M3_P7 Term 4 Wk2 (19 - 25 Oct)

 Materials - cotton yarn, paper pulp from plant fibres, wooden frame, panel pins 

STUDIO PRACTICE:

Process - I had been researching artist's who use paper slurry/pulp for their art/installations and was very inspired by Jennifer Davies' work. I've been thinking of ways to explore using the pulp slurry so conjured up the idea of making a grid using a frame. The randomly-spaced panel pins (no perfectionism here!) provided a support for winding the cotton around, weaving back and forth to create a grid. The frame was then dipped into the pulp slurry and left on a flat surface to drain and dry. I repeated the process with a second frame.

The next day revealed textural peaks on the underside where the slurry dripped and dried.

I found it intriguing that, as I cut the cotton yarn, I was able to pull the length of thread from the dried pulp. Unfortunately the paper grid was a little damaged in removing it from the frame so if I repeated the process I could remove the panel pins to keep the edge better intact.

Process - Heated the wax over hot water until melted but realised the shape of the grid (square) wouldn't fit in the bucket (round) - story of my life! So went on the hunt for a suitable vessel to place the paper grid in and remembered I'd bought an oblong foil roasting tray for such a time as this. Problem number #346,789,001 - I didn't have sufficient wax for dipping, so had to pour it instead. Didn't like the clumping of the wax so much - it looked messy? which is ridiculous as the wax pooled WHERE it was poured as it cooled!

This led to the decision to cut the paper grid/s into smaller sections in order to dip as opposed to pouring. I decided to divide the wax into two buckets and add red to one thus altering the colour and enjoyed observing the layering of the two wax colours. A reflection of changes to gender roles maybe? My son thought the red resembled coral. Interesting how we interpret things differently.

Red wax detail

Above: Red coral from the China Sea

This piece measures almost 2 metres wide and it was difficult to find a space large enough to photograph it - I'm yet to take an "after waxing" picture.

My concept of creating undulations using corrugated iron as mold failed. The interlacing structure allowed for movement when lifted loosing shape as a result. 

Y fronts or v-strings?

No purpose or intention - just playing.

Enjoying the textures created by pressing, wiping and lifting.

M3:P7 Term 4 Wk1(12 - 19 Oct '20)

 13/10/2020

Jennifer Davies has always been attracted to all forms of fiber, especially paper.  She says, "Creating with paper feels like dancing with a partner, the material itself leading me through a series of new steps.  I start with an idea but give myself over to a process that is intuitive, and at the best of times, playful."

She is inspired by nature – cracked rock walls, delicate spider webs, and the phases of the moon – are all forms and patterns she uses as sources.  Along with image references she wants her work to have a strong physical presence that expands into multiple associations.

Jennifer likes to push paper to extremes by folding, twisting, and dyeing it for long periods of time in buckets.  she enjoys unplanned consequences and end up with paper that looks aged, and highly textured.  The sheets are then layered into works that suggest aerial views, or maps, or the surface of the earth.

She also makes her own Japanese paper and is interested in the different characteristic of pulps.  Some are coarse and thick, some creamy and smooth, some shrink dramatically when dry.  After the long process of cooking, cleaning, and beating the mulberry branches, a fluffy long fibered pulp results.  She dips weavings into the slurry of pulp and water to make lacy nets, or use it more traditionally for sheet forming. 

Through the exposure to Asian materials, Jennifer has gravitated toward Japanese fiber traditions, with the emphasis on natural color and strong materiality.  She often uses the scroll format and employs stitching, weaving, and wrapping techniques that allows her to bridge the gap between craft traditions and those of fine art.

Some examples of her works:

Kozo Paper

Featured snippet from the web

Kozo (Mulberry) bark is used in the majority of washi today. Kozo became a cultivated plant used especially for paper and cloth making. With long fibers, 100% Kozo papers are strong and durable, used commonly in conservation & repair, woodblock and other printmaking.

                                         

Anna Wagner-Ott

Sculptural Assemblages and Under the Covers

Sewing, knitting and crocheting skills have been transmitted from grandmothers to mothers and then to daughters for centuries. Hundreds of squares stitched into coverings have kept multiple families safe and warm. Over time, as those blankets were constantly being used, they have slowly faded and disintegrated, their beauty becoming closely related to history and time.

I learned my sewing skills from my mother and other female quilt makers. In 2016, I returned to creating sewn blocks of threads on my sewing machine and connecting them to form weavings reminiscent assemblages. Coming full circle with the act of sewing and weaving, choosing the colours and stitching intricate fragments has become a meditative, exhilarating and mesmerizing process. I bind fabrics, tie threads and paint the surfaces to simulate decomposing surfaces. I sometimes use hot pigmented wax so that the segments become enhanced, hardened and protected, a form of mummification.

