Thread Lines 5 -- separated at birth

One last piece at the Thread Lines exhibit to tell you about.  When I came upon this large piece (45 x 51") I was immediately taken by its calm, subtle palette and tiny markings that invited a closer look.

Drew Shiflett, Untitled #60 (details below)

It's made from handmade paper, cut and torn into small pieces and then reassembled in layers.  There's some cheesecloth in there to help hold the pieces together.  Finally, it's painted with a bazillion thin vertical lines.

I love the rolling, bulging surface and the way it's pasted together haphazardly with a bunch of different patches and splices and irregular edges.  I love the rows of stripes, clearly applied by hand.  So much to look at and find up close, and yet with all this busy-ness, the whole piece is serene.

After I looked at it for a while I realized that it's a conceptual clone of two quilts that I made a couple of years ago.

Kathleen Loomis, Linear A 

Kathleen Loomis, Linear B (detail below)

All of these works are made to the same "recipe" -- an irregular, unstable "tower" of stacked horizontal bars, each constructed of numerous small vertical stripes, in a neutral palette.

No wonder I liked it!

That's all I have to say about Thread Lines, on display at Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft through August 6.

My favorite things 22

It's Memorial Day, and I'm never one to let holidays go by without a bit of theme-reminiscence.  So that brings me to World War II, during which my father served in the Army in Eastern France and into Western Germany.  He didn't bring back a lot of war souvenirs -- no sawed-off Nazi ears, no liberated Kandinskys -- but somehow I have had these little mementos in my jewelry box for decades.

On top, a tiny gold Cross of Lorraine, the two-barred cross that has been the symbol of that province since the 13th century.  During WWII it was the symbol of the French Resistance.  It's so small -- barely a half-inch tall, that I thought it would disappear if worn by itself, so since childhood I've worn it on the same chain as a larger cross.

On the right, a somewhat battered leatherette jewel box, which reads "Souvenir de la Résistance."  The medallion, which is fitted with a pin back, shows a guy sitting on a stone wall, or maybe climbing over it, with a woman behind holding a big rock.  Maybe they're building a barricade to derail a German locomotive.  The initials "F.F.I." stand for Forces Françaises de l'Intérieur (French Forces of the Interior) aka the Resistance, known as "fifis."

The medallion is dated 1944.  By the time Dad got to Lorraine, right around New Year's 44-45, the allies had liberated most of France, the fifis were incorporated into the regular army, and life had returned sufficiently to normal that entrepreneurs could manufacture resistance souvenirs.

On the left is a 20 centime coin, made out of some kind of metalloid material with hardly any weight whatsoever.  It's black with age, or maybe it was black to begin with, dated 1945.  It has a faint diagonal stripe across the face where for years it was apparently scotch-taped to a card, but I've always kept it in the same box with the medallion,

Although Dad's unit made it many miles into Germany before the war ended, he found himself on V-E Day in Paris!  Maybe that's where he bought these souvenirs, knowing that it was finally time to celebrate.

Quick (1 hr) head demo!

My portrait drawing book is available at Amazon.

"Demo at Fiesole Italy 2017 03"

I am so excited coming to Italy teaching my very first workshop in Europe. This is my 3rd plein air painting at Fiesole near Florence. I want to thank Debra and Ivano of Artensity for organizing this workshop and thanks to all artists from Brazil, Germany, Switzerland, and USA for coming and painting with me. I am so impressed by the rich culture here at Florence. This is a new milestone in my art career. I am so happy.

Schoolism Sale!

Take my self study classes from anywhere in the world for $10 a month when you use the promo code BLOOM. More info here.

Legend of Puss in Boots Lighting Cleanup

I've always loved putting that final coat of polish on animated movie scenes.

Thread Lines 4 -- hand stitching extravaganza

If you love hand stitching you'd be really pleased with this work at Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft.

Imagine a very long wall with a very long meandering outline drawing (probably a phototransfer from an original ink drawing) of assorted fruits and vegetables, maybe two feet tall at its edges.

Every now and then a small wooden embroidery hoop is mounted over the wall drawing, and that part of the picture leaps into color with intricate hand embroidery over a phototransfer.  So you see three levels of detail: first the simple black-and-white sketch on the wall, then the not-very-brightly-colored photo on the cotton in the hoop, and then the brilliant sections embroidered in tiny, precise stitches.

Mónica Bengoa, One Hundred and Sixty Three Shades of Yellow, Green, Orange, Red, Purple, Brown, Grey and Blue (so far)

Apparently Bengoa began this work a dozen years ago, exhibiting it first in Australia, and has been adding to it ever since, hence the "(so far)" in the title.  The stitching is so perfect it's almost mechanical, but you can see and admire the artist's hand.

