Can art be good or bad and still be art?

I've been reading a few discussions and essays lately on the subject of art (as it relates to textile/fabric art, but the theory is more general).

Some people believe that art must be consciously made to be art. That is, you couldn't start out thinking "Oh this is pretty or striking fabric, I think I'll make a cushion" and call the finished product art. I am not decrying lovely or interesting cushions. They can be functional, decorative or fun or any combination. If you are already producing a lot of work (maybe art), your cushion may be a development of your work, or may embody your artistic voice by default. If you become famous and collectable, it may even have value over and above the obvious one, like a scribble on a napkin by Andy Warhol or Picasso, for example.

There seem to be extremes in this argument for consciousness. At one end you could have someone with a vision that was informing and guiding their process in a work - they could be imagining all kinds of emotions, events, or times, for example slavery in the cotton belt, and translate it into a blank blue canvas with 5 white spots. Any viewer without an artist statement to read would be hard pressed to detect the message the artist intended. They may or may not like the placement of the spots, and the background colour. Is it art?

Well, it could be, but not just because the artist had had a vision before they started work. It is unlikely to be art if the artist has not developed a series of work ( or is going to) exploring a theme. There would have to be something particular to the artist about the colour, brush strokes, size, placement of spots, etc. Otherwise it could just be a class exercise - paint a blue background and add 5 white spots. Not art.

Conversely, at the other end, you have artists who work intuitively. They might start with an image, shape or fragment, and build on it, letting their subconscious guide the development. When they start they have no idea where the piece is going, and can probably only entitle it when it feels complete. I don't mean in a facile way "Oh this looks like a chicken laying an egg", but they will make conscious some of the subconscious ideas that led the development. Again, may or may not be art. It could just be a technique sample to be filed for future use. However, after a period of development, this sample could then find that it is a piece of art after all.

Artist passion is not a guarantee of great art, or even art at all. Having said that, few people would ever set out to make bad art on purpose. Even knowing that you have to have a crap quota to work through, you would not churn out bad stuff just to get through the quota!

I support all the proponents of the "Do the work" school. An 8 year old might write an appealing poem in grade school, lauded by teacher and parents. However, they are unlikely to make a living from published poetry until they have written a huge amount of variable quality. Similarly, novice fabric artists might make some appealing works, but are unlikely to be selling stuff or winning prizes until they have made a considerable amount.

Of course, production of art is not necessarily going to lead to fame and fortune, but luckily we are not usually motivated by anything other than the desire to make art. We might be satisfied or dissatisfied with any individual work, but we know we have learnt something about technique, composition and ourselves during the making. It is never a waste.

quake quilt

I finished the first quake quilt, well, in fact the only quake quilt that I needed to make. The tissue paper (see previous post) did sort of work, strangely better through the HP up and over than through the Epson straight path. I used a method I found on the internet where you fold the tissue paper over the edge of a piece of A4, and then stick it down with tape. Fusing to freezer paper worked, but I couldn't get it to separate afterwards. But I decided against the tissue paper, as it was very grey and depressing looking. My last attempt was to use extravorganza. This gave a less black print, and I found the white look a bit offputting. So I painted it with a weak wash of green and some metallic acrylic. I liked the look, but from more than a metre away it totally got lost.

OK. Abandoned that plan and decided to put writing on with fused fabric. I also felt that the right side of the seismograph was a bit empty and meaningless. So I fused on 3 different buildings showing damage - just in a cartoonish kind of way. Not to get too literal. The final thing was to make the lettering for the top word, using one eighth inch strips - very fiddly. I'm glad I don't write names on grains of rice for a living!

I am happy with the finished article. It has impact, and tells a story. Although it was one of my projects that have to come from the stash, while I was shopping for fusible web, I saw a FQ of some gorgeous Australian designed print, that was perfect for a binding. Pillar box red with dark blue and gold. It tied everything together well.

Tomorrow I will revisit some felting ideas.

Spring cometh

It was a bizarre start to the day, when I awoke to an inch of crunchy snow, but a blue sky and sunshine. Luckily it had all melted by lunchtime when the temperature was more like 17!

I have 3 quake ideas in the assembly line. The first is of a seismograph of the 7.1 quake, but on a strip pieced background that hints at grassy paddocks and landscapes. Over that I want to put some transparent newspaper cuttings, or figures representing the important information. I found a site which lets you write your own newspaper headline and beginning of an article. It only has one style, though. I tried to do a test print using TAP, but it didn't work - not enough of the ink transferred. My next idea is to try tissue paper on a carrier sheet and attached by textile medium. Again I will do a test run.