The “Under the Covers” assemblages are created on a simple wooden frame loom. The hand made look is important for these new works. Similar to the intent for the “Interlaced Series” I wanted to be able to vary the weaving in its open and closed areas and the actual creation of the the segments has become a meditative process.

My focus is not about the materiality and the beauty of weavings as a covering but about feelings when being trapped under different forms of coverings. At times my weavings contain tight threaded links that are stiff, unyielding and no longer representing a safe and warm place to hide under. Then at other times the segments are so dense that little light can penetrate. A symbiotic relationships between yarns, colors, patterns, textures, light and shadows.

While creating this series of works, I try to connect to the pain of loss and insecurity, to the covering up of truths, to the inherent vulnerability of life and death, to disintegration and impermanence, but also to sparks of beauty often found in the processes of change and fading away. My continually trying to hold together pieces of my experiences that I have lost.  I build up my weavings and often destroy them - in one way the reconstruction of my psyche - a destroying and reclaiming of myself.

Interlaced Narrative

From the lakeside studio I am drawn into nature and inspired. Such beauty, light, and wonder leave me humbled. And yet, as I take the inspiration of the landscape and begin to paint, it is not simple beauty that emerges. My act of painting pushes me beyond the lovely, the easy. Just as nature destroys itself to be reborn, my work undergoes a similar natural process of evolution, death, and rebirth.

I begin painting a background that has been influenced by the marvel of nature such as the shining sunset reflecting in the water or billowing clouds moving across the sky. Once the background painting is completed I begin to disrupt that cherished image of a memory by meticulously painting lines into a woven textile covering. At times the intersecting lines are painted tightly forcing viewers to stay on the outside and barely able to see the landscape underneath. The covering suffocates the land and it can not breathe. Then in another painting the web splits open to larger passageways, the background comes to the foreground, (a play between positive and negative) and one can see larger vistas of what lies beneath. While immersing myself in painting I think about whether barriers act to protect or keep us isolated, or whether coverings keep us warm, safe, hidden or become suffocating? The work has evolved into a complex dialogue surrounding identity in relation to physical and psychological barriers.

Detritus
My detritus series focuses on the beauty which lies between the symbiotic process of birth and death. During my walks in the forest I take photos of fragments of silver-green lichens and blue mosses on tree barks, or decaying plants along the forest floor. Back in the studio I use those photographs as inspiration. My painting process is complex and involves many steps from constructing woven cotton thread-like grids that I create on a sewing machine and then burying them in hot wax and pulling them out before the wax cools. My goal is to combine paint, threads and wax to simulate the process of the disintegration of life forms.

Aimee lee  is an artist, papermaker, writer, and the leading hanji researcher and practitioner in North America. Her Fulbright research on Korean paper led to her award-winning book Hanji Unfurled (The Legacy Press) and the first US hanji studio in Cleveland. Through hand papermaking I ask what connects us as humans and how we live among others. In a water and cellulose centered process, I work in changing seasons and far-flung locations with plants and materials at hand. From each unique batch of paper, I make books, hangings, sculptures, installations, or whatever the paper needs to become. Often I tear apart my paper to reconstruct it because fragments provide more fruitful challenges than perfect sheets.

I source materials and techniques from my Korean heritage, though my interest in plants, colors, and traditions derives from global fiber methods. Through artists’ books, I began to make paper and fell in love with the constant motion of water, the ecologically sound process of manufacture, and the variety of wild materials I could source. When I studied papermaking history, I noticed a gap when it came to Korean paper—hanji—and decided to fill it.

During my fieldwork in Korea I discovered more than paper. I learned to make, fuse, texture, cord, weave, and dye hanji. In the mountains, I harvested wild Korean mulberry trees to extract their long fibers. These strands became luminous paper with a history of becoming objects for survival, ritual, and pleasure. I create contemporary versions, like a garment patched from scraps, a woven bird inspired by wedding ducks, or a commonplace book with multiple narrators, excavating my entire heritage to reveal cultures and stories we rarely see or read.

STUDIO PRACTICE:

The white shirt was placed folded in the wax. Once removed it was placed on a flat surface to allow the wax to pool but I decided to use my heat gun to reheat the wax and allowing it to run down the folded shirt in a 45 deg angle instead. I prefer the dripping to the pooling effect for some reason.