I'll let you drool over a bunch of detail shots.  Notice how carefully the colors shade in hue and value, one row of stitches at a time.

I'll have one more post about this show, coming later in the week.  It's up at KMAC through August 6.

Thread Lines exhibition 3 -- hand stitching that I loved

OK, got the crabby stuff out of the way, now I can talk about the work in the Thread Lines exhibit that I liked.  And guess what, it was almost all all hand stitching.

Here's an unassuming but solid and joyous work, simply little shapes of felt hand-stitched to felt backgrounds.

William J. O'Brien, Untitled (detail below)

Just two colors, simple shapes, the simplest possible stitching, but it all goes together into complex and sophisticated compositions that make you smile.  The background layer is thick, a tad more than 1/4 inch, so it hangs solidly, and it's held to the wall with T-pins.

Interestingly, many of the older works are framed under glass (which I think is not a good way to display textiles; it may protect them from viewers' touch but it also places a barrier to viewers' view) but the newer pieces are frequently hung with simple pins or nails.

Here's a piece hand stitched onto black organdy, an imaginary or remembered map.

Jessica Rankin, Untitled (detail below)

It's a big piece, almost 60 inches square, with simple stitching, mostly satin stitch.  It's hung with long sturdy pins along the edges, stretched about a inch away from the wall.

I'm a sucker for maps so I loved the concept and the combination of solidly stitched areas with sketchier outlines.  I was puzzled by the loose threads that occasionally traversed between stitched areas and sometimes drooped limply for a foot or more.  Not sure what this was supposed to make me think -- the map is melting?  we've lost our way?  pedestrians were dragged underneath a bus for a mile?

More good stuff in tomorrow's post.  The show continues at Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft in Louisville through August 6.

My favorite things 21

We moved into our house in 1986 and had to buy boatloads of stuff to fix up and furnish the place.  On one of our numerous trips to the mall, my teenage son and I were walking through J.C. Penney's and saw that microwaves were on sale.  Although this was not on my shopping list, or in my budget, Matt insisted that we buy one -- a relatively new appliance that we had not previously owned.  I think we paid $89 for it.

It's still there.

In an age of planned obsolescence, perhaps this particular appliance sneaked by quality control.  Surely they didn't expect that an $89 microwave would still be going strong into its fourth decade!

Maybe I shouldn't say going "strong," because it seems to have lost some of its oomph as it aged.  In other people's kitchens, you zap a cup of tea for one minute and its nice and hot; in my kitchen it takes two minutes and 20 seconds.  But what's a minute or two among friends?  The microwave soldiers on, never faltering.  It's the easiest of all our appliances to reset the clock after a power failure.  We've never even had to replace the light bulb.

I know one day the microwave will die, as will we all.  I don't relish the thought of replacing it; I don't want to have to choose among lots of fancy features that I probably won't use.  I don't want to have to learn new formulas for which buttons to push for a cup of tea.  I don't want a turntable or a convection feature or a sensor that allegedly tells me when things are done.  I don't want it built in.  I just want a microwave exactly like the one I have.  My friend for lo these many years.

Thread Lines exhibition 2 -- do you like patterns?

According to the statement on the wall, the Thread Lines show at Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft "brings together those pioneers who -- challenging entrenched modernist hierarchies -- first unraveled the distinction between textile and art with a new wave of contemporary practitioners who have inherited and expanded upon their groundbreaking gestures."  I'm not sure what that means, although two points for using "unraveled."  I didn't detect anything that specifically expanded upon the work of the pioneers, and in fact the specific approaches of the pioneers -- weaving and patchwork -- were barely used by the younger artists in the show.

I had to quarrel with the curatorial decision that included not one, not two but three artists whose work consisted of pattern charts -- two for sweaters, one for weaving (but you could probably knit a sweater from it if you wanted to).

Ellen Lesperance, December 12, 1983: Standing Beside the Communal Campfire, She Reads Aloud from the Front Page News: "Women at War! 25,000 in Greenham Base Demo" (detail below)

This artist's gimmick is to find a photo of somebody wearing a sweater at a famous demonstration from the past -- this one was against nuclear weapons -- and chart the pattern, then paint it in gouache.

Robert Otto Epstein, Sleeveless Cardigan (detail below)

Here the pattern is rendered in graphite rather than in paint, but same difference.  If this is fiber art, which I'm not entirely sure of, then you might think one example would be plenty in a show with only 15 artists.

If these two sweater-chart artists are twins, then here's their big sister.  This artist drew charts of weaving patterns, photographed the charts and printed them out, then digitized the pattern and had an embroidery machine stitch over the printout.