The other two pieces are a fault line idea from another set of strips out of the scrap basket, and a wide wavy village in the Laura Wasilowski style. I am not sure they will all get made, as the traumatic effects are receding.

I have been investigating online C and G course in quilting, but it seems like they are almost extinct, just people who are already enrolled finishing their classes. A bit disappointing, but maybe I just need to do the work myself and not 'study'.

Ups and downs

Last week I finished a FFFC project more or less on time. However, while I was nearing the end, Christchurch was hit with a huge earthquake and 400 or so aftershocks. It was such a trauma, both to live through the quake, and then to have a week of life disrupted, demolition, amazement at the damage, and loss for some. Though I had enforced time off work, since all schools were closed in the area, it was hard to focus on art and gardening or anything else I would normally revel in. Now I need to work through some of my emotions in a quake quilt.

But the FFFC project was a good one. As always, I found that something that caught my imagination, and had its own momentum for execution, meant a successful outcome.
The parameters were metal and optimistic colours. I went to my mixed media drawer, toyed with copper knitted wire, stainless steel mesh and foils. The copper wire was in a tube, which suggested fish scales to me. I am not that excited by fish, and idea of a mermaid came to me. I researched online drawings, and cobbled together sections from 4 of them, giving a mermaid sitting on a rock, admiring herself in a mirror.

I had several sea fabrics, one of which seemed ideal - some movement but not stormy. I worked through the value issues, where the fabric that I really wanted to use for the tail was too close to the rock background. In the end, it seemed fine to use a terracotta, since mermaids are mythical and we can portray them how we like! The long hair meant I could get away with only showing one hand, and a token Barbie face put on with textile markers. I made the mirror out of a kind of angelina fused on both sides with black misty fuse. I used a floral print that I've always wanted to use but has sat in the stash for 10 years. Fussy cut and layered, it made a good border, giving the illusion of a tropical island. The sky was a fossil fern in a warm yellow.



Near the end I added the copper wire, The tube was too dense in the narrow area, so I cut in half, which left a few sharp ends that need bending before using a metallic thread for a buttonhole couching.

I put on a false back, did a minimum of re-quilting and put on some beads for a necklace and to catch down the copper wire.

To finish - binding? facing? no, satin stitch with a couching of banana fibre.

It's really not my thing - fantasy and cuteness! But I love the composition.

New work

After 3 months of not blogging, I am back. Since I got back from Canada in June, I have been busy at work and in a funk about starting new creative endeavours. Once you stop, it is quite hard to start again. Same is true for my Japanese homework!I bought a book called Threadwork, which had lovely saturated silk colours, used as bases for freestyle embroidery. Exactly the kind of embroidery I wanted to try. As on previous occasions, I found I am not so comfortable with handwork. I can't find a good position where I can see the work, and not get shoulder and neck ache, even more so with beading because of the limitations of keeping the beads confined.I was thinking of using it as a bag front, but now I am somewhat concerned that it would get abraded and pulled threads. Could maybe cover it in fine tulle.
Anyway, meantime, our group was having a felt challenge. No guidelines, felted crochet, needlefelting or wet felting were all OK. I wanted to make a piece to accompany the embroidery, in geometric blocks of colour. I thought it I did this on the needlefelting machine on soluble fleece, and then incorporated it into wet felting that it would be strong enough for a bag. I did the needlefelting, and then added crochet braids mainly wool, and some sari yarn, machined on with zigzag.
I realised that as the needlefelting got wet, then the fleece would vanish and the blocks would float around a bit. First, I laid out the rovings I had that would tone. One was multicoloured with a short staple and the purple and red pieces were merino with a longer staple. I did the 3 layers with criss cross, but keeping the colours as separate as I could. Then wetted it and put tulle over the top and did a little bit of wet felting, enough for it to hold together. Then I put the needlefelted piece on top of the prefelt, put the tulle back again and agitated it very gently. the soluble fleece vanished immediately, and I could see that the braids were going for a short wander. However, I rolled it up in the bubble wrap very carefully and started on the felting proper. It took quite a long time, but eventually it worked. Between rolls, I tried to straighten the braids and blocks as much as I could.
What I found:
doing the stripes for the wet felt would have been quite weak, had it not been for the needlefelting keeping it together. Stripes and blocks would be best on a prefelt for strength.
The longer staple pieces did not wet down, or felt as quickly as the short staple.
The edges did not tighten as much as I would have liked because I couldn't safely do a lot of friction on them without disturbing the needlefelted blocks.
It took a lot of rolling to get the needlefelt to mesh in with the wet felt. This was probably because the fibres in the needlefelt were not loose and looking for partners!