                                                 This time I pulled the shirt from the wax and slipped it onto the hanger allowing the wax to drip as it was suspended.

This shirt has been draped over the corner of a chair. The base of the shirt has responded to the flatness of the floor. Loving how the shirt stands upright in the most abnormal way!

Still fluffing around with this scarf - decided to revisit the draping over the corner of a chair and allowing the wax to trickle down creating the lovely rivulets.

This required a certain amount of bravery as I felt it was sacrilege to to the books! So what was I thinking and why did I do this? For me, books are (WERE) one the means of information but with the changes in technology (and the continued development of the feminist movement) they are slowly becoming a thing of the past - a little like our traditional roles in society.

Playing around with props like the random road cones that have made their way onto my front lawn (my son!)

Rope; definition - a group of yarns, plies, fibers or strands that are twisted or braided together into a larger and stronger form. Ropes have tensile strength and so can be used for dragging and lifting. Rope is thicker and stronger than similarly constructed cord, string, and twine.

Rope was something my Dad always had in the garage, it come with us on holiday - it was something considered important for survival in the event of a natural disaster. It can be used in bush craft, shelter-building, towing/dragging and hunting. I guess I view rope as a "man's tool" for that reason.

The irony is, the very tool that is used in survival is also used to take life. New Zealand has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Suicide rates for men are more than twice as high as for women, the social layers worst affected are the most oppressed sections of the working class.

This might be controversial but I'm sharing it anyway... I have danced with suicide and mental health disorders so have empathy/understanding for those who struggle with life/being in this world.

Museums and art galleries are both a mirror and a record of human experience. Human experiences are not neat and tidy. In fact, they can be complicated, full of controversy and a reflection of society. 

M1_Process: Week 8 (18-24 June)

What is the definition of Contrast in Art?

Contrast is one of the main principles of art defined by art historians and critics. It is a strategy used by an artist to break up a work of art, and alter or even shatter its unity by inserting variation. In many ways, contrast is the opposite of the element of unity, in that it commands the viewer's attention by sheer force of its differences. 

Art historians and critics regularly include contrast as a main principle of art, although often in a number of different ways. Contrast is known by a range of terms, such as variety or variation, difference, unevenness, individuality, and novelty.

Contrast Paired with Unity

Contrast can be a matter of arranging opposite elements (light versus dark, rough versus smooth, large versus small), when the artist is working specifically to echo and repeat different levels of unity. In such artwork, contrasts can be paired colors which are chromatic opposites: in a work strictly adhering to unity those colors would be complementary. When the artist uses contrasting paired shapes such as two circles of different sizes, or a triangle and a star of the same size, contrast can be seen as opposite but partnered with the element of unity. 

One example of the kind of contrast that works hand and hand with unity is that of the classic women's suits of Coco Chanel. Chanel paired a unified set of contrasting colors—primarily but not exclusively blacks and whites—and rectangles and squares as a contrast to the unified whole of a woman's soft colors and shapes.

Antagonism of Color and Shape

Contrast can also be antagonist colors and shapes: Renaissance painters like Rembrandt and Caravaggio used the contrasting technique known as chiaroscuro. These artists set their subjects in a darkly lit room but picked them out with a single pool of contrasting light. In these types of uses, contrast does not express parallel ideas, but rather, sets aside the subject as unique or significant or even sanctified compared to its background. 

In its Gestalt sense, contrast is arousal-driving, or emotion-producing or -stirring. Contrasting areas in art can have high information content, and express complexity, ambiguity, tension, and variability. When opposing shapes are set next to one another, the viewer is often immediately drawn to the polarity of the images. What is the artist trying to convey with the difference? 

Measured or Controlled Contrasts

Contrasts can be measured, or controlled: extreme variety can make a piece into a chaotic unintelligible jumble, the opposite of unity. But sometimes that works. Consider Jackson Pollack's canvases, which are extremely chaotic and laid down in contrasting lines and blobs of color, but the end effect is rhythmic in composition and unified in all of its variety. 

So, in effect, unity and contrast are two ends of a scale. The overall effect of a composition located near the variety/contrast end would be described as "interesting," "exciting," and "unique."

Gestalt Principles

The Gestalt Principles are a set of laws arising from 1920s’ psychology, describing how humans typically see objects by grouping similar elements, recognizing patterns and simplifying complex images. Designers use these to engage users via powerful -yet natural- “tricks” of perspective and best practice design standards.