 Beryl Korot, Weaver's Notation-Variation 1 (detail below)

At least this one had some actual stitching in it.  But all three left me cold, cold, cold.

Next week: some work in the show that I liked!

Painting in China 2017 Reminder

Time goes by really fast. I want to remind you that our "Painting in China 2017" will close to its registration deadline. Please don’t miss your opportunity to sign up to join this small band of international explorers and painters on the Plein Air Painting in China tour. My wife Song and I are both originally from Beijing, so you will have bilingual “locals” on the tour with you as well as the bilingual tour guides. 

There are still a few seats available if you would like to join us. 

For more information about the trip including full itinerary, please go to http://ift.tt/2j611cs  

The trip includes popular tourist sights such as The Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, The Summer Palace along with  a trip to Shangri-La (Zhongdian) and some lesser known sights with many opportunities to paint along the way. I will provide plein air painting demos and share with you all my painting tips. It should be a fun and informative trip.

Check it out now before it sells out.  http://ift.tt/2j611cs  

It’s never been easier to travel in China with a guided bilingual tour. 

"Demo at Lake Martin 2017 1"

Returned from from San Diego, I stay at home only one day before I started another teaching trip. This stop was Lake Martin near Auburn Alabama. Staying at the side this beautiful lake my fatigue due to heavy traveling was gone just like that. I want to thank Dorothy and George Littleton for organizing this workshop and thanks to all the artists for attending. This is my first demo, which is a plein air piece.

Thread Lines exhibition 1 -- the pioneers

A new exhibit at Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft shows the work of 15 artists in and about fiber and textile processes.  It includes some very big names in the fiber art world (Sheila Hicks, Lenore Tawney) and in the plain-old-art world (Louise Bourgeois) as well as many artists I had not heard of.  Organized by The Drawing Center museum in New York City, and now on the road, the show will be at KMAC through August 6.

I can't say I was overly impressed.  It had the slightly gee-whiz vibe that so often sounds when people from the plain-old-art world contemplate works made from fiber or with fiber techniques.  How strange but also nice that people make art from cloth using needles!  And if you squint your eyes a bit you can even think of it as Real Art!

I know I'm being snarky, but as both practitioner and aficionada of art from fiber, I found little to get excited about.

Sheila Hicks, one of the patron saints of fiber art, was represented by four "minims," the name she gave to thousands of tiny weavings, five or six inches wide, done on a portable loom that she took with her as she traveled.  She used these little works as a sketchbook to record ideas and materials.

Sheila Hicks

Sheila Hicks




















What can you say about these fragments?  Perhaps that sketchbooks, doodles and studies aren't always museum-worthy.  If these pieces had been woven by Kathy Klutz in a workshop at John C. Campbell Folk School you know for sure they wouldn't be hanging in this show.

Similarly, there are four Louise Bourgeois pieces made from old napkins, towels and striped fabric.  Two are clever riffs on her signature spider motif, cutting the striped fabric into wedges and assembling them into spiderwebs.  The curator's notes point out that Bourgeois made these pieces in her old age, raiding her lifelong stash of old textiles.

You don't expect artists in their 90s to have the perfect technical skills of their youth (as a girl, Bourgeois did textile restoration in her family business, so you know she could really sew), but you do expect them to make up for a shaky hand or failing sight with a mature artistic vision.  Think Matisse's paper cutouts or Monet's waterlilies.  Maybe I'm being too critical but this patchwork doesn't say anything to me.

Louise Bourgeois (detail below)

Louise Bourgeois (detail below)

Here's the Lenore Tawney piece, from 1974.  I wasn't following fiber art in those days, but from what I have reconstructed in my reading, this was a quintessential example of those early glory days when fiber briefly was on the verge of acceptance in the mainstream art world, and was all the rage in corporate office buildings to soften the hard edges of marble and concrete.

In that time, weaving was the pinnacle of fiber art (quilts or knitting sure didn't get a foot in the door) and doing interesting things with your weaving was so avant.

Lenore Tawney, Union of Water and Fire (detail below)

You can't help but admire how it broke ground in its day, but now it looks dated and ordinary.  The point of this show, according to the wall sign, is to honor the "groundbreaking gestures" of the fiber art pioneers, they didn't do a very good job of choosing work that has aged well.

Well, enough crabbiness for one day.  I'll show you work by the younger generation in my next post.

