I’ve been contemplating space in relationship to the artist. Is that what really what I’ve been doing all this time? Yes. Well. Yes. I suppose it has a something to do with not having a designated space to work for the past two years. I tend to float when this happens. This is a choice that I made. It isn’t that I feel deprived of a proper studio. ‘ve been sort of willingly and pleasantly adrift in a sea of ideas and inspiration with no particular place to manifest. I realized just recently that I had not deconstructed and vacated The Crow’s Nest as well as I could have and that I have unfinished business there. I’m not sure where to begin connecting the dots so I’ll go back to one relevant point in time, eleven years ago.

The photographs in this article are from an installation by artist Fumio Tachibana. The photographer is Yasuhide Kuge. This exhibition was the first time I had consciously experienced the artist, his inspiration, materials, work, and working space as inseparable. Tachibana is someone who has mastered the art of evocation. The re-purposing and re-imagining of “fragments” woven or arranged into a new whole is a important concept in my own work.

His subject is Clara, a fashion institute for western style dressmaking in Japan, founded and run by Motoko and Shiro Koike in 1923. They also published a fashion magazine called Yosai Shunju. The building was demolished and the magazine banned during World War 2 in 1944. I’ll take a wild guess that anything to do with western culture was not at all popular in Japan during that time. Motoko revived the institute as a classroom studio in the 1950s. When the studio was dismantled, Fumio Tachibana collected and reorganized the fragments of Motoko’s work and materials (drawings, sketches, dressmaking patterns, postwar Japanese handbills, wrapping paper, silk thread, and printing equipment) into a large scale installation of new artworks and arrangements in their own space so that the classroom itself was part of the work. There is something powerful going on here in that Motoko’s presence is strongly felt in the photographs.

Source: Communion W, 2001 Curator: Can Wong

Found and constructed objects. Charms for making, to keep the connection between hand and heart, to inspire a light touch and unburdened memory, a simultaneously focused and detached response to a wild flow of ideas and an overwhelming abundance of materials. Finishing a work of art is all about letting go.

Patin’d silver metal bezel and chain and vintage charm. The image is a hand painted paper tile is an original work of art comprised of vintage paper, ink, and oil paint glaze to resemble the palimpsest of illuminated manuscripts.

Never say never. I proclaimed the last rose of autumn and suddenly my garden exploded with new flowers late into the season surviving two nor’easters. They did not, however, all survive the rabbits who indulged in a rose petal feast early this morning. I can’t complain. The garden is beautiful even as it fades and ah…comes back and then fades again.

Sometimes we have to say goodbye though. I said farewell and all that to one of my favorite works titled Rabbit, pictured in a new frame chosen to match a lovely new home. This has been a running theme for the past few weeks. I wonder if the “rabbits” are trying to tell me something.

The fiery flowers of pineapple sage, young radishes in a driftwood bed, one last rose before winter, the sun shed at sunset, and an alchemical androgyne.

The Divine Hermaphrodite

Various experiments and works in progress. Larger images are available on Flickr. Just click on the pictures.

It seems that amulets and talismans are in the ethers lately, which makes perfect sense. It’s the times. These times are strange aren’t they? This is my experiment in jewelry making with tiny versions of my paintings as the jewel. They are one half inch to one inch square original works (not prints) that I have made into charms and pendants.

This ouroboros intrigues me. I admire the mischievous look in his eye.  The others are under 8mm teeny tiny mixed media paintings set in sterling silver bezels. This was fun to do.

In 79 AD, the Roman city of Pompeii was completely buried in ash by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, then completely forgotten until it was rediscovered in the mid-18th Century. Many of its citizens attempted to flee but few made it.

This image is a fanciful telling of a fugitive from Pompeii who dove into the sea and was changed by Neptune into an octopus. He now drifts in the depths, dreaming of his former life.

There is no ink on this one…unless he squirts you.