The Gestalt Principles – a Background

The Gestalt Principles of grouping (“Gestalt” is German for “unified whole”) represent the culmination of the work of early 20th-century German psychologists Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler, who sought to understand how humans typically gain meaningful perceptions from chaotic stimuli around them. Wertheimer and company identified a set of laws addressing this natural compulsion to seek order amid disorder, where the mind “informs” what the eye sees by making sense of a series of elements as an image, or illusion. Early graphic designers soon began applying the Gestalt Principles in advertising, encapsulating company values within iconic logos. In the century since, designers have deployed Gestalt Principles extensively, crafting designs with well-placed elements that catch the eye as larger, whole images so viewers instantly make positive connections with the organizations represented.

Source: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/gestalt-principles

The whole is other than the sum of the parts.

- Kurt Koffka

What are the 5 principles of Gestalt?

Gestalt psychologists argued that these principles exist because the mind has an innate disposition to perceive patterns in the stimulus based on certain rules. These principles are organized into five categories: Proximity, Similarity, Continuity, Closure, and Connectedness.

Gestalt Principles

Some of the most widely recognized Gestalt Principles include:

Closure (Reification): Preferring complete shapes, we automatically fill in gaps between elements to perceive a complete image; so, we see the whole first.

Common Fate: We group elements that move in the same direction.

Common Region: We group elements that are in the same closed region.

Continuation: We follow and “flow with” lines.

Convexity: We perceive convex shapes ahead of concave ones.

Element Connectedness: We group elements linked by other elements.

Figure/Ground (Multi-stability): Disliking uncertainty, we look for solid, stable items. Unless an image is truly ambiguous, its foreground catches the eye first.

Good Form: We differentiate elements that are similar in color, form, pattern, etc. from others—even when they overlap—and cluster them together.

Meaningfulness (Familiarity): We group elements if they form a meaningful or personally relevant image.

Prägnanz: We perceive complex or ambiguous images as simple ones.

Proximity (Emergence): We group closer-together elements, separating them from those farther apart.

Regularity: Sorting items, we tend to group some into larger shapes, and connect any elements that form a pattern.

Similarity (Invariance): We seek differences and similarities in an image and link similar elements.

Symmetry: We seek balance and order in designs, struggling to do so if they aren’t readily apparent.

Synchrony: We group static visual elements that appear at the same time.

Gestalt Principles are in the Mind, Not the Eye

The Gestalt Principles are pivotal in UX design, notably in interfaces, as users must be able to understand what they see—and find what they want—at a glance. A good example are the principles of proximity and common region, as seen in the IDF landing page, below – where colors and graphics divide the page into separate regions. Without it, users will struggle to make associations between unrelated clustered-together items, and leave. For designers, the true trick of Gestalt is never to confuse or delay users, but to guide them to identify their options and identify with organizations/brands rapidly. 

What are the 5 principles of Gestalt?

Gestalt psychologists argued that these principles exist because the mind has an innate disposition to perceive patterns in the stimulus based on certain rules. These principles are organized into five categories: Proximity, Similarity, Continuity, Closure, and Connectedness.

M1 Process Wk 7 (June 11 - 18)

Research 13.6.2019

Eva Hesse

Finding inspiration in the human body, the random occurrence, the process of improvisation, and the liberating qualities of nontraditional materials such as industrial felt, molten lead, wax, and rubber, these artists mined a new aesthetic sensibility variously known as Anti-Form, Post-Minimalism, or Process art.

During her brief career Hesse contributed to this radical undermining of artistic convention with her abstract yet sensual sculptural works. She rejected the standard attributes of monumental sculpture—volume, mass, and verticality—in favor of eccentric forms made from rope, latex, and cheesecloth, all of which decompose with time. Her goal, she explained, was to portray the essential absurdity of life. In formal terms, this theme was realized through a wedding of contradictions: “order versus chaos, stringy versus mass, huge versus small,” in the artist’s words. Acutely aware of the challenges faced by a female artist in a predominantly male environment, Hesse may have utilized such formal opposites as a metaphor for her own position in the art world and to emphasize the inherent strength of flexibility and vulnerability.

Expanded Expansion is a sculptural embodiment of opposites united. Both permanence and deterioration operate in the piece: fiberglass poles—rigid, durable entities—are juxtaposed with fragile, rubber-covered cheesecloth. While its height is determined by the poles, the width of the piece varies with each installation; like an accordion or curtain, it can be compressed or extended. Its repetitive units echo the programmatic seriality of Minimalism, but here they accentuate Hesse’s desire to illuminate her view that “if something is absurd, it’s much more exaggerated, more absurd if it’s repeated.” The very redundancy of the title reinforces this idea.