I have ordered some prefelts from Australia, so I will do more experiments when they arrive.

My aim is still to make a bag, but this may not be the right method.

A struggle

I can't believe it is such a long time since I posted. All that time I have been working on the abstract seascape piece, and having quite a lot of blocks, which also prevented me from doing any other stitching work, since I was determined to work through it. Initially, a few months ago, I printed out a displacement mapped picture of what I can't remember. I did it on cotton and again on extravorganza.
I admire Larkin Van Horn's beaded pieces, and wanted to try one, so I layered the pieces over a small piece of English felt ( I think it's rayon), and started on the beading. It took an age. Something I haven't worked out yet is how to mark where beads should go, and then take them off, so you can stitch them one by one.I made a frame for the piece by making needle and wet felted rovings into black batting, planning originally to put the piece on top. This was after trying out several batiks that I liked but didn't work from a distance. It didn't seem to have any logic, so I cut a window in the batting and put the piece underneath, which gave more of an underwater feel. I added the coloured stones thinking of the rivets in a porthole of a wrecked ship.
More struggles to link the piece with the dupion silk that I wanted to use as the canvas, tried out flowers, threads and seaweed ideas, but finally decided on the sunray penetrating the gloom of the deep.

Phew!

Now on to more ideas of using modified photos...

I finished the hydrangeas at last this morning. I had problems with the border
quilting - ripped the whole lot out, which was a radiowave kind of design.
Instead did twin needled straight sections with a free motioned petal in the
centre of the boxes. That is invisible from the proverbial galloping horse
anyway, but at least it is flat!
I did 3 wonky lines of silver grey round the tops of the petals that had a sunnyglow in the photo and used blue round the lower shaded ones.


Things I learnt:

Even using SAS lite, some areas are very stiff and the needle picked up gunk.
Will try misty fuse more another time, or just tack.

I used monofilament on the back, which was simple - no changing bobbins, and no
thread dots on the top. However, it feels very prickly on the back, and I don't
think I will do that again. I want to see the stitching on the back!

If I am going to do the 3 wonky lines to define the petal edges I don't need to
zigzag them first. I had done that with a selection of expensive variegated
threads, which you can't see at all now! Probably 2 days work completely
unnecessary.

I really like the bolder vein lines in the petals, which is all that secures the
fabric changes within petals (apart from the SAS of course). It looked really
garish close up but looks fine from 2 metres.

The problem with taking a photo of a flower is that you concentrate on
interpreting the flower, instead of thinking about composition. There is a bit
of movement in a V shape with the three boldest flowers in the mid and mid-lower
section, but there's nothing to bring your eye round again.

I am happy that I agonised over the background quilting and the border, and
found a solution that is aesthetically pleasing and at the same time functional
in flattening the areas without flowers. I tried out on paper several options for the background quilting, involving echo, meander, spirals etc. When I decided on the free form grid, it really helped not trying anything that would compete with the flowers. Ditto the border. I had measured sections and put in a dot so I could do the sine waves I originally envisaged. It looked really good on paper too. But looked a mess when I was almost at the end of three complete rounds of waves. So ripped it and started again. Basically the fabric is busy enough that it just needs to be flat, and have something that looks good from 6 inches away. Otherwise you can't see it. I tried about 6 thread options, but you couldn't tell them apart from 3 metres.

I'd like to try another more abstract version later, but this week I will play with FFFC. I need playtime.

what summer?

Although we can't complain compared with northern hemisphere people who have had the worst snow falls in decades, with all the resultant disruption, here in the South Island we have had a cool and damp summer. Many grey days, that reminded me of English summers, and so untypical of NZ. Since school went back last week, the weather was a bit hotter and sunnier, but still not the days of over 30 degrees that we often get now. I have had poor use of my pool, as even when the days were warm the nights were cold. It did reach 28 degrees last week, but back to about 23 now.

