me - I'll see about posting some results when I'm able.

Reading List

2007-03-19T11:29:00.000-04:00

I think I probably have an addictive personality: fortunately, my drug of choice is not whisky or heroin or gambling or sex, but information. When I get obsessed with a topic I tend to compulsively read, research, and think about it. Since I started expressing myself artistically I find myself reaching further and further, to new media, and every time I learn or want to learn something new it opens up a whole new array of materials to examine. Currently my reading list/library books include:

Artful Paper Dolls: New Ways to Play with a Traditional Form
Beaded Embellishment: Techniques & Designs for Embroidering on Cloth
Creative stamping with mixed media techniques
Celebrate Your Creative Self: Over 25 Exercises to Unleash the Artist Within
Releasing the Creative Spirit : Unleashing the Creativity in Your Life
Kaleidoscope : projects and ideas to spark your creativity
The decorated journal : creating beautifully expressive journal pages
Pretty little things : collage jewelry, trinkets, keepsakes
Artists' journals and sketchbooks : exploring and creating personal pages
Drawing on the right side of the brain
I'm not trying to do all of these things at once, but they're all inter-related in my mind.
Sometimes I feel like if I could just unscrew the top of my head and pour in all the information everything would come together.

Chaos in my wake

2007-03-01T14:15:00.000-05:00

The thing that gets me stuck, as far as working on art/craft projects, is too much stuff. Stuff everywhere, and no clear space to work in, and things that can't be found to do what I want to do because there's no rhyme or reason to how things are stored. I've even been known to buy something that I'm pretty sure I already own - black Neopaque paint, for example - just because I can't find the one on hand.

Oh, there used to be organization: when all I did was gourds, I had one of those tall wheeled 5 drawer things that contained my tools, embellishments, paints, and dyes, and all of the things I needed fit in that one unit.

Then I branched out into polymer clay, and there were more tools, and jewelry findings, and wire, and different kinds of paints, and inks, and of course the clay itself, which you always have to buy more of when the local craft store puts it on sale at more than 50% off. Which meant more sets of drawers to house those materials.

Unfortunately, starting from the point where I focused on one medium and then expanded into several others, I didn't keep up with sorting things appropriately, because, you see, so many things cross over into other media, and my original system fell by the wayside.

My real downfall is the altered art. I have board books. Regular books. Altoid tins. Other tins. Little wood cabinets to be made into shadowboxes or shrines. 37 different kinds of glue (you think I'm kidding?) And paper - oh, god, the paper. Tissue, scrapbook paper, handmade paper, collage paper, plus all of the magazine pictures, old photographs, and ephemera (AKA "old paper that our forebears would never have imagined would be considered important or appropriate for making art from.") There are now shelves, and clear plastic shoeboxes, and stacking bins, and clear plastic envelopes, and little sets of drawers that sit on my tabletop. There are also multiple work surfaces, depending on what I'm doing - a large ceramic tile or glass board for clay, a self-healing mat for paper, newspaper for painting dolls... and everything requires storage space.

And there's also all the publications - Polymer Cafe, Art Doll Quarterly, Cloth Paper Scissors, Altered Arts, Belle Armoire, Legacy... I only subscribe to a couple, but periodically there'll be a special issue that catches my attention, and I'll have to add it to my library. These days I've gotten better about the actual books - I'll check things out of the library to make sure they're worth devoting the money and the space before I actually buy - but my art/craft library is still pretty large.

So this weekend I'm launching a reclamation project, in which I completely revamp the way my "studio" space is organized. I've secured a pile of empty boxes, and I plan to spend at least an hour each day sorting the drawers and the boxes and the piles of art supplies into categories, and ridding myself of some things (I have a bad habit of buying things just because they look interesting/useful, not because I actually already have a use for them, so I'm sure there are at least a few things that can go to a new home.) Once I have a better grasp of what all is there I'll be better able to assess what I need in terms of additional storage and how things can be set up for future, on-going organization.

And no, I WON'T post before and after pictures. Maybe after. Before is just too depressing. (Note: the pic above is NOT my space. Mine is not that bad. Really.)

It must be art, I don't understand it

2007-02-23T16:56:00.000-05:00

Last night my sister, who is staying with me for a couple of days while she's in town for a conference, said, "I don't really *get* the Barbies. I mean, I understood the gourds, I got the polymer clay, but what's up with the Barbies? I don't think I understand."

And I said, "That's OK. I do."

Artist spotlight - Marina Bychkova

2007-02-16T15:40:00.000-05:00

I stumbled upon the work of Marina Bychkova in the Winter 2007 issue of Art Doll Quarterly. Her porcelain dolls are - and I don't use words like this lightly - simply exquisite. Even more than the hundreds of hours spent crafting their elaborate bodies, embroidering their costumes with seed beads, and painting and overpainting their delicate features, I appreciate the ethos of her work. She intentionally gives her dolls detailed genitalia, because she feels strongly that the absence of genitals in commercial dolls is a reflection of society's shame about sex and the body in general. In an interview on www.pixelsurgeon.com, Marina says "Most of the dolls, both Fine Art and children’s dolls, though [sic] try to imitate human form, are sterilized through a complete removal of sex organs. It’s as if they need to be cleansed of all their sinful humanity. I find this deliberate denial of the essence of life to be ignorant and appalling. I don’t know why there is so much fear and shame associated with human sexuality. Every Barbie needs to have a vagina. Every Ken needs a penis. I think it’s time the dolls leave the realm of tea parties and innocence and address some important issues." Although her dolls are beautiful to look at, many of them also express underlying darker political or social issues. Astonishingly, Marina is only in her mid-20s. I envy anyone who is that technically skilled and that passionate and clear in their expression, and for someone to have achieved both at such a young age I find marvelous.

