Still Meandering a Similar Path

I have been sitting on a few drafts this winter. This one originally came about a couple of months after the previous post.

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Folks and teams I support usually don't come out on top in reality TV shows, sports championships, and the like. I didn't hold too much hopes for my fav US VP candidate, the current Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, so I was doubly thrilled when he was chosen. And even though he looks and sounds to be a thoroughly normal, nice guy, he is a seasoned politician, bound to disappoint purists like me at some point. Still, I'm still a fan of sorts, and I started doodling his face mid-August.

I find images on paper easier to draw from, so I printed out a dozen. I imagined his face wouldn't be too difficult until I tried a few blind contours. No, I have to learn it. The learning is still ongoing, and I've started including semi-blind-mixed-with-gesture style, and the more I got used to him, the more I prefer images with a bit of character.

Another thing I learned was drawing from photos are harder compared to drawing from paintings, e.g. the bard, because "it's all there". The styles of paintings I use as models have already been through abstraction by the artists, so I don't have to edit much. While selecting and printing the Gov's photos, thoughts about how I design/play resurfaced. You already heard some of it the last post, but I feel compelled to record from a different angle, not solely focused on weaving but more the way I "think", I think.

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In the early days, I worked either recipe-based or vision-based. Recipe-based meant I found an attractive weaving project in a book or online, adapted it to suit me, and wove. This approach was fairly successful, but unsatisfying. Vision-based approach, (it sounds so grand, doesn't it?) was when I saw a mind-picture of an attractive cloth, (which used to happen rather often,) I worked backwards to built a manageable project. How close the finished cloth was to the original mind-picture varied, but I found this approach more satisfying.

In the days, (brace yourself!) when I was single-handedly trying to elevate handweaving to a Fine Art in New Zealand, (or, questioned why Art exhibitions refused nicely-woven cloths, but accepted tapestries or weird "textile art" with loose ends hanging down,) I spoke to a lot of art teachers from the polytechnic where I worked, many involved in the once famous-in-NZ Nelson Weaving School. One thing they agreed on was "Art" included "intention". I suspected they pictured local potters making 100 of the same mug from how they described a craftsperson's work, (Nelson is/was famous for pottery in NZ,) but I never learned what they meant by "intention". I knew neither of my two approaches included it. 

So I "did" design courses mentioned in the previous post, but also on my own using ideas found in books and the Internet. These were, however, methodical/procedural instructions, and I found no room for "intentions". The only thing I learned was though I didn't find collage useful in designs, "particularly in textile art" as it was repeated to me, I enjoyed it and still occasionally indulge in it.

Believing at the root of my problem was my inability/hesitance to draw, I signed up for figure drawing soon after my 50th birthday. The first six months was filled with self-doubt, self-loathing, and questioning if I'll ever "be good at it." Then suddenly, I was enjoying the act of drawing, results be damned. I always used the largest A1 paper, and drew big. I became used to not looking at the paper, (standing next to a tall easel made it easy,) or using my non-dominant, left hand, because neither allowed me control. In the absence of responsibility, drawing became akin to having my right hemisphere massaged. I was not good at likeness, and Ronette the teacher tried to fix it, erasing my lines or drawing over, but she was full a foot taller, and what she saw was completely different from my own low altitude, so the drawings ended up with cubism-esque weirdness.

Meanwhile, I became more interested in the geometric/graphic possibilities on the loom and forgot about Art vs. Craft.
 

I also become infatuated with mixed media works I found online, and an Aussie friend Carol told me Seth Apter was having workshops in Australia in 2014, so off I went. His workshops were exciting; being with a bunch of Aussie ladies was fun; I met former weaver Hope after communicating with her for eight years. But the most impactful meeting was with Jade, who became an art therapist soon afterwards, and then started the Letter Journal exchange. I attended her two online art therapy sessions, first because I wanted to support her new venture, but later because I became interested in how art therapy worked.

She held two courses, each being four or five sessions. I can't remember what the instructions were, but I remember discovering time and time again the dichotomy within my personality. This might have also been during the year and a half when I suddenly ceased weaving. I didn't have a specific problem I wanted to solve via the therapy, (notice I didn't see not-weaving as a problem,) so I just enjoyed the ride.

We used art supplies to express whatever we wanted to express/represent, so the finished "artwork" was both a means and an end, but its value was what we put in while making the stuff; this was as close to "intention" as I thought I would get. I found these therapy fun, freeing, and rewarding. You've seen some pictures here, here and here. I wished I saved them - I only have the big tree and the pink doll now.

In a way Letter Journal was an extension of this process: I was free to use whatever and do whatever to make a spread anyway I liked without a plan, not knowing where I would end up. On the other hand, it was collaborative, and had weight limits because they needed to be posted, so each spread presented unique problems, and you know I enjoy solving those. LJs were all play, play, play in retrospect.

I must also mention in the early '90s when I took floral arrangement classes, the teacher Mrs Ikeda said it's OK taking pictures of the arrangement, (inexpensive digital cameras were just coming to the market,) but stressed the importance of sketching the finished arrangement. I found it easier than I expected to get in the habit; my sketches weren't accurate, but I learned the characteristics of some of the plants/flowers/stems/leaves, especially the angles in which different parts of the plants connected. She also made us walk away from the arrangement to see it from the distance we might see the arrangements at home. That's when I started doing weird things like getting up on the chair to look at it from above, (I put the tall vases on the floor in our apartment,) or crouch and look from below, (we had a 120cm-tall shelving unit where all flat containers were placed.)

The kind of tricks I get up to when I want to play, have a project, or design these days include:
* Turning things sideways or upside down for closer scruitney;
* Walking away and looking from a distance, or from different angles;
* Thumbnails, rough drawings - I find abstraction difficult but thumbnails allow me to learn which part I'm interested in, or must include;
* Drawing with my left hand;
* Making scale paper models;
* Physical cut/paste, collage, mixed media;
* Abstract/purposeless paint work, often using hands/fingers, kitchen tools, textured things around the house;

* Image manipulation on the computer.

One thing I don't use is a viewfinder. I have a tendency to look close naturally, to focus on details, so it has helped me more to look from a distance and try to see the bigger picture. 

 

The end.