Lynda Benglis

A pioneer of a form of abstraction in which each work is the result of materials in action—poured latex and foam, cinched metal, dripped wax—Lynda Benglis has created sculptures that eschew minimalist reserve in favor of bold colors, sensual lines, and lyrical references to the human body. But her invention of new forms with unorthodox techniques also displays a reverence for cultural references that trace back to antiquity. Often working in series of knots, fans, lumps, and fountains, Benglis chooses unexpected materials, such as glitter, gold leaf, lead, and polyurethane. In more recent works, she explores diverse cultural heritages (Indian architecture, Greek statuary, Chinese ceramics), translating ancient techniques and symbols for use in contemporary contexts. In her early adoption of video, Benglis introduced feminist, biographical, and burlesque content to structuralist narratives.

https://art21.org/watch/extended-play/lynda-benglis-the-wave-of-the-world-short/

Lisa Firer: "Going to Pieces without Falling Apart" 

(with thanks to Mark Epstein

In this series of vessels, I explore what it means to feel a sense of cohesion, the sense that we are held together by the force of life in a quite miraculous way: body, mind and spirit. Some are created using separate pieces of clay that come together to form a vessel. In much the same way, we as beings, are a combination of many fragments that cohere to form vessels capable of holding such depth, creativity and beauty. We are layered, we are patterned, we are complex , we are beautiful. Other vessels are very loosely formed, with a softness that seems like it could collapse but is in fact in it’s fired state, contained and strong. We are wobbly, we are imperfect, we are unique, we are soft, we are strong.

This work is informed by my meditation practice and a direct exploration of what holds us together. I am finding that the only continuity that feels true is an open, spacious, loving connection, as best as possible, moment to moment, and breath by breath, to myself, to others and to the world. When so much threatens to pull us apart, these vessels remind me of our inherent wholeness.

I started working in porcelain in 2000 at the DK-SA artist-in-residency programme at the International Centre for ceramics, Skaelskor, Denmark. I have continued to work predominantly in this medium for the past 10 years. I work conceptually with the process of enlightenment and use the light transferring qualities of porcelain to explore this. The juxtaposition of the strength of this high fired clay and the delicacy of it when rolled very thin are also symbolic for me of the human condition, states of great strength and states of fragile vulnerability.

Karen LaMonte

The contours of valleys and peaks.

The attention to detail is amazing!

 Karen LaMonte is an American artist known for her life-size sculptures in ceramic, bronze and cast glass as well as her large scale monotype prints. Her art deals largely with the central themes of beauty and loss, exploring the fragility of the human condition through a sartorial lens. LaMonte also began investigating the use of ceramic in her sculptures at the European Ceramic Work Centre and was the recipient of the Corning Museum of Glass/Kohler Arts Center Joint Residency for working with ceramic and glass.

Terminology

Semiotic: is the study of works of art signs and symbols, either individually or grouped in sign systems that can give us more insight from the work source and meaning. All painters work in a pictorial language by following a set of standards, basics and rules of picture-making.

I found this diagram to be very helpful in understanding the principles of semiotics. 

Art Practice

Following on from the previous week's exploration of black/white tones.

 I painted on half of the canvas white, masked it with tape and painted the other side black. One it was completely dry and using a piece of fraying cloth I repetitively "whipped" the canvas, first the black half and then the white. My hand and arm got covered in red paint too!

I continued to build up colour continuously striking the canvas (the white side) one hundred times. Once completely dry I carefully peeled off the masking tape to expose the unmarked white strip (line)

Masking tape resist/black paint

The first attempt of masking wasn't successful. I used way too much masking tape in multiple directions not thinking about the challenges in removing the tape!

Masking tape on canvas support/black paint

Here I have applied gesso and white paint to the canvas support. Once dry, I have masked the support with tape. A small blob of black paint dropped on the centre appears to "float" on the surface. After spreading the paint across the canvas and allowing it to dry I carefully peeled off the tape revealing the white paint.

Masking tape on canvas support/black and red paint

 Sand sculptures/ Sand Art

Inspired by the above images....and reconnecting with "my inner child" I was reminded about the ability of making sculptures with sand. I had planned on going out to Ruakaka but my car need repairs and I advised against driving it until it was fixed.

 The damp sand did NOT want to slide out of the plastic tumbler!

The wet sand didn't drizzle the way beach sand does to which I came to the conclusion what one can do with ocean sand and water, one can't with river/tap water.

Continuing on from the week before with the leaves. My attempt to adhere them to wallpaper so I could "hang them up" kind of failed...

Leaves, on paper