"Small house at Balboa Park"

On the 4th Day of the Plein Air Convention, we have painted at the beautiful Balboa Park. There are so many grand, elegant, and very ornate structures. I have shied away from all of that and picked up a small house near the parking lot. When I painting this one, I turned around and found surprisingly that Jeremy Liping was standing next to me. I was so excited. We talked for a while and he gave me quite a few tips. Thank you, Jeremy.

My favorite things 20

My mother loved big jewelry, and liked feeling the weight of a substantive hunk of stuff.   Once I made her a necklace from stitched cords and beads, and she complained because it was too light; she couldn't feel it around her neck.  So I took it back and added another strand containing some big coins with holes in them.  I would have gone crazy wearing it, but Mom loved it in the heavyweight model.

After she died, my sister and I divvied up the jewelry, but I don't wear it frequently just because of the weight; Mom's big earrings fall off my ears (none of us pierced our ears) and her big necklaces make my neck hurt before the evening is over.  (I took back the stitched one, cut off the strand with the big coins, and happily wear it in the lightweight version.)

But I do love this big bracelet, oh so deco with its big rhinestones and elegant styling.  It's not the sort of thing you wear to the office, but since I'm retired I don't go to an office.  Every now and then I put it on and feel like a diva.

I'll be wearing it today to celebrate Mother's Day.  Somehow I don't think it will feel at all out of place, even cooking in the kitchen or holding the baby.  Thanks Mom, for this bracelet and for everything else.  Wish you were here.

Mothers Day Demo

Try this for Mom!

Middle-of-the-night problem-solving.

Do you ever run into technical problems that you can't solve, so you put everything away hoping for better ideas in the future?  I did that a couple of years ago with a project, but continued to think about it at 4 a.m. when I wasn't sleeping.  I figured out a solution, but wasn't sure it would work.  Finally this week I got my workbench cleared off sufficiently to roll into action.

When the great Baer Fabric store closed I scored four garbage bags full of drapery sample books. Somebody else took all the fabrics, but gave me the covers, which are perfect supports for collage.  I had made a bunch of collages and then wanted to put them together into one large expanse.  The individual slabs were maybe 12 x 15, some bigger, some smaller, and my concept was to sew them together into a finished piece about 25 x 35 inches.

That worked pretty well on the outside edges, where I could pull the boards out over the edge of the table and get my hands onto both front and back to manipulate the needle.  But I hit the fan when it came to the center of the piece.  The separate slabs were flopping around, falling of their own weight, not staying in place while I stitched, and I couldn't even reach into the middle.

So I put everything in a corner and went away for many months, until I realized I should hold the work vertically.  So I rigged up chains that hung from the same hooks in the ceiling that hold up the fluorescent lights over a workbench, and suspended the collage boards.  Adjusted the height so the boards barely rest on the bench, and sure enough, I can stick the needle through from either side and the contraption holds everything stable while I work.

Stitching through boards that are at least 1/8 inch thick is kind of tricky; first you have to make holes with a nail.

And now that I'm working in the center of the piece, I'm having to walk around the bench with every stitch; stand in front, stick needle through correct hole, walk to back, pull needle through, stick needle back toward front, walk around to front, pull needle through, adjust placement of cord and pull taut.  Good exercise.

"Harbor of San Diego" --- Sold

I have attended the 6th Plein Air Convention in San Diego. I did this plein air painting right out of the Sheraton Hotel at the Harbor Island. Be honest with you, I really didn't know what I was doing. The scene was very busy with zillions of boats. I was in my "just do it" mode and follow completely my intuition. The result was better than I thought. Many artist call themselves intuitive painters. I am not.  But sometime I was in the spot and have no way out. Well, I just do it.

Networking and poetry

Toward the end of last year I wrote a post about my "found poetry," a technique in which you search out intriguing phrases from newspapers, magazines or books and combine them to make "poems."  One of my internet friends, Sharon Robinson, left a comment that I should check out the work of her friend Judy Kleinberg, who does the same thing.

So I did, and fell in love -- Judy's work is a lot more sophisticated than mine, and she must have one heckuva collection of magazines to cut from.  Partly because I admired her work so much, I decided to define my daily art project for this year as heavy on text.  Every day I have been making a small collage composition that features some text that must be read to be appreciated.  (You can see all my daily art here.)

I follow Judy's blog, and earlier this year she wrote that she had two found poems published in an online website called Rise Up Review, which bills itself as "a landing site for the poetry of opposition."  When I visited the site to check it out, I noticed that they were inviting submissions, and since some of my daily collage texts are highly political, I sent a few in.  Here's one of them:

And this week they were published. 

I was happy to see them on the same page as Judy Kleinberg's work, since she is the connection that brought me to this venue, and more important, that brought me to making this kind of daily art.  I  love the way internet friends expand your life.