I have started training for my 4 day bike trail ride in April. I have a nice comfy bike with suspension, but I remember from my last attempt to ride bikes about 12 years ago that I have arthritis damage in my thumbs. Normally I never notice, because I don't do anything to upset them, apart from the occasional knitting. I need to get the handlebar grips rotated to a more comfortable position. My local half hour trip is all on sealed roads and I don't need to change gear, so that is a doddle. My years of biking as a kid and at Cambridge were on a bike with no gears, so it is not instinctive for me.

Creativity is taking a back seat at the moment, with work so full on. I am hoping to finish the hydrangeas in the next two weeks. I like it, but I'm getting to the end of the interest phase.

I've been re-reading Melanie Testa's Inspired to Quilt, and would like a couple of shots at doing something with organza overlays. I decided against the FFFC this month, as fractures don't do a lot for me, and I was so short of time.

No photos - should be getting my camera out and taking the garden in progress. One new bed is planted, and I sprayed the next one with roundup this morning, having refined the shape by mowing round it. I am excited, since very little in my garden is my original design. I have modified the planting in some parts, and redesigned a couple of places. Where I have done the new beds, I am very much happier than with what I inherited. The flowering cherry trees are becoming a severe pain with their roots breaking the surface, and suckers reaching 6 or 7 metres from the trees. I have about 14 trees that must be 10 years old now. No one needs that many!

Tidying up

Part of my plan for the school holidays has been to go through the stuff in my office and chuck out anything that I won't need again. I don't know about you, but whenever I have to go through papers and photos, I get sidetracked down various alleys of memory. Some are fun and some are definitely not.

This morning I went through some brochures for language schools in Italy from 1999, when I was thinking of going. I did actually go to one in Florence for 2 weeks, and I really enjoyed that. Most of the other students were American 20 year olds, who were often late owing to a heavy party schedule and its resultant hangovers. Fortunately there was one other mature student, a Swiss woman who was finance director for Levi jeans, and who seemed frequently required to go to places where new factories were being set up. Then it was Russia, but it's probably China or Vietnam now. She had a boyfriend in Switzerland who was a carpenter in a small village. Very Heidi, and I think it unlikely that they are still together.

I found a diary with photos of Tuscany, but it turned out to be the diary of the year I was physically parting from my husband, and there were many entries of weeping and despair, which I really don't need to revisit. But some entries are about my starting in language teaching and meeting people who are now my good friends.

I am in a quandary about the travel brochures, photos and postcards that I inevitably bring back from holidays. I want to keep them, but I can't find a tidy or attractive way to do that. It annoys me that I never know which bag or box or shelf those things are in. I don't want to be so anal that I have them all in alphabetical bankers boxes. They aren't that kind of document.

Good to vacuum up the dead flies from behind the boxes, but only about 20% of the stuff has actually made its way to the garbage!

I had a party on Saturday to celebrate being in NZ for 20 years (that's 10 years married and 10 years divorced). These last couple of years I have had 1 or 2 parties a year, and changed them to be drinks and finger food early. That really works well and I don't find I am clearing up masses of food dishes at 11pm on my own. Instead I have the room reorganised and everything put away well by bedtime, and can start the next day as if it never happened. BUT, and it's a big but, I put away all my stitching and I'm reluctant to start making a mess again!

UFO Stained glass

I finally finished the ufo stained glass kit that I started about 12 or 13 years ago - I was still married, and that's been over 10 years! I remember at the time that I was really disappointed with fusible applique and fusible bias tape - thinking it wasn't stitching!



Now I look at the design, which I think from memory was a full size pattern with words like light violet, medium green on the pieces, I would change a few things. All the fabric was supplied, you just had to cut it out on the pattern. It seems to me that there should have been some integrity with light source, but it is so stylised that it probably doesn't matter.

I added beards to the flowers by satin stitching and then cutting it into tufts.

I need to block it, as for the binding I just turned the backing fabric to the front, which means it is a bit wavy. I quilted the background to look a bit watery, and the border I quilted in random lines and squares. I decided against quilting the leaves and flowers.

It's always interesting to finish a project that you started years before. Your skills have always overtaken the original, and there is a feeling that you can't unpick stuff at this stage, but it doesn't really represent you as you are now. That's also true of finished work from years before - we are always evolving. I guess there must come a time when your older work is better than your current stuff, as you lose eyesight and dexterity. Hopefully that is decades away.

The thing that really puzzles me is why this work did not perish in the warehouse fire in 2002 when most of my things were lost. I must have had it with me while I was house sitting, thinking I would finish it then! Only 8 years too late!

