Thursday, August 20, 2009

link love and unrealized visions

It's not every day that a surface designer (gasp! is that what I've been doing?) gets highlighted in three separate places. Humble thanks to the artists who have showcased my work in words and pictures...it's so gratifying to see what someone else makes of my groundwork. That's one of my damasks wrapping around Jude's "Redefining Growth". Arlee Barr continues to work magic with my fabrics and Mendofleur is about to. Lorraine Glessner keeps popping amazing new work into my sight line. I keep coming back to Joshua Brehse paintings and thinking about middle eastern calligraphy. Ever thoughtful Elizabeth Barton has been posting about The Preparatory Sketch (or not ) and the Seduction of the Surface. Both topics are brain worms for me at this fallow moment. Although there is work at hand, these little things are mere wishes, sketches I suppose. Pieces have been coming to me as a vision or dreams and I am so reluctant to even sketch them out. It's as if once committed to paper, the magic evaporates and I'm not even inspired to lift the scissors. The two small things I am working on right now have spawned enormous daydream pieces but I know that the scale of all the fabrics I have been creating just won't translate to ten-pace pieces, the things you have to view from across the room, the ultimate limitation of the seduction of surface that EB talks about so eloquently. I can't speak for what drives others to work at surface design. I certainly don't do it with the intent of building a pallette to work from. I've learned that lesson but I am deeply grateful the other artists who find my efforts to be a jumping off place for their own dreams and visions.

3 comments:

arlee said...

Thanks for those links, Deb. *LOTS* to brain about---i've recently added thinking to the list of things each piece requires in the way of supplies :}

I don't sketch out, planning. A sketch is just a screen capture of the moment and often disappears --it's the fabric that starts the dialogue for me, conversing with a stray thought, and pushing the "have to" button.
For the most part, i find commercial fabrics BORING--and 11tybajillion other people have them--when i use someone else's hand dyed or painted, there's an application of my soul into it as well---and using your own fabrics is pure Miksang

brain time is good, enjoy it as part of the dreams realization :}

Cathy said...

I had a chance to meet Lorraine Glessner (she's the new Fiber Studio head at Peters Valley in NJ) and her recent encaustic work is mesmerizing. On your next trip Up North, you might consider a detour...

jude said...

hey! it is great that your fabrics are traveling around. i noticed phyllis got those dots. i was wondering when i saw them sold. great links here....n=back online after a heat wave, thank for all the new paths....