by Deborah on March 14, 2011
Today the sun was out all day and the temp went above freezing letting our preoccupation with winter lessen for a moment. A day just for the enjoyment of sunlight and dripping. The artist sitting on the loading dock as I walked into the studio described it as the feeling when the itch stops. I made good progress on the water light pieces I am working on. Particularly happy with a layering of pale green, blue, and silky white threads delineating a curve.
Photos didn’t do it justice so I won’t post them, but my eye tells me it did just what I wanted it to do.
by Deborah on March 13, 2011
Mid March in Minneapolis MN & a deep desire to moan about winter rather than work, or look, or appreciate the change in light as the earth tilts. What I want is for the giant piles of snow all around me and my city to melt melt melt melt melt……
by Deborah on March 11, 2011
light moves
I’ve gotten to the additional layer stage of the pieces I am working on. This is the part where I add pieces of paper or fabric . I want randomness as well as intention. I placed islands of textured papers on the cloths but found them too heavy. The next morning I came in and pulled layers off and achieved openings where papers were torn away. I was pleased with what showed up with pieces pared down. Now it’s time to trouble the waters by adding stitching lines as motion using both the paint lines and land =paper shapes as guides.
sewing machine adding waterlines
by Deborah on February 26, 2011
Time to move from observer of gravity and fluid motion to purposeful choice and emphasis. The initial cloths have been painted each has it’s particular curve of light and deeper hues. For me it’s water and it is for me to show you the viewer the water I see. Because this piece is for a particular place I have chosen the materials: the colors of the threads, the papers, and the additional fabrics. Now it is time to look and choose. Layers on teasing out what looks right. What supports the whole what will make it look right. Right comes through my eye, knowing when to say” yes, that” or ” no”.
by Deborah on February 20, 2011
I’m reading a book about the history of the Mississippi River. It begins with the geologic history. My interest and imagination are engaged by a description of an ocean where the great plains are now. The land that will be the Rockies are on the floor of that ocean. Go to a mountain top now and you can find the fossil of a sea creature who lived in that banished ocean. That’s change.
The book is : Immortal River by Calvin R. Fremling
by Deborah on February 10, 2011
Today was the 4th day I’ve spent putting paint on big pieces of stretched wet white cotton. Yesterday I found the right combination of wet cloth and watered fabric paint to pour down the sides then tilt and watch it bleed
and blend the pigments. Its exciting to see the color race into the wet field but the desired final effect requires patience and attention. The motion slows and I watch for the right amount of color and motion and light expressed to stop.
paint allowed to drift into light
There is a place on each one where I thought yes, that’s it! It feels like something I’ve seen.
by Deborah on February 3, 2011
I am starting a new piece today that grew out of a summer evening standing on the Ford Parkway Bridge over the Mississippi River. It was one of those summer evening that you sometimes get but are not guaranteed in our muggy Midwest. It was not hot, not cool, not damp, or dry. The air seemed kind on my skin. I believe it was August because the trees had that reaching to the leaf tip greenness they get at the end of summer. There was a cloud bank on the eastern horizon and I headed to the river to watch the sunset.
I parked on the west bank and walked across the bridge to the east bank then went back to the center. I stood facing north watching the light go by watching the surface of the water. There were greens, blues, grays, and browns that were joined by purple shadows, and pink coppery highlights reflecting the cloud bank absorbing the red light. There were ever changing textures on of the surface of the moving water. The bright tips created by air moving one way the water another danced here then over there. All of it moving, changing, new with every glance from one aspect to another. I stayed watching until the river seemed to consist of variations of murky yet steely grays, blues, & browns. I watched the flow of the river and the ebbing of the light entirely rapt, trying to catch the moment when change happened. But it was just gradual flow. The best I could do was record in my minds eye the moment to moment details my attention is capable of . Then hope to bank them for when I need to call on them to tell me if the thing I am creating has some visual truth. I have been using that experience for more than a year to create the pieces I call River Light and I begin a new one today.
by Deborah on February 3, 2011
It is the middle of a snowy winter. My most dependable source of color are the materials for making art in my studio. But there are the occasional gifts of light and circumstance that give me a visual reward for paying attention. Last week a purge of stacks left a stray crumpled bundle of orange tissue on top of my drawing table in front of my east facing window. I hadn’t noticed it when I”d looked out the window to see the treetops and distant apartment complex go coppery as the sun went down and the light went red. But when I turned back a bit later the sky was going purple blue, the window was darker, & the halogen light directly over the orange paper was now making it glow. Then a visual bonus! A train went past with an orange freight car, then blue, red, and orange again. There was enough red light left in the dimming sky to make the cars glow against the deepening purple blue sky. All of it together was just stunning and it was just there for those moments as the light changed and the train passed. A random bestowal of beauty on the edge of a winter day.
