New Hooked Wool Sketches

2011 #5, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 14 x 13 inches.

2011 #6, hand dyed wool on linen, 12 1/2 x 11 1/4 inches.

Here are my latest hooked sketches, which quickly explore ideas of line, color, and shape. Sometimes I'm inspired by an artwork, for instance #5's thought came from a Tantra drawing. I have pages and pages of small sketches that serve as jumping off points for these works. There is one detail I'd like to point out, in #7 below. I had hooked the two pink vertical lines and the rectangle between them, and found that I wasn't quite happy with the result: the rectangle looked too heavy. So I decided to cut its loops, giving it a different texture and creating a layered relief. I think this works much better. And with #6 I had hooked completely different colors which I found I didn't like at all. I'm not sure if that piece is terribly successful, but it's a lot better than it was. I like being able to make these adjustments, a process more difficult with a standard hooked rug piece, a process closer to making a painting.

2011 #7, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 13 1/2 x 11 1/2 inches.

2011 #8, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 11 1/4 x 14 1/4 inches.

My Old House: The Staircase

To get to the second floor of my house, you have to use the stairs leading from the pantry. In a small cape such as mine, there is no front staircase, only the one tucked away at the back of the house, behind an old door. I am very proud of this door, which is a simple board and batten construction, but look at the width of the board! one solid piece of wood.




I use an antique kitchen tool, which may be a potato masher, as a doorstop.




This old paint on the staircase did not have many modern layers needing to be stripped. The lovely green on the risers seems to be original, with the blue on the paneling painted over the green. Although the paint is worn and scratched, I've left it that way for its sense of time and history.




The view toward the top of the stairs. Notice the top of the beaded paneling:




The tops of the boards were never leveled, and when asked by my contractor if I wanted them cut level with the floor, I said "no". I like their quirky unconcern with convention, or maybe it was laziness on the part of the original builder. Whatever the cause, I saw no reason for change.




With this closer view of a tread, you can see the history of many feet climbing the stairs. The wood is worn till harder knots stand above the surface; the paint on the riser is gone from toes kicking it. There is a sense of lives past embedded in this old staircase.


*I hope you're enjoying this tour through my house. To see the previous rooms shown go to:
The (Tiny) Front Hall
The Living Room
The Guest Bedroom
The Back Room/Office
The Mudroom
The Kitchen
The Pantry

A New Painting: "Spiral"

Spiral, egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 4 1/2 x 5 3/4 inches.

As I work on this series of small paintings, I have been exploring approaches to picture making that are familiar to abstract painters but new for me. Instead of thinking of the representation of a particular object in a specific light, I am trying to use value, hue, shape to bring a composition to a convincing balance. I realize that the work still looks "realistic" but my feeling during the painting process has shifted slightly. In this painting I changed the hue of the greens, invented the color of the spiral, left out some unnecessary detail at the bottom, and added a dark rectangle at the lower right. I would like the painting to be its own world, solid, complete, with no need of outside reference.

A Sign of Spring: Onion Seedlings

There is something new and green growing in my house. Tiny seedlings of onions and leeks are poking their folded threads above the soil, which then unfurl and delicately nod tiny black seeds.




I start them early in the season planted thickly in 8 inch pots, kept moist until germination by the improvised greenhouse of a plastic bag.




And here they will grow, under the lights of a plant stand, later to be joined by parsley, then vegetables such as peppers and eggplant, tomatoes and brassicas, melons and squashes. In the deep of winter, spring is announcing its promise.

A New Textile: "Pale Pink/Yellow Ground"

The color pink has been in the air lately, with people online writing about its challenges; see, for instance this post at the P Farrell Artblog, a call for art using the color pink and eliciting a huge variety of responses. So I decided to try a light pink and yellow for this fourth piece in my figure/ground series. I added a touch of the yellow to the pink to reduce its intensity somewhat, because a bright light pink will tend to take over. When I first did the sketch for this piece, the points of the triangles at top were more aligned, giving the pink shape more of the look of a vessel. I thought this would make that shape too prominent, so I lowered the right triangle, making it move more aggressively into the pink. I think the shapes are fairly evenly balanced, so that your eye moves from the yellow shapes to the pink and back and forth, without either taking center stage, but maybe to you the balance is not quite as successful. As always, you can let me know.




Above is a detail of the piece, and below the four completed works in the figure/ground series. Looking at them together, I think the Red/Blue triangles are most successful in the back and forth vying for attention, but this may be because all the shapes are triangular, making it easier for them to share the space. I'm going to leave this series for now to work on other ideas, but I will come back to it, as I find the concept both fun and challenging.

