Good news and bad news, all on the same page

I always look forward to Friday's New York Times because it has a whole section on art, with reviews of several current shows.  And this morning's paper started out well, with a review of a fiber art show in Boston that wasn't the least bit condescending, didn't refer to anybody's grandma, and talked about "the timeless, haptic allure of fiber art."  Bravo!

But farther down the page, by the same reviewer, came a description of a show by Sanford Biggers, an African-American artist who makes paintings, collages, sculptures and videos.  One of the pieces that the reviewer described is a large sculpture made from antique quilt fragments.

Marianne Boesky Gallery

Sanford Biggers, Selah

The reviewer explains that antique quilts "are central to the art of the African diaspora" (true) and "were signposts used on the Underground Railroad" (FALSE!!!!!!!).

I am so sick of hearing this fake news, which has been debunked so many times, such as here by the scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.  Just as disappointing as hearing that these are or aren't like your grandma's quilts.

A great week for divestiture

What a great week I just had!

First, I took a carload of fabrics to my friend Ann, whose quilt guild likes to make charity quilts.  I've given them four carloads in the last several months, and maybe this is even the last of the bunch.  I've saved out the Kona solids, and all the commercial striped fabrics, and the batiks, and the African fabrics, and some other stuff to precious to give away, but now I think all the other quilting fabric is gone.

Next, I took a carload of non-quilting fabric to my friend Alana, who teaches textile art at our arts magnet high school.  What a bunch of miscellaneous stuff -- upholstery samples, fabrics too heavy for quilting, cords, tapes, I don't even remember what all.  I drove up during textile class and the kids rushed out to the car and unloaded everything, which was delightful.

Then the construction guys started taking apart our old bathrooms.  I asked them to remove the cabinets carefully, rather than smashing them to bits, and advertised them on our neighborhood email list.

Some guy came over the next afternoon and took them away.  He sent me a thank-you message and said he had also taken the "vintage medicine cabinet" out of the junk trailer.  Couldn't believe it -- this fixture was low-end in 1963 and hasn't gotten any more charming in the intervening decades, just a mirror flanked by two naked vertical fluorescent tubes.  But somebody wanted it!!  What a thrill.

Legend of Puss in Boots Sketch

A new body of work

A couple of months ago, after seeing  I got the idea to buy wood painting panels as supports for collage.  I thought they would give substance to the work, and avoid the necessity and expense of framing.  So I bought a five-pack of 9 by 12 panels and set to work.

I decided to work on all of them at once, and that all of them would have the same general elements.  At a workshop last year I made several pages worth of calligraphy, just writing in black india ink, sometimes overlaying the first page of writing with more writing in a different scale and a different direction.  I used those pages as the bottom layer.

Each collage would include a map, most would include an old photo, and I found four old books that I would tear up as collage elements for each of the pieces.  Then I added bits and pieces of this and that until the collages seemed finished.

The advantage of working on several pieces at once was that it gave me time for the various paints, inks, glues and mediums to dry; by the time I had worked on all five panels the first one was ready for another step.  I used plenty of matte medium as the top coat, or I should really say top coats, because I kept slathering that stuff on until some of the the surface resembled encaustic.  Toward the end I added some mystery junk for 3-D interest.

The five panels that I started with eventually grew to about ten, and I kept working on them bit by bit through the summer, not sure whether they were done yet.  The first one to be declared finished was a birthday gift, on a smaller but deeper panel that allowed me to add stuff on the sides and a roof on the top.

This week I declared two more finished so I could put them in the sales room at Pyro Gallery.

Messages: Eschenbach (detail below)

Messages: Allouez  (detail below)

I like the way this work is turning out, especially when several of the series are seen at once.  I like the way the various elements are finding their own balance, and the old photos and old book fragments seem to go well together.

Good thing, too, because there are at least a half dozen more of these in the studio waiting for something before they too can be finished.

Class Demo in Gouache!