I was downloading some pictures from my camera to share with you today, when I noticed a folder that dated from almost exactly one year ago. So I added those pictures to my disc, and find myself wanting to talk about them.
I can see from the earier file, that I was collaborating with June Underwood; we were early on in the collaborations, I think this was one of the first. I was painting, working with the idea that 'joy is a quality of light', which produced 'Norfolk Garden'. And I was working on the beginnings of an idea for a new approach to art quilt making (at least for me), that I thought perhaps had a book in it, perhaps not...
What I find interesting, is that a full year on, I am still working on these things. The collaborative works have quietened down; June is working on her own stuff, and hugely successfully; her 'Mind Has Mountains' is currently on her blog; for me, it is the best thing she has done so far. I am still exploring that idea of new approaches to quiltmaking, and it is producing quilts that are paintings...or should that be paintings that are quilts? either way, I think the identity crisis is all mine, the works don't care what they are called!
As for the painting, the new piece is 'Chimera:Blue Goddess'. Like the piece I painted a year ago, 'Norfolk Garden', it plays with the idea that we are immersed, intimately linked, with each other and our surroundings. I don't do the science, but they tell me that our molecules are constantly reshifting and regrouping, leaving and, perhaps, returning... and if that's not right, I don't want to know about it, because I find it hugely comforting, somehow.
The new thing, I suppose, is the lutradur, that Dijanne introduced me to a while ago. The downside, if it can be considered such, of such an active, artful life, is that I find it difficult to apportion my time between all these diverse activities. I've been working hard with lutradur, so the painting has been left quietly sitting in the studio. I've been drawing with stitch, recently, as in the little postcard sized pieces I showed recently, so the drawing with pencils and pens has taken a back seat.
But that is only a problem if I forget that all these activities are really one and the same. They are the making of art... of expression. And that, for me at least, is all there is. Excuse me, I'm off to Get On With It!
2 comments:
Indeed that first (last) photo is of our collaboration, and it sits in my storage room, awaiting further notice. I'm also painting and quilting and thinking about the processes -- I'm interested, as usual, in the historical precedents for each and how they combine in new and interesting ways -- the conventions of paint spreading, the conventions of strip piecing and stitching through layers of fabric -- make a new kind of painted texture, unachievable by any other method. cheers, June
We'll write that book yet
marion
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