Winter Light: Knobs and Handles

A tracery of shadow on the green wall of my bedroom balances the larger form of porcelain fixture and its dangling switch. Sharp light encourages me to notice details often overlooked, like the twist of old cloth, poignantly worn, wrapped around the hanging chain.




An old porcelain knob, with a centered screw, is the handle which opens a closet door.




The old kitchen hutch has nautical brass latches and a wooden door pull.




This beautifully formed handle, touched with blue paint, is on a large antique crock which now holds dried marjoram.




Here is an old repair on an original door latch in my kitchen. The keeper must have broken, so a piece of wire was used to hold the latch. I find evidence of this thrifty care so very touching, and I love the sense of time and history it brings to my surroundings.

Geometric Abstraction: Toward the Essential

Kazimir Malevich, Plane in Rotation, called Black Circle, 1915, oil on canvas, 31 1/8 x 31 1/8 inches

A black circle painted on a white ground. It is hard to imagine, nearly one hundred years later, how Kazimir Malevich came to paint such radical non-objective paintings. With no reference to the visual world, we are confronted with the fact of the painting, an object of contemplation and intellectual and spiritual striving. Malevich described his new movement of Suprematism as "that end and beginning where sensations are uncovered, where art emerges 'as such' ". In this, he was aiming for a philosophical approach to the 'real'. Although Kant writes that we cannot know reality 'in itself', it seems to me that Malevich was searching for a means to express a bedrock reality, apart from pure visual sensation. It is this search for essential form and clarity that is so compelling to me and makes geometric/minimalist/reductive painting such an inspiration.

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, A XI, 1923, oil on canvas, 52 x 45

Another center of 20th century innovation was the Bauhaus, where Moholy-Nagy was an important teacher. His photography was ground breaking, but he also was a terrific painter, using some of the geometric ideas of the Suprematists. In this painting he brings in subtle transparencies, as planes float above one another, their direction marked by a cross.

Theo van Doesburg, Counter Composition V, 1924, 39.37 x 39.37 inches

I was not very familiar with the work of van Doesburg, a founder of the movement De Stijl in 1917 along with Mondrian, which emphasized simple non-objective form and the use of primary color. As I found more of his work online, I became more and more excited by it. He painted some diagonal compositions, which add a dynamism to the simple shapes, but it is rumored that this aesthetic decision led to a break with Mondrian, who never accepted diagonals. I love this painting, with its large red square cut off at top, and its balance of bright color and gray, truncated rectangles and triangles.

Piet Mondrian, Composition with Blue, Yellow and Red, 1927, oil on canvas.

I saw this painting last year at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and was incredibly moved by it, finding it one of the most beautiful Mondrians I'd ever seen. It was that large empty square, painted with careful attention and grace, that pulled me in to an act of deep reflection, an experience of art 'as such' as Malevich described it. It was both deep and flat, empty yet full, a minimal expression full of thought and feeling.

Ellsworth Kelly, Purple and Orange, from the series "Line Form Color", 1951, ink on paper and gouache on paper, 7 1/2 x 8 inches.

When I was looking up Ellsworth Kelly on the MoMA website, I found a series of works on paper that made me literally feel itchy with excitement and so very, very happy. Kelly is a great favorite of mine, and these early works are such a perfect balance of line, color, and shape, with each being a little surprise. I would have liked to have posted a number of them, but do go take a look.

Blinky Palermo, 4 Prototypes, 1970, screenprint, 23 5/8 x 23 5/8 inches (each sheet).

The first time I saw a work by Blinky Palermo, the unfortunately short-lived German artist, was in a gallery on 57th Street in the 1980s and it was this set of prints. The forms are elemental, but at the same time alive with a quirky vision and a sense of off-handedness. It was love at first sight, and the more I've seen of Palermo's work, the more I admire his offbeat approach to essential form.

Anonymous, Untitled, 1997, Jaipur, India. Gouache, watercolor, tempera on paper, 13 x 10"

If you did not know the purpose of the above drawing, you could easily see it as a Suprematist work with its simple geometric shapes. But it is a work done for the purpose of meditation in the Tantric Hindu tradition. I first saw a number of these drawings at the Drawing Center in NYC a few years ago and was so thrilled by their modest beauty, that they were the prime inspiration for me to begin to make textiles as art works, which I wrote about in this blog post.

