Weeks' Worth of Work

Finding time to make art has been hard, though I've managed to spend quite a bit of time thinking about art, reading about art, looking at books and pictures of art and combing the bookstore - which has thousands and thousands of books - trying to find one that will answer my questions.

A couple days ago I remembered a freshman architecture assignment called "the four and nine square grids.". It has amused me that this organizing device, sold to us as such a sophisticated concept, was really the same one used by generations of women called quilters, not artists. It was considered a device of torture for us at the time, assigned on Friday, due Monday consisting of thousands of tiny squares inked on Mylar. 34 years later, I think it would make a fascinating, though still tedious art quilt. Amazingly I was able to put my finger on the Mylars at once, and look them over.  I can't remember quite how they were generated, but it is fascinating.

Neutral strips

Beyond thinking, I did actually get down to the studio for a couple hours. Earlier in the week I made some new strips out of some of the neutrals, then last night pulled out the other neutral "made fabrics." Since I used up all the light ones in Background Noise, there is not much in the way of contrast there.  I have to muddle over what to add there.  Brights, or just light neutrals?  I recall Nancy saying something about doing studies with neutrals, and I'm trying hard to at least try to do what she requested.

I also made a small totally improv'ed piece from Filmstrip's scraps.  It's not a masterpiece, but it will be good practice for quilting.

And then I took down Filmstrip and added a yellow strip to the outside of the white one - far right side of the middle row.  I kept trying to tell my brain that it was only disappearing because of the white design wall.  But  (a) if it's ever displayed or photographed, it will be quite possibly be on a white wall, and (b) my eye chimed in saying the brain was right, it needed to go, and I knew I couldn't look at it without being annoyed.  So I changed it.  It was a good lesson in how hard it is to remove even a simple piece from the edge of a large quilt top.  Piecing in new parts would be a huge pain.


I also made 2 "units" to match one that I'd made and not used.  They are navy and maroon and remind me of politician's neckties, so I don't know where they'll go from here, if anywhere.  But trying to heed the "make stuff, don't think so much" dictum.

I also cut up some of the striped shirts that are waiting for a purpose.  Not sure what that will be yet, either.

Improv piece

Victor de Vasarely

This morning I started flipping through a book I'd purchased on Modern Art.  There was a great two-tone piece that looked like it could have been made in fabric. Actually it might be three tones, there are two slightly different shades of black, and I wonder if one was a different color, not obvious in the b&w reproduction.  It is by Victor de Vasarely, and called "Horn." He became one of the first op-art artists, but this piece is more like a notan, than op-art. I can only find one reference to it on the internet, so it possibly was an earlier now more obscure work;  the book was published in 1958.  It gave me an idea where to start with my black and white studies, anyway.

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