moon cloth

 

 

 

signal hill
st john's newfoundland

we are experiencing lovely thick fog
no horizon line
just the sound of waves against cliff
of birdsong

it is free-ing
looking at emptiness
it's like flying

cloud and earth

 

 

earth energy moves up through our bodies and minds

female energy is "drawing in" or centripetal
the centripetal force is irresistible, it is so powerful
a mother has this kind of energy
others want to be around this kind of energy and are acutely aware when it is gone

the earth's energy comes up through the feet
Navajo women wear skirts because this increases the body's access to earth's energy

(this is a note found in an old journal)

not thinking

 

 

 

You can't think about things while you're painting.
The worst thing to think about is your SELF.
It gets in the way and you make mistakes.
Agnes Martin

emotional

Tell me some stories he said.
blue eyes so hungry

so I start with one about Ned and the wood pile

I can't hear you
he says

fragile memory

 

 

leave a mark
leave a trace
small daily details
ordinary matter and materials

journal series

 

 

What is it to be human?

I want my body of work to ask that question

and answer it.

dotted indigo

 

Art saved me.
It was my ability to synthesize my life through my art.
I'm really lucky.

Jim Dine artist

sky

 

 

the window must be large

so that my viewer can step into it

and be enveloped

threshold

 

 

threshold

the passage from the profane to the sacred
from the outer to the inner
to the new world

the line of meeting of the natural and the super natural

threshold symbols are:
sinking in water
entering a dark forest
a door
a window
a wall

memory cloth

 

I work with the design wall not only to visualize the design better
but also to see how the fabrics are hanging.

the moon and the sun

 

In effect there are five senses and thought is the sixth.
That is the best thing that humankind possesses.

Alighiero Boetti artist

intuition / tuition

 

 

An artist starts with chance and works towards order.

Not the other way around.  (starting from order, hoping to introduce chance).

How to teach this?
Can I teach this?

answer from Ben Shahn artist
It is not a built-in.  Intuition is not something with which one is born.  Intuition in art actually is the result of long prolonged tuition."

the experience

 

  

It's during the making.
It's not afterwards.
It's not because of a good review.
It has to do with ideas coming together to somehow make this greater whole where everything becomes clear.
It's quite a strange experience.
I think many artists would say there is a moment when that happens, in whatever medium they're working, and when it is a really good piece of art, it can also give that experience to the viewer.

quote from mike nelson interview in border crossings

 

 

You construct a thing and then you work in a sense of play.
To allow that play within a tight structure is a good thing.
That's the art.

You're being delivered an idea through a language of formal beauty.
That sort of alchemy or magic comes through the act of looking.

Through looking you get this emphatic sense.

Mike Nelson - artist

silence

 

 

I reference the horizon line.
I want to work in a poetic way
I live quite far away from art galleries

being an artist who works with cloth is solitary
But that is who I am.

an idea

 

 

the work of art
is not meant to be
contemplated as an object
but as an
idea

the world

"Embroidering is a meditative process and a sustaining journey.
I keep embroidering until the work tells me it is complete.

Embroidering is like a prayer.  It brought me in touch with my spiritual self, my truest self and connected me to a power beyond."

images are contemporary embroideries from south Africa.
text is by Ranjith Raman from India, who was profiled in summer 2014 Embroidery magazine

desperately standing still

 

 

I'm comforted by the reminder that for centuries,
creative work has come from the most ordinary things.

Children, pets, fruit trees, seasons and the passage of time.
byron wolfe - everyday: a year long photo diary