So when I sat in my rocking chair looking at this blank parchment panel, I thought of the weight, the clarity, the emotional resonance of reductive art. The empty panel seemed to have a life of its own, a presence in the world, which was telling me "make it simple, make it real".

My Old House: The (Tiny) Front Hall

Between the living room and the kitchen, in the center of my house, is the front door opening to a small––around 5 by 6 foot––hall. In a larger cape style house, this hall would also contain the staircase leading to the second floor; in a small cape like mine, the staircase rises from the pantry. The hand-planed beaded panel walls became a mottled white after stripping layers of paint. This narrow primitive table, displaying some favorite objects, is the only piece of furniture that fits in the space. Above it, a railing that likely had been used to hold coats, now displays dried flowers.




The coat rail continues on the wall adjoining the living room, and I do use this one for some light jackets and sweaters, while other outerwear is kept in the mudroom. My textile Five Plus Five is hanging with one panel a horizontal and the other vertical.




The old raised panel door is a substantial one, and has three divided lights above it, with the original old glass, full of ripples and bubbles. It's never used in winter and is kept closed with that little wooden toggle.




When electricity was brought to the house, probably in the 1950s, there was a problem running wire on paneled walls. The solution was to nail a board on top of the wire to protect it.



I hung the piece Lunette above the dried flowers, but what I wanted to point out in this photo is that there's a door behind the hooked rug; you can see the hinges on the left. This door would have opened into the fireplace area, so maybe it was a warming cupboard. If any readers know the purpose this cupboard had, I would love to know, though I enjoy the mysterious traces of past use that I find around the house.

*I hope you're enjoying this tour through my house. To see the previous rooms shown go to:
The Living Room
The Guest Bedroom
The Back Room/Office
The Mudroom
The Kitchen
The Pantry

A New Painting: "Toothed Circle"

Toothed Circle, egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 4 3/4 x 7 inches.

A circle and a rectangle are the main players in this painting's drama: a circle catching light alongside a deeply shadowed space. I used the insight on mixing color gained from my last painting Yellow Folds to layer colors until I had an illusion of a space receding into fathomless dark. One big question for myself as I worked on the painting was about the cotter pin at the center of the circle. I put it in, then painted it out, then brought it back as I decided that I liked the little dance it performed, making the image less solemn. Let me know what you think; I can always take it out again.

Potatoes and Onions: Two Recipes

The ordinary, lowly potato may be my favorite vegetable; it is delicious prepared in so many different ways and is always good for a last minute meal. And paired with onions they are heavenly. Of course I grow my own potatoes, and hard as it is to believe, the flavor of home grown is far superior to that of conventionally grown spuds. The variety you see above are my favorite, Carola, a yellow fleshed potato, good cooked in so many different ways. My favorite boiled potato is French Fingerling, and early potato Red Norland. I used Carolas for the two recipes that follow, though you can use any good potatoes for soup and a roasting potato for that recipe. They are both simple and easy to prepare, because those are the only recipes I tend to use. The previous potato recipes I've posted are Potato-Sorrel Soup, Kale and Potato Soup, and Potatoes and Arugula Soup; you can see I love soups.




Potage Parmentier (Leek or Onion and Potato Soup)

This recipe comes from Julia Child's French Chef Cookbook and is quick, easy, delicious and comforting.

3 to 4 cups peeled potatoes, sliced or diced
3 cups thinly sliced leeks or yellow onions (I use onions for this soup)
6 cups water (the recipe calls for 8 cups, but I like a thicker soup, so use more water for a thinner consistency)
1 Tb salt
1/3 cup heavy cream or 2-3 Tbs butter for final enrichment
2-3 Tbs minced parsley or chives for garnish

1. Simmer the vegetables, water and salt together, partially covered for 40-50 minutes until vegetables are tender.
2. Mash the vegetables in the soup pot or put through a food mill. I simply use a potato masher. Taste for seasoning.
   
3. Remove from heat and add the cream or butter. I much prefer using cream.
4. Garnish with herbs (as you can see, I have no herbs in the house, so go without, and that's fine.)

serves 6-8



Roasted Balsamic Potatoes and Onions

This wonderful roast potato recipe comes from Potatoes: A Country Garden Cookbook. I love the flavor that the balsamic vinegar gives the vegetables, and they come out of the oven looking so richly colored.

