January 2008 – Page 3 – Deidre Adams

More on the Façade series

Façade III: Red Oxide
38 x 61 inches, ©2008

This piece and Façade IV: Chrome Oxide will be included in a show called Distinctive Directions at the Lux Center for the Arts in Lincoln, Nebraska, April 4 – 26, 2008. The show is curated by Lisa Call and features artists Pam RuBert, Joanie San Chirico, and Jeanne Williamson, and will be shown in conjunction with a solo show by Lisa Call, Fencing in or Keeping Out.

As mentioned in my last post, this work is inspired by surfaces of exterior walls of old buildings. While the sources are many, and the final piece is a composite of many things, I do have one image that relates rather directly to this piece.

This is from the side of what may have once been a mill for processing ore, located in Central City, a former mining town and now gambling town, in the mountains west of Denver. Although I took this photo over five years ago, I never made any art directly related to it, and even now I only noticed the resemblance after I was done with the piece. I do think that everything I’ve ever found inspiring, and especially those things that I’ve taken photos of, has stayed with me somewhere deep in my mind and contributes somehow to the overall aesthetic of my work.

January 11th, 2008|Inspiration|Comments Off

Façade Series

Façade IV: Chrome Oxide
39 x 60 inches

Here is the finished version of the piece I wrote about on Jan. 3. This series is inspired by walls of old buildings which have been painted over numerous times, with the top layers wearing away to reveal what lies beneath; sometimes there’s also graffiti, and all of it blends together to form a rich visual texture. My process in painting these is somewhat analogous to what these walls undergo. I add various elements, then subtract parts of them by adding more layers, while the layers of paint are affected by the physical texture of the underlying support — in my case, it’s fabric and stitching.

This leads into what’s been an ongoing dilemma for me: how to categorize this work. I’ve been calling them “mixed media textiles” because I don’t want to use the dreaded “q” word, and they’re more than paintings. “Quilts” suffer a bad rap in the art world; no matter how serious the artist nor how important the work, the medium is considered a “craft” and is therefore inferior to painting. Thanks to the efforts of many artists in the field and organizations such as SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc.), some progress has been made toward overcoming this image, but the battle isn’t won yet.

Façade IV: Chrome Oxide (detail)

January 9th, 2008|Work in progress|Comments Off

Exhibit at Tallyn’s Reach Library

Today was the 4th meeting of my fiber study design group. This group started last August when I was asked to teach a class in design for a group of artists who know one another through various groups and workshops, and who all work in different mediums. I had developed the outline for this design class over a year ago when I was asked to teach by some members of our local art quilt guild, the Front Range Contemporary Quilters. I had been thinking about how quilters and fiber artists often progress in their development by taking lots of workshops and learning from one another. These workshops tend to be mainly focused on techniques, so they know how to use materials and follow a process, but they often have no background in basic principles of design and composition. I knew I didn’t want to just teach yet another technique, so I developed a design class instead. Last August was the third time I have taught it.

The class was originally intended to be 2 days, but this group enjoyed learning about design so much, they wanted to continue on with more study. Each time, I give them homework exercises which they have a couple of months to complete before the next meeting. In today’s class, we looked at what every one had done with the homework, and the results are really amazing. They are all so creative and the different solutions everyone comes up with are truly inspiring. Unfortunately, being new to blogging, I completely forgot to take pictures to include here, even though I had asked them early on if I could. Next time I won’t forget!

Anyway, the house we met at is very close to a local library where some of my work is currently on display, so I went there after class to get a shot of the exhibit wall. This exhibit, at the Tallyn’s Reach Library, is part of the City of Aurora’s 2007-2008 Art in Public Places program. More of my work is on display at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library. Starting March 1, the work leaves the libraries and moves to the Aurora Municipal Center.

January 5th, 2008|Exhibitions|Comments Off