A Magical White World

I awoke in the dark this morning. Opening the door to let the cat out, I noticed that the ground was white, but not with snow. As the day brightened, the landscape became a dazzling sight: fog's moisture had deposited icy crystals on trees and shrubs and grasses, creating rime ice. The combination of the crystalline branches with the soft fog was very beautiful. 

Grasses were outlined in white, and a tree looked like a soft cloud.

As the sun began to peek through the fog, its glow made the ice glitter.

The delicate white-coated dried ferns are wonderfully contrasted with the circular pattern of green lichen.

Looking closely at the ice, we can see its spiky crystals, changing the character of a rounded dried flower.

Even the spider silk attached to this seed head is covered with rime ice....

....and hydrangea petals have a decorative edge.

A few hours later, at 11:30 AM, the frost has melted from the ground, but remains on shrubs and tall grasses, looking like a mad mix of seasons. Winter has its trials, but only winter can us bring such unusual beauty.

Adventures with Clay: Fun! Amid the Disasters

One, clay (Activa Plus) with egg tempera paint; 7 1/2 x 6 in.

It's happened to me again: another case of restless art syndrome. I have again been inspired to try something new after seeing a show that I loved, in this instance the exhibit "Ancient Egypt Transformed: the Middle Kingdom" at the Met, which I wrote about here. I began to paint on parchment because of seeing "The Hours of Catherine of Cleves" at the Morgan Library in early 2010. Seeing Tantric drawings at the Drawing Center in NYC inspired me to move my textiles from the floor to the wall. Relief sculpture has long interested me, and the stunning work in the current Egyptian show got my head buzzing and my hands wanting to make some low reliefs. I am solely a two-dimensional artist, knowing nothing about working in three dimensions, so I thought I'd try playing with some air dried clay. I tried many different clays, each with their problems for me. The clay above, Activa Plus, seemed the hardest of the air dried clays, but just porous enough to be able to paint, and I do want color in the work. One thing I want to point out is that none of these pieces are "finished"; they are all experiments, playing around, figuring things out. I don't know if anything I do in future will rise above the amateurish, but I enjoy sharing my process.

Two, clay (Amaco air dry); 7 3/4 x 6 1/2 in.

I began by thinking I would use similar imagery to my paintings on parchment, abstracted details of agricultural implements, but then found that I preferred the path of abstraction, closer to the ideas I used for my textile work. At first I've been drawn to rounded forms, probably because of thinking of the figurative aspects of Egyptian reliefs.

Two, painted with egg tempera

This clay was very nice to work with, but dried much too soft and brittle. My little piece is like a broken Egyptian panel, though not thousands of years old. It was very porous, so the paint sank right into it. The other air dried clays I tried were the Crayola product (didn't like working with it); Creative Paperclay, which was fibrous and impossible to cut or model smoothly, as was the Polyform Model Air, though both were a beautiful white. I have another Amaco product on order, an air-hardened clay, which should be tougher than the soft stuff above.

Three, Sculpey; 4 3/4 x 5 in.

And I tried a polymer clay, which was lovely to model with, but I dislike its plastic surface. One of the things I like about this process is the softly irregular surface of clay; it has a lot of character. All these pieces, except the one above, were done from sketches. This one was improvisational; I cut circles using a set of different size cookie cutters.

Four, Sculpey; 7 3/8 x 6 in.

This is the only straight-line geometric composition of this group. I did 3 or 4 others that landed in the trash. I'm not happy with the balance of elements, but thought I'd include it anyway.

Five, porcelain clay; 7 1/4 x 5 1/2 in.

Finally some real clay that has to be fired, delicious to work with. I am very lucky to have a local friend with a ceramics business who's given me a lot of help and advice, and clay and an offer to fire the work I do: thanks so very much, Deborah Jurist of Mountaine Meadows Pottery. I am such a beginner that I had to look up "air bubbles in clay" because I was getting them: I didn't realize I had to either knead or wedge the clay. I do realize that I have to learn to take better photos of these reliefs, maybe using artificial light. I use natural light to shoot all my other work.

Five detail

What I loved most about working on these pieces was line: outline, the line around forms, that could be hard or soft, rounded or crisp, blended or sharp. In Egyptian and Persian reliefs the outlines are sensitive and fluid. In Persian and Indian manuscript paintings the flat forms have an allusive roundness because of elegant lines. I like the challenge of using layers not more than 1/8" thick to describe three dimensional volumes, hoping that line does a lot of the work.

Five with frame; 9 1/2 x 8 in.