1/4 cup olive oil
2 lbs potatoes, cut into 1 inch chunks
1 lb onions, cut into 3/4 inch wedges
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 Tbs fresh thyme or 1 teas dried
1/2 teas salt or to taste
1/4 teas freshly ground pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 400º F.
2. Put potatoes and onions in a large pan, pour oil on them and toss to cover well.
3. Roast for 30 minutes.
4. Raise heat to 450º, add remaining ingredients and toss thoroughly. Continue to roast for an additional 30-40 minutes until vegetables are browned and potatoes crisp on the edges.

serves 4

A New Textile: "Red/Blue Ground"

Red/Blue Ground, hand dyed wool on linen, 11 x 10 inches.

This piece, of triangles coming to an off-centered point, is the third in my series of figure/ground images, after Purple/Green Ground and Pink/Yellow Ground. My goal is to have the color-shapes have equal weight so that none take priority as positive or recede as negative space. I feel very happy about Red/Blue because when I look at it, the triangles push forward and back, first the blue taking precedence, then the red, in an active visual dance. I had a bit of trouble balancing the color because at first the top red shape was too cool in color and the intense blue took over. I pulled out some of the strips of red wool and replaced them with strips of a lighter and warmer red from the end of the piece of dyed wool. You can see how they add some life to the red, which helps it counteract the intensity of the blue.

I also like the way the two red points meet, and the blue almost, but not quite. It creates an interesting tension that almost flips into narrative.

Preparing Painting Panels

I spent most of the day today preparing a batch of panels for painting. I find it most efficient to make 6 or 7 at a time, a low tech assembly line. I've had this small table saw in the studio for years, rarely using it, but with this current body of work it's become essential. Since I like to adjust the size of the images I'm going to paint until the last moment, it's easiest for me to cut the panels myself. A few months ago when I showed a knowledgeable friend how I was using the saw, she was appalled. I really had no idea of proper technique, so got an invaluable table saw lesson from my friend and contractor and now I feel moderately comfortable using it. And, my panels are fairly square!




I use 1/2 inch birch plywood for the panels. Here's a 4 x 8 sheet cut up into manageable pieces, with my goggles, which I always wear while using the saw, and a view facing west to the snowy landscape.




I work from photographs and figure out the sizes of the images on my computer screen, then print them out to see if they work. Sometimes I make them bigger, sometimes smaller. I use the color photo to give me a clue as to color, which I then change and adjust. This is why I prefer to look to a black and white image for information.

To see the process of stretching parchment over the panel, go to this post, in which I show, step by step, putting acid-free paper on the panel and then stretching the calfskin.




Here are two calfskins that I will use for the panels. I've already cut some parchment from the top one. They have a luscious smooth surface, which I fell madly in love with when I first painted on parchment. I buy it from Pergamena, in the Hudson River Valley of New York. Their skins are locally sourced and they are wonderful to deal with.




My final step in preparing the panels is to glue a piece of flat wood molding to the back and drilling a hole for a nail. It took me a little while to figure out how to display these tiny paintings; I prefer my paintings unframed and this bit of wood allows the panel to float a little off the wall. Now I am ready for the next few weeks of painting.

On A Brief Walk

On a walk this morning through mild air and wan sunlight, I saw the baskets of dried Queen Anne's lace holding small mounds of snow as if in a cupped hand; raised to the light, the flakes of snow glistened. I looked from near to far and saw a beautiful world of snow and branch, hill and field, and felt full of deep happiness and gratitude, touched to tears. I would like to share a quote from William James that expresses something of my feeling:

To be rapt with satisfied attention, like Whitman, to the spectacle of the world's presence, is one way, and the most fundamental way, of confessing one's sense of its unfathomable significance and importance.

Winter Light: Teacups

The light that flowed one morning across the items ranged on the shelves of the hutch illuminated only partially, the rest of the form sank back into shadows. The effect was like 17th century Dutch or Spanish still life. So I decided to photograph some of my collection of teacups, gathered over the years because of their charm and for use in still life photography. What is it about a teacup that is so evocative? is it their fragility, their reminder of comfort?




This cup was a gift from a friend, an old lusterware cup and saucer with marvelously inventive houses like nothing seen in the real world.






The two cups above, along with the lusterware teacup, do not have handles. I was told by an antiques dealer that it meant they had some age, as handles were a later introduction. I'm particularly fond of the delicate painting of leaf and flower.




And to end, two modern cups, mass produced, likely for the restaurant industry, and maybe not even teacups. But I love their rounded handles like little ears sticking out from their sides, inviting hands, fingers, to lift the cup, and lips to taste.