Walk to Nikau Palm Gully

On Monday a friend and I drove to Akaroa for a walk. Akaroa is what remains of a French settlement attempt in 1840ish, and it situated towards the end of an inlet. The inlet was formed in the crater of an extinct volcano, and there is another at Lyttelton harbour, the other end of the Banks Peninsula. I have been over to Akaroa several times over the years, and almost always gone out on the boat trip to see the Hector Dolphins that play around the boat. They are the world's smallest dolphin and very cute.

The weather was stunningly good. Warm, sunny, not much wind, and the sea was the most fabulous turquoise colour.

From Akaroa we drove a few km to a farm hostel, where you park and have to get permission to cross their land. It is a slightly hippy style hostel, with outdoor bath fed from a small tank, which you would probably have to share with a heap of sandflies! The walk goes through 4 paddocks with sheep and cattle. The sheep were lazily lying in the shade and only opened one eye as we passed by. After the farm land, the track follows along the headland, with some gentle ups and downs, for about an hour before becoming a narrower path with leads round two gullies to the nikau palm one. That is the southernmost habitat for nikaus in NZ, because of its microclimate. There is a staircase that goes into the gully, but I found the path too unstable and waited by the first nikau that I saw until my friend had done a recce. We decided to turn round, have lunch and head back. While we were having lunch we could see the Canterbury Cat stopped, and could just make out the splashes of the dolphins. The return trip was uneventful, and some cloud was coming up.

Challenge 40 complete

Once I had chosen my fabrics from my scrap bag, and fused on the steam a seam, this took only about 5 hours to complete. I haven't faced it, as I think I will mat and frame it.

I am quite happy with it, and love the greys and beiges which I normally hate. I also learnt a lot about mixing in unlikely colours, like orange on the green leaves, or bright pink on the red, which I don't normally do. From a distance you can't see them, but they must be adding depth.

What the colours were meant to convey in the ad, I cannot be sure. The black and red might be mobster violence, and of course they were Italian so would need to eat pasta!

Some progress

I have not had time to get down to my FFFC piece this month, but I had a breakthrough as I was taking down my Christmas cards. I select 3 or 4 which are arty or interesting or handpainted by my friends. As it happened, one, which was a reproduction of a painting by Donald Hamilton Fraser called Poinsettia, was exactly the right colours and a still life for the challenge.

I had previously found an ad for Frescarini pasta and wasn't sure how to interpret it.

This will be perfect, but I am not sure whether to do it realistically or semi-abstract. I am leaning towards the semi-abstract. To be honest, I don't want to spend a lot of time on it, but perhaps I need to spend more than I'm willing to at least today.

It was stiflingly hot this morning. I did some gorse spraying, using the newly extended hose and found I could reach a nasty patch of gorse regenerating (not just one plant, but maybe 20), that obviously got missed last year. I had a swim, then I settled indoors for the rest of the day. I cleaned the windows earlier this morning, so I could put up the insect screens and open some windows once the air cooled down. Luckily, now at 5 pm it is cloudy and cooler, and I will go and deadhead roses for a little while.

The other thing I did was make some cream of watercress soup, which I can eat cold. I love that irony taste - it always makes me feel it must be so full of vitamins.

Another New Year

Although New Year is traditionally a time for reflection and goal-setting, I decided on a drive back from Hanmer Springs this morning that I would enjoy the present day and keep my eyes open, and that would be sufficient to accomplish most things.

It was one of those drives that I love in NZ. Fantastic light - this was 9 am to 10.30am on a summer morning. The mountains and rivers were as sharp as the best photograph. The colours were saturated, not bleached out like they get at midday. The weather was calm and so the rivers and irrigation channels were that milky turquoise that I've only ever seen here. The little splashes over rocks were white and sparkling. There was not much bird life in evidence, just a few finches flitting from one side of the road to another. On either side the pastures were green, the grass high enough to hide all but the lying cattle's ears. The sheep newly shorn were radiating reflected light. In the scrubby areas were swathes of 'blue borage' which is not a borage, but a nasty pricky-seeded weed called vipers bugloss. Bees like it, and there is a specific honey collected from it. Pretty enough from a galloping horse, though.

It was good to be home, and it was still enough for spraying, but far too hot. Instead I caught up with some new year emails, phone calls, and had a swim.

Maybe I should have plans, but I am happy with things as they are, right now, and will revel in that.