My idea with these pieces is to have the image panel sitting within a frame. Being that I still can't control the attachment of parts in terms of dryness and flatness, the frame part of this piece bowed, then cracked when I tried to flatten it. Oh well. I hope I eventually figure it out. Meanwhile, I'll have the image panel fired, hope it doesn't break apart in the kiln, and if it stays whole, I'll try painting it. And hope I can do better next time. I'll be taking a hand building clay class in January, and that should help a lot with my technique issues. But, even with all these problems, I am having a great time with this new medium. 

Ben Nicholson, White Relief, 1934; oil paint on mahogany, 29 x 39 x 1 1/4 in.

This relief by Ben Nicholson is another inspiration for me, a beautifully simple arrangement of geometric shapes that feel so perfectly in balance. I would be very happy if I could do anything approaching this quality of rightness.

Dried Plants: Color, Shape. Pattern

Before the ground is covered with snow I want to celebrate the browns and grays and dirty yellows, the interesting shapes and patterns, of plants whose growing season is over. It's a very different beauty from the greens of spring and summer, but the subtleties I see now have very attractive qualities. The mallow seed heads above are delicately veined and translucent, opening to show the black seeds inside. There's a burst of weathered red, worn and shrunken, of a rose hip.

Thin lines of dried daylily leaves make paths across a granite rock.

The cut-back leaves of Siberian iris are a burnt sienna hue, and have a texture like a head of unruly spiked hair.

There are also tall columns of stately leaves....maybe phlox?

One of my favorite plants––baptisia, or False Indigo––has leaves and seed pods that turn black in the fall.

Some leaves curl upwards, like gently closed hands, showing different colors inside and out.

The dried leaves of the annoyingly invasive Canary reed grass are a bright light ochre at this time of year, and seem to catch light.

Then there are the ferns, whose rich red-browns add a deeper tone to the landscape. Some ferns are a complex tangle....

....and others have simpler, more elegant curves. This dried frond looks especially beautiful alongside the gray-green lichen. Even the dying end of the year has its loveliness.

New Hooked Wool Drawings

2015 #16, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 15 x 12 in.

While working on the designs for this new group of hooked wool drawings, I tried to make each one different in compositional ideas. I don't always do this; sometimes I make a group of related works, such as these based on line; or these, which work as a set. Here, instead, I have a variety of shapes and color, from a composition engaging the entire picture plane....

2015 #17, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 17 1/2 x 17 in.

....to one that is square and centered....

2015 #18, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 17 3/8 x 16 1/2 in. 

....to shapes which climb the surface, grabbing hold of a small circle....

2015 #19, hand dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 19 1/2 x 15 in.

...and finally a split rectangle filled with a circle and smaller rectangle. I did have some funny problems with two of these, with what I described as un-mindfulness to a friend. I was sitting and happily working on 2015 #19, hooking the dark red semi-circle, when I realized, after more than an hour of work, that I was hooking the wool on the wrong side of the circle! There was no salvaging it, so I had to re-cut and re-draw and re-paint the piece of linen. My other mistake was with 2015 #17: I didn't pay attention to how much wool I had in the orange color of the lines; I thought there was enough, but it wasn't even close. So, I hooked a darker color for the large hooked shape (I tend to use my wool leftovers for these pieces, of which I have large piles) but it looked awful. So I had to dye a piece of wool in order to finish; I deliberately made it a lighter color, which worked a lot better than the darker one. Sometimes the work goes smoothly, and other times there are bumps in the road; sometimes the work isn't even salvageable, but happily, in this case, with some do-overs, it all worked out.

Joaquin Torres-Garcia: Painting in Three Dimensions

Aladdin Transformable Toys, ca. 1920; painted wood

In this season of giving thanks I am grateful to the museums and galleries which mount great, and even not so great, shows. I am especially grateful for the joy of discovering art that I love that is new to me. I was thrilled recently while seeing the current exhibition at MoMA, Joaquin Torres-Garcia: The Arcadian Modern. The first thing that caught my eye were painted abstracted figures, and a group of wonderfully fanciful toys!

Grafismo Infinito, 1937; oil on cardboard mounted on wood, 21 1/4 x 33 1/4 in.

Image courtesy Sotheby's

What I'd known of Torres-Garcia's work were paintings such as the one above, which are like complex hieroglyphics, hidden stories of life. He was born in Uruguay in 1874 and died there in 1949, but between those years he lived for many years in Europe, and was active in the avant-garde; he also lived in New York from 1920-22. The toys grew out of his teaching at a progressive school in Barcelona. While in New York, he exhibited his toys at the Whitney Studio Club.