I will never create dolls as flawless as this - I just don't work that way - but I aspire to reach a similar melding of beauty with expression of a personal point of view.

Hm. Guess that's what art is, isn't it?

Subverting pop culture

2007-02-09T15:41:00.000-05:00

Someone on one of my Yahoo art groups taught me the basics of altering fashion dolls in this way. I have since amassed an army of bald Barbie, Jem, Olsen twins, Little Mermaid, Belle (from Beauty & the Beast, Disney version), and unknown manufacturers' dolls to be posed, glued and/or taped, wrapped in paperclay and unryu paper, and decorated. Actually, they don't start out bald - one of my favorite parts of the process is cutting their hair to stubble and yanking out the plugs with a pair of needlenose pliers. (There is probably some dark psychological import to my delight in this activity.) Most don't end up bald, either, being bedecked with hair of wild yarn, wire, or anything else I can attach to their heads. This one was the first, given as a wedding gift to someone whose family thought it was a joke - fortunately she recognized it for the work of love it actually was.

Why I create

2007-02-08T13:31:00.000-05:00

I have trouble calling myself an "artist." No matter how hard I try to expand my definition, I always come back to my original viewpoint: that an "artist" is someone who can draw something recognizable. You know the kind of people I mean - the one you went to high school with who could look at something and draw it immediately, and have it look like what it's supposed to be, a dog or a car or an apple. The one who said, "I want to be an artist when I grow up," and no one laughed. And even if they went to college and discovered that their dream was unrealistic, that what they had was not considered by their instructors to be talent, or that the number of people who make a living solely as an artist is very small, they still can capture an image, the view outside their window or a flower in a garden, with nothing more than a pencil and a piece of paper. And those among us who can't even come close are still jealous of their gift, even if it never took them where they thought it would.

Now me, I draw with about as much skill as your average first-grader. But I've always been creative -- mostly with music or with words. Although I wanted very much to take an art class in high school, the way things were set up it was impossible to do both music *and* art, and since I loved to sing and was a member of the band, my choice was pretty much made for me already. Besides, in my family we just weren't "artistic" people - not one of us showed any artistic talent or interest, at least until my cousin David came along (to pay the bills he's a postal carrier, but he also sculpts. He makes really interesting pieces, too.)

But about 6 years ago, after my divorce, I was introduced to gourd art, which runs the gamut from birdhouses and kitschy painted snowmen/Santas/bunnies/penguins, to pyrographed, carved, and inlaid artworks that command thousands of dollars from collectors, and I thought, hey, I could do that... I started out making rhythm instruments - rattles and guiros - and graduated to bowls and boxes and vases, along the way learning about pyrography, gold leaf, and other media for surface decoration. At some point I started making little gourd shrines, which needed an occupant, and I discovered that polymer clay was easy to work with in a home setting and so versatile I could execute pretty much anything I could think of (within the limited scope of my sculpting skills.) From there, I made jewelry, vessels, and things to attach to gourds like knobs and other embellishments. Polymer clay is pretty much endlessly versatile, so that kept my focus for a couple of years. Eventually, tho', I stumbled over altered books, and other alter-ables like Altoid tins and dolls and pretty much anything you can find in a thrift store. Since I loved thrift stores already, those outings turned into art supply scavenger hunts, and every time I walk into a store I come out with at least one thing begging to be renewed and beautified by the application of some decoration, or incorporated into a design in some fashion completely different from its original purpose. I suppose that this vision that sees the potential of turning a little plastic toy from a kid's meal into the occupant of a surreal landscape contained in a recycled wooden crate could be considered "artistic."

Which brings me to the second part of my definition of "artist", which is a little more developed and I suppose takes into account that not every piece of art has to be representational - that in order to be "art", the artist has to have a point of view to express. What I make may not exactly be pretty, and it certainly isn't cutesy, but for the most part it is just supposed to be pleasing or interesting to look at. I don't always need it to have meaning. Or at least I don't think it always has meaning. I'm not making an ironic statement about consumer culture when I put a Creature from the Black Lagoon toy into a sort of diorama with fluorescent squids and little fruit trees against a backdrop of beer labels - it's just something that catches my eye and makes me laugh. I suppose someone could find hidden significance in my choices, but if it's there, it's purely subconscious.

So why do I do it? Because I like that I can. I like that when I cover a doll in paperclay and tissue and paint and glitter and doo-dads and attach her to a grapevine wreath, people are attracted to it and think it's interesting. I like that when I woodburn a design on a gourd and color it with markers and pastels and inks and gold leaf, it becomes something I'm happy to display in my house. I like having the freedom - the *creativity* - to take something I've learned from one material and apply it to a discipline or outlet other than the one where it's traditionally used. Maybe if I had gotten formal instruction in what constitutes "art" I wouldn't feel free enough to do whatever moves me in the moment.

One of these days I'm going to make some enormous thing that combines a thrift store doll, a gourd, some polymer clay, fabric, paper, beads, ModPodge, stamps, paint, ink, tyvek, wire, and a whole bunch of miscellaneous sparkly embellishments into a veritable magnum opus of me-ness. And then I'll take up knitting. :)