Columbia University Press has just released a book called “Stalking the Subject: Modernism and the Animal” by Carrie Rohman. The cover was designed by Milenda Nan Ok Lee, incorporating the miniature painting “Pisces Logic” into the illustration. Here is the Columbia University Press link to the book.

This is another experiment with working dry. I “painted” the surface with composted endpapers by ripping it strategically and hand-stitching it to linen. Then I drew on the paper (ink, pastel, crayon, pencil) and embellished it with embroidery.

I finally made it to Provincetown after three years of living just on the other side of the Cape Cod Bay. Even though I can see it from our landing, it’s a long drive around the tip of the Cape and it would be an even longer swim. I forgot to take pictures until we passed this amazing garden on our way home. The Ganesha caught my eye. I always forget to take pictures. Oh well. It’s a reason to go back. The other reason to go back soon is that I found an entire gallery of antique Indian art with hundreds of miniatures and yantras.

The garden gate.

The front entrance gate.

Long shot and close-up of the wizard sculpture.

An eclectic stone wall surrounds the property so I couldn’t see most of it.

I’ve been out and about more than usual lately. C.P. and I finally made it up to Salem to see the Joseph Cornell exhibition. To put it diplomatically, the choice of lighting and display were interesting. It’s Joseph Cornell though. I had to see it and the sheer size of the show made it worth the trip. There were a number of small paintings and collages from private collections that are rarely seen not that I could actually see them. Note to curator. Please turn on the lights next time. It would also be nice to be able to view all sides of the work since it is actually three-dimensional but I’d have settled for the front view. Lights? Please? I guess the person who designed this show thought showing shadow boxes required low lighting. It wasn’t the best choice.

We also visited the Fogg and Sackler museums. I had sort of forgotten about them. The collections are small, diverse, and selective. The lighting and display are exquisite. I was reprimanded for taking notes in my notebook with a pen instead of a pencil.

“We can no longer physically read the book, so in that way it is made redundant; and yet on another level it has taken on a new life and is telling a different story.”

This is from the artist statement for Su Blackwell. These are called book cut sculptures. I found the link through Blue Tea and I’ve never seen anything like them. It was fascinating to read Su Blackwell’s description of her process and how it relates to my own work with books and manuscripts, even though our results are so different. It’s nice to find another book pirate who loves the alchemical transformation of pages into artifacts as much as I do. She also uses mythic and storybook themes in her work.

“The wear on my books, as physical objects, holds their history and makes my relationship with their contents immediate and visceral. The books I carry when I travel get stained and frayed, and the damage tells a story. I love second-hand books that have been marked up with pencil because I can see what was important to the person who read it before me.”

The installations of Jennifer Angus gives new meaning to the expression “fly on the wall”. I find this work aesthetically pleasing but I really don’t know how I feel about it, which is part of the reason it fascinates me. I think there are several elements combined here that are interesting; perception shifts using displaced natural elements and the ability to rearrange space in an evocative manner. Insects are simultaneously beautiful and terrible, alien and familiar. These exhibits also shift me a little sideways and that is always a welcome if disconcerting experience.

“Western culture in particular has a certain hysteria when it comes to insects. They are symbols of dirtiness, disease and decay. In other cultures, insects hold religious significance or at least a measure of respect, be they food, medicine, embellishment or pets. ” – Jennifer Angus, Artist’s Statement

“I am an ant wrangler. And ants are, as we all know, tireless workers. So if you get a project that they can do, they’ll do it. And there’s no questions asked. No unions. I had ants in my kitchen, and they are little, small what they call I think sugar ants, but they are coming in I think for water. I made a small head of cheese and turkey. I put a ball of cheese and turkey together and then cased it with clay, and mounted it on a small coathanger. I made an opening in the mouth, I exposed some turkey in the eye and in the ears. Now the ants found the coathanger, began climbing in for four days and nights non-stop and emptied the entire head of turkey and cheese.” – David Lynch