Forms on White Background, 1924; painted wood 

The work by Torres-Garcia that most excited me––work I'd been completely unaware of––were painted wood constructions: simple, lively, sophisticated, playful, beautifully composed and colored.
Many were wood reliefs, painted in subdued colors. The one above was somewhat unusual in the variety of its forms.

Abstract Form, 1929; painted wood

Some of the pieces were free standing, and to my eye, although abstract, related to the figure.

Wood, 1929; oil on wood

This work has a very spare geometry, with beautifully balanced elements, painted in subtly rich hues.

Structure in White and Black, 1930; oil and nails on wood

I so enjoyed seeing the range of Torres-Garcia's ideas for his constructions: this one freestanding, the painted elements making it seem as though it's made of several pieces of wood; but, moving to the back, it's one board, with a shelf. This is an interesting kind of illusionism: making a whole feel like parts put together.

Superimposed Forms, 1931; painted wood

Here a complex layering of forms is made even more lively by the addition of color shapes within each physical shape. It is playful, and serious.

Two Superimposed Forms, 1931; oil and nails on wood

A curved shape atop a rectangular one, this is another work playing lightheartedly with allusions to the figure, an amusing portrait.

Construction with Curved Forms, 1931; oil and nails on wood

Another aspect of these works that makes them so rich is the rough character of the wood, all looking as though it was salvaged from scrap heaps and utterly transformed. There is a lively contrast between the irregular surfaces of the wood and the carefully balanced compositions.

Abstraction, 1932; oil and nails on wood

I love the way the small yellow circle stops the red vertical on its way down. It's a small emphasis within the vertical and horizontal geometry.

Assembled Abstract Forms, 1937; tempera on cardboard

There were many paintings in the show, but the ones that most interested me were those that felt influenced by the wood constructions in their dramatic illusion of form; these were painted after Torres-Garcia returned to Uruguay. This painting feels built to me, sculpted rather than painted.

Abstract Tubular Structure, 1937; mixed media on canvas

This very large painting (perhaps 6 feet wide or more) has a powerful presence. Its masterly construction of closely packed forms gives it a sizzling energy. It references architecture....

Abstract Tubular Structure detail

....and when seen closely, the paint looks like the artist was feeling the solidity of these forms as he worked. You'll notice that the color in my photos is different in the detail and entire painting: I'm not sure which is closer to the actual painting, so I left them a bit different.
This show was very exciting, a real treat, and it's on until February 15.

A New Painting: "Pointed Arch"

Pointed Arch, egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 7 1/2 x 10 in. 

I had to giggle when I began this painting: the shapes were so humorous to me with the outstretched "arms". I begin my paintings quite loosely, in a very painterly fashion, and make them more precise as I work; I thought the tightening up of form would bring more gravity to the image, but it still seems funny to me (though maybe not to you). Which is fine; I like humor in art. The title, Pointed Arch, continues the silliness, because of course this isn't an arch since it's supported at its center.

Pointed Arch detail

Here's a detail of the little lozenge shape that caps the arch, probably hiding the bolt holding the cylindrical parts together.

Pointed Arch detail

I deliberately softened the top edge of the light gray form, so it would settle into the blue; this is different from the sharp dark green edge, which pops that form forward. Although this image is very simple, it is always a balancing act to pull a painting together.

A Walk in the Woods: November's Brilliant Mosses

Today was a beautiful day, and my walk in the woods was a delicious experience: yesterday's rain enhanced the spicy-sweet scent of autumn, and heightened the intensity of  mossy greens.

Nestled amid browns, the bright greens of moss are startling. In spring and summer, when the world is green, the mosses seem more ordinary.

Looking closely, we see varied textures; here, frothy, like an unkempt head of hair.

Along with the greens are the delicate red stalks of fruiting bodies....

....which carry the spores for mossy reproduction.

Here, another kind of moss, a beautiful mound with a different texture, and pointed little green fruiting bodies.

I'm actually not sure what these are, but they're wonderful looking, like Kali, the many-armed goddess, rising a couple of inches above a rock.

Finally, here are two mossy plants that I believe aren't actually mosses, but are clubmosses (I think). They are different from true mosses in that they have a vascular system, meaning stems to carry water and nutrients. They are more "sophisticated" in this than mosses, which lack this system.

But whether mosses or clubmosses, the bright greens amid the browns are heartening. They remind us that life of all kinds continues even though it seems in suspension during late fall and winter.